Press Council says hands off to Labour

Adam Bennett at the NZ Herald reports:

Independent newspaper standards watchdog the Press Council has panned Labour’s suggestion it may bring the organisation under statutory control and incorporate it into a new cross media regulator. …

That would “probably not” be welcomed by the industry,” Mr Paterson said.

“I suspect they wouldn’t be prepared to fund it on that basis and we would be probably the only country in the world that would have statutory regulation of the press.”

This will be promoted by Labour as NZ being world-leading.