OPINION: The BSA Just Signed Its Own Death Warrant

The Broadcasting Standards Authority has finally done it. It has turned itself from a dated regulator into a living argument for abolition.

You do not get to wake up in 2026, glance at the internet, and decide you now own it. That is effectively what the BSA has tried to do by dragging online platforms, podcasts and digital streams into its orbit. It is not just overreach. It is bureaucratic delusion. And it should be the end of it.

Watch the full Slam Dunc here:

Sean Plunkett put it plainly: this is “wrong in law, wrong in process” and “a threat to free speech.” He is right. The danger here is not that Sean gets caught in some pointless process. The danger is that a state body built for another era has decided it can stretch its mandate simply because the world moved on and left it behind.

That is the real issue. Not whether you like Plunkett. Not whether you agreed with what he said. Not whether someone somewhere was offended. The issue is whether a regulator created for scheduled radio and television can suddenly start policing the open web because it feels entitled to. It cannot. Or at least it should not.

David Seymour landed the point with more restraint than most. The BSA, he said, is “a creature of 1989 before the internet existed.” Exactly. It was built for a world of limited frequencies, fixed bulletins and a handful of broadcasters. That world is gone. Audiences now choose what they watch, when they watch it, where they watch it and whether they trust it at all. The internet is not a broadcasting schedule. It is a free-for-all, messy, open, global and impossible to cram into a clipboard framework from the late Muldoon afterglow.

And this is where the BSA has been monumentally stupid. If it wanted to survive, it should have shown humility. It should have recognised its own limits. Instead it has done what too many agencies do when irrelevance starts breathing down their neck. It has grabbed for more power. That is always the tell. Not public service. Self-preservation.

Even Paul Goldsmith, in his careful ministerial way, has now admitted the obvious. He says the options are to leave it alone, change the law, or “abolish the BSA.” He should stop there. That is the answer. Not a review. Not a tidy-up. Not another Wellington working group full of people who think the solution to every institutional failure is a discussion document.

Abolish it.

Because once you accept the BSA can wander into the digital space, where does that stop? Today it is Sean Plunkett. Tomorrow it is every podcaster, livestreamer, commentator and journalist with a Substack account. Then it is anyone with a microphone and an opinion. That is not a standard. That is mission creep dressed up as virtue.

Maurice Williamson nailed the deeper truth when he said the BSA has “gone past its used by date.” Harsh? Maybe. Fair? Absolutely. Plenty of institutions outlive their purpose. The smart ones adapt by stepping back. The dumb ones pretend they are still central and start causing damage.

That is where the BSA is now. Causing damage. Not protecting the public. Not modernising media law. Not strengthening trust. Just barging into a space it does not understand and cannot control.

New Zealand already has laws for defamation, incitement, harm and illegal speech. Courts exist. Platforms have rules. Audiences have choices. What we do not need is some legacy tribunal trying to make itself relevant by acting like the internet’s deputy principal.

The BSA has not expanded its authority here. It has exposed its irrelevance. Goldsmith should not save it. He should bury it.

The Full Episode is below: