PSA National Secretary Fleur Fitzsimons says public broadcasting matters more now than it has in a generation.
"Commercial newsrooms have shrunk dramatically in the past three years. RNZ is one of the few remaining with the reach and independence to report on every part of the country and hold the powerful to account. That is a public good, and a healthy democracy depends on it. Every role lost at RNZ reduces that capacity."
RNZ proposes to cut 58 out of a staff of about 340, following today's shock announcement that the broadcaster had made an unexpected $11.8 million loss.
"RNZ's own statement says the loss happened because its internal financial reporting did not reflect its true position, and land sales were wrongly counted as revenue. That is a failure of financial management and governance at the top of the organisation, not of the journalists, producers and technicians who put RNZ to air every day.
"RNZ's board says the cuts won't affect its journalism or content. It is hard to see how you reduce staff by one in six and cut operating costs by five percent without affecting what goes to air. RNZ should tell the public how many of these roles are in news and programme-making.
"The right response to a governance failure is to fix the governance, not to cut the workforce. Bridging finance would give RNZ time to put proper financial oversight in place while the independent review does its work, rather than rushing through cuts before anyone understands what went wrong.
"There are also fair questions about the level of ministerial oversight RNZ has had under Paul Goldsmith, a Minister with ten other portfolios.
"Something has clearly gone wrong at RNZ. We should not respond by punishing RNZ's staff, or cutting the public service broadcasting our democracy relies on," Fitzsimons says.
