Children's Commissioner hires lawyers as her feelings were hurt - and loses

Someone ought to find out how much the taxpayer paid Dr Cindy Kiro for her legal attack on Radio Live after Michael Laws hurt her feelings and was taken to the Broadcasting Standards Authority because Kiro can't take criticism. The BSA decision is here and Kiro lost.

Radio Live programme director Mitch Harris said that the decision by the authority "raises real issues about the actions of this senior public servant".

The Children's Commissioner had employed a lawyer to pursue the complaint beyond the point of reasonableness, he said. Dr Kiro clearly had a problem with Michael Laws' robust criticism of her office and her actions. "The complaint was a chilling attempt by a government agent to suppress freedom of speech. The BSA's judgement is an important win for talk radio and talkback, in particular

Kiro actually counted how many times she was mentioned over a three hour period. She was mentioned 50 times. This was some of the offending comments:

Dr Kiro “wouldn’t have a clue what real poverty looked like/Dr Kiro doesn’t understand the problems/The problem “is not poverty of money, it’s poverty of mind”, and “it’s the cycle of uselessness, not the cycle of poverty”/This is the point that Cindy Kiro simply has refused to address: how are you going to try and change parents, or a parent, who has no aspiration for themselves, let alone their children, into a fully functioning member of the human race who advantages their child no matter that they are not rich?/For goodness’ sake, why doesn’t she just focus on what we need for children? They need a loving, kind adult, hopefully a parent, but not necessarily, in charge of the child and ensuring that they get three meals a day, that they are kept warm at night, that they get off to school and there’s somebody at home when they get home at night. It’s pretty basic stuff.”

Kiro complained that the remarks were unbalanced and unfair. Diddums. It's obvious why she didn't sue for defamation. Laws told the truth.