Paul Gunson against Stuff

Stuff published an article on May 4, 2026, titled Verity Johnson: I know I should vote Labour – I just don’t want to.

This was a column in which the author criticised Labour for ignoring their faithful and not putting out policy.

Paul Gunson complained the article breached Media Council Principle (1) Accuracy, Fairness and Balance.

He said Labour has announced a number of concrete proposals, including a New Zealand Future Fund, expanded access to free GP visits, and targeted health screening initiatives.

“It has also signalled directions on tax, including a form of capital gains tax. One can debate the merit, scale, or credibility of these policies, but saying there are none is misleading.

Readers could reasonably come away with the impression that the Labour Party have released no policy.”

In response Stuff said the column was published in its opinion section and “reflected the author’s assessment of Labour’s political positioning and the visibility or impact of its policy programme at this stage of the electoral cycle, rather than an assertion that no policy announcements had been made whatsoever."

“The author’s wording was intended as a critical assessment and her view of the perceived prominence, coherence, or electoral impact of those policies, rather than a literal claim that no policy announcements had been made.”

The Media Council notes that while this complaint was laid under Principal (1), it was clearly an opinion piece, and it was therefore considered under Principal (5) Columns, Blogs, Opinion and Letters.

It was a political column in which the author expressed her frustration that Labour, a party she supported, lacked policy, and had said nothing for the past two years. This was obviously stretching things, as it was when she argued Labour had spent the last two years playing invisible man and ignoring the faithful.

This was hyperbole of the sort that features in lots of political debate. To say Labour has no policy is clearly an exaggeration and so were many other points she made. This included the comment “they stopped talking to us about anything at all.”

The Media Council does not believe readers would have taken it literally. Most readers would know that Labour has policies. She considered they had been hard to discern over recent months, and that was the point the article was making.

It was strongly couched opinion. As noted before, the Media Council is founded on the precept that there is no more important principle in a democracy than freedom of expression.

This allows for and encourages robust criticism of politicians, their policies and performance.  Analysis of every rhetorical claim would be a pointless, impractical, and an unfair restriction on political debate.

Decision:  No grounds to proceed.