Roger Brooking against Stuff
Case Number: 3744
Council Meeting: 3 June 2025
Decision: Not Upheld
Publication: Stuff
Principle: Accuracy, Fairness and Balance
Ruling Categories:
Accuracy
Balance, Lack Of
Unfair Coverage
Overview
1. On 26 March 2025 Stuff published a story headed, What a Green MP said about police and why it’s been called ‘nutty’, stupid’ and ‘la la land stuff’. Three more stories on the same issue were published by Stuff over the following week, one of them in The Post. Mr Roger Brooking complains that in each of the articles there has been a breach of Principle (1) Accuracy, fairness and balance.
The Article
2. All four articles respond to MP Tamatha Paul’s reported comments on beat policing and violent offending imprisonment rates.
3. The focus of the first article is Ms Paul’s comment challenging on the beat policing in Wellington. It reports the government and other political parties’ responses to Ms Paul’s statements, some captured in the headline. It also refers to an earlier comment by Ms Paul that “she falsely claimed the majority of prisoners were there (in prison) for non-violent crimes,” and saying that Ministry of Justice briefings indicate the majority of prisoners have committed violent crimes. It reports “She said she “regretted” that comment, after being questioned about the claim”.
4. The second article, an opinion piece, published on 28 March is headed What planet are the Greens on? It’s not called reality. It is largely a commentary on Ms Paul’s comments about the effectiveness of on the beat policing with a brief reference to her comment about imprisonment rates saying, “she wrongly claimed the majority of inmates were in jail for non-violent crimes” and that she said “she “regretted” that comment”.
5. The third article, another opinion piece, is headed Police workload a failure of funding elsewhere. This piece introduces new material but also quotes, similarly to the previous two articles, that “she (Ms Paul) is also incorrect that the ‘vast majority’ of people in prison are there for non-violent reasons. (She has since said she ‘regrets’ that statement).”
6. In the last article, which offered a broader discussion on the direction of the Green Party, it was stated that Ms Paul had "wrongly said most prisoners were incarcerated for non-violent crime."
The Complaint
7. Mr Brooking’s complaint centres on two key points. The first is on the inaccuracy in Stuff’s reporting in each of the articles that Ms Paul’s statement that “the vast majority of people who are in prisons are there for non-violent offences”— was incorrect. Mr Brooking agrees with Ms Paul’s assertion and presents information to support it. He says that “they (Stuff) assumed the Ministry of Justice (and Corrections Department) would provide reliable information. They assumed Ms Paul didn’t know what she was talking about. They believed in figures they were given by the Ministry and didn’t check everything.”
8. While acknowledging that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) statistics referred to in the first article, while out-dated, are to a limited extent correct, Mr Brooking highlights several flaws in the Ministry’s methodology and interpretation of imprisonment rate data. Mr Brooking points out the error in including remand prisons in any crime statistics when they have not been tried or convicted and the limitations of snapshots of prison numbers which tend to overlook short-stay prisoners.
9. The second complaint was that all articles had Ms Paul regretting her statement about the vast majority of prisoners being there for non-violent offences, inferring she admitted she was wrong.
10. Mr Brooking says that Ms Paul’s comments on this issue originated in a TikTok video she made largely to discuss the quality of school lunches and prison food. An article in the NZ Herald on 7 March quoted Ms Paul saying “the point of the video is comparing the quality of food served in prisons to that of school lunches... I regret if my over-emphasis detracted from this core point.” At the beginning of that same piece there is a report of the regret being linked to her statements about imprisonment rates. Mr Brooking suggests that all four Stuff articles sourced their quotes from the NZ Herald piece on 7 March and says that because of this Stuff has wrongly reported on the reason for Ms Paul’s regret, that she was regretting the distraction rather than her comments about imprisonment rates.
11. Mr Brooking says that there is a lack of an opposing view in three of the four articles and that they could have engaged more with him for accurate information following his initial complaint and sought out more expert information rather than “regurgitating what they read in the Herald.” He says that Stuff should apologise to Ms Paul, and he has offered to write an article on the flow of offenders through prisons and how that impacts the accuracy of snapshots of prison imprisonment data.
The Response
12. Stuff stands by their reporting saying that they took their data on violent crime imprisonment rates from a select committee hearing and from the MoJ Report: Focus on Imprisonment in New Zealand, 2022.
13. They cite the report:
"More than 54 percent of the New Zealand prison population are either serving sentences or facing charges for sexual or violent offending" (Page 22)
"Most people serving sentences in prison in New Zealand have been convicted of serious sexual or violent offending. New Zealand prisons are not full of people in prison for minor charges. For example, the idea that people are routinely sent to prison for cannabis possession is untrue." (Page 31)
14. They say that they are entitled to rely on information provided by MoJ and while accepting that there are alternative interpretations of prison statistics, particularly examining churn rates, they hold that the figures they have used are consistent with the Ministry’s figures and those figures have been publicly used and accepted, including in parliament.
15. Stuff says that “while she (Ms Paul) did not exactly retract her claim, she did express regret regarding its impact, and we reported that accordingly.”
16. They say that “there is no dispute between the Green Party, Ministry, or Government that Tamatha Paul was wrong on her claim that non-violent offences were filling prisons” and that “this has been acknowledged by political commentators across the spectrum, and our gallery reporters have confirmed the consensus on the matter.
17. Stuff says that they have provided over time a range of perspectives on the issue of imprisonment, including views that challenge mainstream narratives, and that not every perspective needs to be traversed on an issue. They do not accept any breach of Principle (1).
The Discussion
18. Mr Brooking says that Ms Paul was correct to say that the majority of prisoners were in there for non-violent crimes and therefore the articles are inaccurate. In the first article quoting Ms Paul on this matter, it says that MoJ briefings indicate the majority of prisoners have committed violent crimes. The following three articles shorthand this, saying Ms Paul was wrong or incorrect to say that the vast majority of prisoners were there for non-violent crimes.
19. Mr Brooking disagrees with the way MoJ data is presented and provides a number of options on how the data could be corrected or interpreted that would show that Ms Paul’s statement was right. Though the data used is not to the standard Mr Brooking would wish it, Stuff have the right to expect that data and information provided by MoJ is accurate. It is clearly stated in the quoted report that:
“Most people in prison are there for serious crimes. Most people serving sentences in prison in New Zealand have been convicted of serious sexual or violent offending. New Zealand prisons are not full of people in prison for minor charges.”
20. The Media Council does not find a breach of Principle (1) on accuracy when Stuff used Ministry of Justice information to assess Ms Paul’s comment about imprisonment rates for serious crimes."
21. There is doubt as to whether Ms Paul expressed regret for making “that statement.” According to the NZ Herald article cited by Mr Brooking, Ms Paul’s regret appeared to concern the distraction her statement caused from the key messages she raised in her video. She has not gone on to defend the statement and nor have any of others who have consequently commented on it.
22. Although the attributed expression of regret intensified the criticism directed at Ms Paul, such scrutiny falls within the range of what public figures, particularly politicians, can reasonably expect when making contentious statements. The Media Council finds that this has not exceeded the threshold of a breach of Principle (1).
23. Mr Brooking suggests that, for the sake of balance, Stuff should have included expert commentary on why people are imprisoned and the wider issues around imprisonment. As this issue was not key in any of the articles the Media Council find no breach of Principle (1) on balance.
Decision: The complaint is unanimously not upheld on Principle (1) Accuracy, fairness and balance.
Council members considering the complaint were Hon Raynor Asher (Chair), Jo Cribb, Judi Jones, Marie Shroff, Alison Thom, Richard Pamatatau, Hank Schouten, Rosemary Barraclough, Scott Inglis, Tim Watkin.