The former Al Jazeera host only lasted 32 days in the role of breakfast host, leaving behind a cloud of accusations of inappropriate behavior from colleagues.
TVNZ head of news and current affairs Paul Yurisich resigned on Wednesday after publishing a review identifying flaws in the hiring process.
The fundamental problem was that TVNZ failed to provide a “process suitable for recruiting unique roles, such as a key presenter,” noted senior employment lawyer Margaret Robins.
Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson told First Up he was unaware of similar recruitment issues at TVNZ.
“Obviously it’s the one that sped up the review and no doubt Television New Zealand will be looking at previous appointments.
“But as they point out here, it’s really important that these rules are there for a reason, they probably need to be improved and of course they need to be used.
“I am not aware of any other situations that have arisen, and from a government perspective, of course, we are not involved in the day-to-day appointment decisions, but what we were looking for was assurance that proper process had been followed.
“One or two gaps in that process here — we look forward to addressing them at future appointments.”
‘Crisis management exercise’
Former head of TVNZ, Bill Ralston, said the broadcaster could have published the entire report rather than a three-page summary.
“It’s an exercise in public relations and crisis management. When something like this happens, you call for an investigation, the investigation takes a significant amount of time to come out, which takes the heat out of the situation, and then the people responsible go are for the crisis.”
The hiring process was a “mess” he said, including the lack of a screen test due to Covid-19 and insufficient involvement of the program’s executive producer.
Ralston said it was reminiscent of what might have happened in the early 2000s.
“You just judged who you thought was best for the program. You might have interviewed two or three people, you might have put them in front of a camera to see what they looked like in that context, you would have consulted with the CEO if it was a crucial top-line appointment, but overall you called yourself.”
TVNZ chief executive Simon Power has responded at this stage with a statement rather than being interviewed, which Ralston says was a classic way of solving the problem.
“Probably there will be no stories about it tomorrow and everyone will forget about it for another two or three weeks.”
In the statement, Power said that “the findings of the review and the recommendations provide a clear path to ensure that TVNZ’s recruitment practices and internal policies are sufficiently robust and fit for purpose”.
“Improvements are needed in our hiring policy and work is already underway to embed them.”