An investigative journalist who was barred from attending the national apology to survivors of abuse in care has now been granted accreditation.
Parliament's speaker has now granted temporary Press Gallery accreditation to journalist Aaron Smale for Tuesday's apology for abuse in care. He must, however, be accompanied by a Newsroom reporter at all times.
Last week, speaker Gerry Brownlee declined an application from Newsroom for Smale to report on the apology.
Parliament's Press Gallery gallery had asked for an explanation, as a refusal was quite rare, especially when a reporter met the gallery's criteria for accreditation.
It was told the application was declined, with the speaker citing Smale's conduct on a prior occasion.
On Monday afternoon, the press gallery wrote to the speaker, requesting a more fulsome explanation.
In an about-turn, the speaker approved the application.
At a media conference at Parliament in July, Smale and the Prime Minister had an exchange over the government's law and order policies, and whether the Prime Minister would acknowledge the link between abuse and gang membership.
According to Newsroom, Smale had also attended a media event at a youth justice facility in Palmerston North, and pressed children's minister Karen Chhour over whether it had been appropriate to associate the memory of the Māori Battalion with the new youth justice programme.
"The Beehive was in touch with us to say they believed he had been too forceful and too rude, in their view, in those two occasions," Newsroom's co-editor Tim Murphy told Nine to Noon.
Murphy said that Smale had conceded he had pushed the children's minister a bit far.
"But the one in Parliament, he was asking specific questions and kept asking them of the Prime Minister and I think that became irritating to the Prime Minister," Murphy said.
Describing Smale as "the most informed, possibly, probably of all New Zealand journalists" on the issue of abuse in state care institutions, Murphy said political discomfort should not be a reason to exclude Smale, and the ban should not stand.
"As a society that values the role of the fourth estate, we should value the work of journalists like Aaron, because it helps us take a critical look at where we have gone wrong and how we may move forward," said the Greens' media and communications spokesperson Hūhana Lyndon.
"Barring a leading journalist from an important event like this speaks to this Government's lack of accountability. It is something we might expect in Putin's Russia, not 21st century Aotearoa New Zealand."
