Ummmm, what?

Exclusive: Matthew Tukaki’s job history not checked before Govt role

Checks weren’t done on Matthew Tukaki’s resume before he was appointed to a key Government role.

…when this kicked off last night, I honestly thought something horrible had happened.

If Tukaki was leading the 6pm news on a Sunday with a blindside lead story, he must have done something fucking terrible and was about to be executed live on TV .

As the story went on, I was struggling to understand what their allegation against him was.

I think Matthew Tukaki is an incredible talent. He is smart, funny, intelligent and has been very successful as an advocate for Māori aspiration. To take a huge steaming shit on him with a malicious character assassination with very brittle thresholds for corruption like TVNZ did was an extraordinarily misdirected use of the full force of the TVNZ news department.

The only bit that looked bad was Kelvin Davis looking confused when the allegations were put to him that Tukaki had gilded the Lilly on his CV, but Kelvin looks confused any time anyone asks him anything so that shouldn’t be the deciding factor on guilt.

This TVNZ newsroom have already destroyed the career of Kamahl Santamaria, why are they attempting to destroy Matthew Tukaki? Is there a hit list of men the TVNZ news room don’t like because this honestly felt personal, it didn’t justify the tone, the exclusive claim or the allegations.

This story sailed incredibly close to defamation.

It was such a bizarre news story you imagined some weird Machiavellian ulterior motive like trying to goad new Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson into saying something in defence of Tukaki so that the TVNZ news room could also destroy their male broadcasting Minister while crying ‘All hail feminism’.

Tukaki is a talented, articulate and passionate voice not just for Māori, but for NZ. He is unabashed in his support of working class people and has always been on the side of the angels since I was fortunate enough to see him speak for the first time.

Leaders must and should be held accountable by the fourth estate, but that wasn’t what TVNZ did to Tukaki here, they smeared him and called it journalism.

Unless there is a second shoe to drop here, this was surprisingly cruel and unnecessary.

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