Newsroom journalist Aaron Smale was briefly banned from the government's official apology to survivors of abuse in care this week. Photo: VNP/ Louis Collins
Following the release of the report of the Royal Commission on Abuse in State and Faith-based Care, Prime Minister Chris Luxon fronted a press conference in the Beehive theatrette.
About nine minutes in, he received a pointed question from journalist Aaron Smale.
"Mr Luxon, there's a whole volume on the connection between state welfare homes like Kohitere, Hokio, and gangs. Is this going to lead you to rethink your policy on gangs given that many gang members are victims?"
Luxon started his response with a stock phrase: "What I'd say to you..."
Smale, perhaps sensing some deflection, insisted he address the question directly to the gang members in state care facilities.
"You're not answering my question. There's a volume on the connection between welfare homes and gangs. Can you address that?" he asked.
Relatively tough, but nothing worse than what politicians get every week on TVNZ's Q+A.
Still, Smale's dogged questioning clearly ruffled some feathers in the Beehive.
On Monday, his employer Newsroom revealed Speaker of the House Gerry Brownlee had barred him from attending the Crown's apology in Parliament to the victims of abuse in state care.
Newsroom said the decision came after government figures complained about those questions to Luxon, and others he put to Minister for Children Karen Chhour earlier.
That latter run-in came after Chhour and ACT leader David Seymour posed for a photo under the insignia of the 28th Māori Battalion while touring a youth justice facility in Palmerston North in April.
"I asked Seymour and Chhour at the media conference that followed whether they believed the soldiers of the 28th fought with distinction so their mokopuna could end up locked up in places like this. There was a heavy silence before Chhour gave an answer that wasn't really an answer. Seymour said nothing," Smale wrote in a piece for The Listener.
"I left the unit and walked out into the carpark in the rain, exhausted by anger."
Smale conceded he may have pushed that interaction "a bit far", though Newsroom co-editor Mark Jennings disagreed in an interview with Newstalk ZB's Heather du Plessis-Allan.
A day later, Brownlee reversed his decision and granted Smale permission to attend the Crown's apology, on the condition he had a chaperone from Newsroom.
But the decision to bar him in the first place was remarkable.
For one thing, it's strange to stop a journalist from attending an event dedicated to holding yourself accountable because he's been forceful in holding you accountable.
Also, Smale told Mediawatch that Luxon's response to the abuse in state care report was heartfelt and thoughtful when it was presented to Parliament back in July.
But more than that, no journalist has covered the abuse in care scandal in more depth and detail than Smale. He also made a submission to the Royal Commission himself.
His work investigating the Crown's failings stretches back a decade.
Just last month, Newsroom published his six-part series headlined 'Crown cover-up?'. It reveals the Crown's efforts to minimise the legal fallout from the abuse suffered under its watch, detailing how lawyers and government figures tried their best to stop some victims taking cases to court, even if they were likely to succeed.
Una Jagose at the government apology. Photo: Reece Baker/RNZ
One of the people at the centre of those efforts was Una Jagose, who is now the Solicitor General.
Smale's reporting was not widely picked up by other media outside Newsroom at the time.
But there is good reason to believe it was meaningful to the abuse survivors.
When Jagose stood up to deliver her section of the Crown apology on Tuesday, she was booed and heckled until she stopped speaking.
The reception prompted some media figures to revisit Smale's reporting, or in some cases, to look it up for the first time.
This struggle for cut-through has been an issue.
Maybe it is because the accounts Smale reports are so harrowing.
Maybe the work of reporting such a grim and huge story is too hard.
But few have given this scandal the attention he has over the years.
This week, it finally got the attention Smale felt it deserved, but largely because he was at the centre of the coverage.
He told Mediawatch that being told he could not attend the apology was a blow, but it also gave him a sense of pride in his reporting.
"I wanted to be there with survivors, many of whom I've become friends with, and I care deeply about. And I'm basically kicked to the kerb. It was insulting and but in some respects, it was just almost, a back-handed compliment," he told Mediawatch.
When the news of the ban went public, hundreds of people, including many of his peers in the media, rallied to get it reversed.
Smale said he appreciated the response, even if he felt conflicted about drawing attention away from the survivors.
Gerry Brownlee briefly barred Aaron Smale from the apology, but later reversed his decision. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
"I was a bit embarrassed because this was the day. Most media outlets on a big occasion like this will do previews to try and spotlight what the issue is, and it was a distraction. The actual point of the occasion was the apology to victims."
Nevertheless, Smale felt some good came out of the saga.
The story he has spent so long covering finally got to the wider public.
People read his reporting. 1News, ThreeNews, and other mainstream media outlets followed up on his stories about Jagose.
"Ironically, me being banned kind of meant they all piled on," he said.
"I have to express my gratitude to many other journalists, because they really did go into bat and but not only that, they actually really started to pick up on some of the issues that I've been trying to highlight."
Why was he barred in the first place?
Smale said he may have been frustrated in the interactions with ministers that prompted complaints.
But those frustrations arose out of a sense of the injustice suffered by abuse survivors.
It is unlikely that will change, even if it means he does not get invited to many press conferences.
Still, he hopes the fallout from his ban dissuades governments from doing anything similar in future.
"If the government can shut down one journalist because they're wetting their pants every time that journalists ask a question, then where does that put the rest of the media?" he said.
"As soon as you do that, you've basically made an enemy of every other journalist in the press gallery and they are going to rally behind whoever it is, not just me. And that's bitten them. It's hurt them more than it ever hurt me. I'll keep turning up, but you know, I've got other work to do as well."
