Mark Irving against Stuff

Stuff published an article on August 29, 2025, titled Govt spends $10m to fix national war memorial bells, fires only person who can play.

The article, which was supplied by Radio New Zealand, reported while the Government had spent a lot of money to strengthen the National War Memorial bell tower, the country’s sole carillonist, who has played the bells for 40 years could lose his job under a proposal to disestablish his position.

Mark Irving complained the article was factually wrong as “the Government had no involvement in this. The Heading was followed up in the first paragraph with the assertion that the government is "now getting rid of the only person that plays it."

“It is not until around a third of the article...that it states that the Ministry had made the decision to disestablish the role."

“In New Zealand’s constitutional law and official practice, “the Government” usually refers to the Executive Government — that is, the Ministers of the Crown led by the Prime Minister.

The public service (departments, ministries, agencies) supports the Government but is not itself “the Government.” It is meant to be politically neutral, serving the Government of the day.”

“Similarly, the defence that the Government made decisions about funding the Ministry which will have influenced the Mr Hurd decision ignores the fact that it was the Ministry that decided how to spend that funding for the bell tower/"

“Government suggests to govern and make laws - to assert that they also fired a Ministry employee and for RNZ to say that description is generally accepted (without evidence) is condescending to the reader at best.”

RNZ responded that “it is still generally accepted that ‘the government’ is a reasonable term to encompass all elements of the executive and public service.”

The story made it clear the decision was made by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage and there was no suggestion that this was a political decision by the relevant Minister.

“However, the Minister and his Cabinet colleagues will have made decisions about the Government’s Budget that set the spending parameters for this particular Ministry (including the allocation of $10 million to upgrade the bell tower of the National War Memorial), which in turn will have influenced the decision about Mr Hurd.”

The Media Council does not believe there is an issue here. The Government funded the refurbishment, and the carillonist was also paid out of government funds. The story makes it clear he was employed by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage which is a government department.

The Collins dictionary definition of “government department” is “a sector a national or state government that deals with a particular area of interest” The definitions of “government” include “a particular ministry in office.”  It is not shown that the reference to “government” was inaccurate.

 
Decision:  No grounds to proceed.