"The Platform Is a Racist Recidivist's Escape Vehicle — And Willie Jackson Just Handed Him the Keys" - 7 April 2026
Kia ora Aotearoa,
Somewhere between Sean Plunket's folksy fishing anecdotes and Willie Jackson's genial reminiscing about Moana's mum's unveiling, the most important sentence in their entire podcast was buried, laughed off, and allowed to walk free.
Jackson, speaking to Plunket, said — on air —
"I'm not offended by your mumbo jumbo talk."
Stop. Read that again.
The Deep Dive Podcast
Listen to a lively conversation between two hosts, unpacking and connecting topics in the sources of this essay.
The former Minister of Broadcasting, the senior Māori Labour MP, the man who presents himself as defending Māori interests in Parliament, sat in Sean Plunket's virtual studio and granted absolution for calling tikanga Māori "mumbo-jumbo." He didn't challenge it. He didn't name it. He laughed. He said "heck, Winston and them talk like that all the time."
That is not whakamana. That is whakamāui — making it small. And from a Māori MP, it is a betrayal dressed as banter.
Taiaha raised. Let's go.
He Built the Platform to Escape the Last Ruling
Sean Plunket does not want you to know this, but the Broadcasting Standards Authority already caught him once. In 2021, while hosting at MagicTalk radio, the BSA found that a Plunket interview had the effect of, as reported by The Spinoff, "reflecting and amplifying casual racism towards Māori." He was removed from MagicTalk shortly after, following an advertiser revolt.
What did Plunket do next? He didn't reflect. He didn't reform. He built a new platform — specifically structured to operate outside the BSA's reach — and launched it in early 2022, as documented by Wikipedia's entry on The Platform.
He then explicitly refused the Government's Public Interest Journalism Fund because it required recipients to "adhere to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi" — which Plunket regarded as a limitation on editorial freedom, as confirmed by The Spinoff's backers investigation. Read that with clear eyes: a man already found guilty of amplifying racism against Māori refused funding that required basic Treaty acknowledgement — then built a new studio — then called tikanga "mumbo-jumbo" again in 2025, triggering a formal complaint as detailed by Chris Lynch Media.
This is not a broadcaster defending free speech. This is a recidivist building a regulatory escape vehicle. The BSA didn't come for The Platform out of nowhere. The Platform was built specifically to escape the BSA.
The Wright Family Bankrolled the Racism — Then Quietly Walked
When The Platform launched, its secret backer was Wayne Wright Jr — heir to the BestStart preschool empire — as first revealed by BusinessDesk in March 2024. Wright's family trust took 75% ownership of The Platform while Plunket retained 25%. The Wright family poured millions of dollars into the platform because Wayne Wright Jr was, according to BusinessDesk, "dissatisfied with mainstream broadcasting" after the pandemic, claiming the state had exchanged control of public narrative for cash.
Translation: he didn't like pro-vaccination media coverage, and he paid Plunket to be his anti-woke megaphone.
Then, in July 2025 — right as the BSA was making preliminary moves on the tikanga complaint — Wright told the NZ Herald his family trust "isn't providing further funding" and the business was "walking a very fine line," as reported by NZ Herald's Media Insider. By September 2025, Wright had exited entirely, selling his 75% stake back to Plunket, as confirmed by Ground News.
Plunket claimed he found the funds "down the back of the sofa" and denied any new backer, as Webworm reported. A man whose station was dipping in and out of breakeven suddenly found millions to buy out his 75% majority shareholder.
Who is the new money? We don't know. Plunket won't say.
Whānau, when a media company won't disclose its funders, you ask: who benefits from the ignorance?
The Podcast Itself Contains the Crime — Line by Line
Act One: Tikanga Dismissed, With Māori Cover
Plunket describes the BSA as run by "Labour appointed wokesters." Jackson responds: "I'm not offended by your mumbo jumbo talk." This is a Māori man — a former minister — normalising the dismissal of Māori law as "mumbo-jumbo." It tells Plunket's audience that even Māori don't take tikanga seriously. It provides racist framing with Māori cover. It is precisely the kind of strategic deployment of Māori voices to delegitimise Māori rights that must be called out loudly.
Act Two: Moana Maniapoto, Attacked While Her Ex-Husband Sits Silent
Plunket ends the clip by attacking Moana Maniapoto — "your ex-wife gets funded millions of dollars a year by the taxpayer to produce complete political propaganda" — while Jackson, her ex-husband, sits beside him. Jackson does not defend her. He deflects. He moves on.
This is not incidental. As E-Tāngata documented, Moana Maniapoto is one of Aotearoa's most respected Māori broadcast journalists, who spent her career building Māori media infrastructure. Calling her work "propaganda" on a platform already found guilty of amplifying casual racism against Māori is not commentary. It is targeted harassment of a Māori wāhine by a recidivist racist broadcaster — with her ex-husband present and silent.
Act Three: The Fake Free Speech Argument
Plunket asks: "Why doesn't it cover Netflix? Why don't they want to cover Joe Rogan?"
Neither man gives the honest answer: because neither Netflix nor Joe Rogan have been found by any New Zealand regulator to have amplified casual racism against Māori. As LawNews confirmed in its analysis of the BSA ruling, the BSA is not after The Platform because it's online. It's after The Platform because of a documented, verified pattern of anti-Māori content, and because its founder specifically built it to escape accountability after the 2021 finding.
The "free speech" framing is a misdirection — and both men are experienced enough broadcasters to know exactly what they're doing.
Willie Jackson Should Not Be on This Show
Here is the irony nobody in mainstream media will name cleanly.
Willie Jackson and Sean Plunket both worked at Radio Live. In November 2013, Jackson and co-host John Tamihere interviewed an 18-year-old woman — a friend of a victim of the Roast Busters gang. They asked her why and how much the girls had been drinking, and why they were out late. They asked "how free and easy are you kids these days?" As NZ Herald reported in detail, they asked the young woman what age she had lost her virginity.
ANZ, Yellow, Freeview and AA Insurance pulled their advertising, as NZ Herald documented at the time. Jackson and Tamihere were taken off air by RadioLive. Jackson then stepped down from Radio Waatea entirely. He has since apologised multiple times.
By 2022, he was appointed Minister of Broadcasting — the very portfolio overseeing the BSA — as confirmed by NZ Herald's 2022 cabinet reshuffle coverage. His Beehive briefing papers, available on Beehive.govt.nz, show he acknowledged the "online environment is effectively unregulated" while traditional broadcasters face "outdated regulation."
Now, in 2026, he sits on Plunket's show and laughs off tikanga as "mumbo-jumbo."
Neither man has clean hands. Both are using each other's presence to launder their own credibility. And tikanga — Māori law, Māori knowledge, the entire philosophical architecture of Māori civilisation — is the thing that gets called "mumbo-jumbo" while they chuckle together about fishing.
The Political Machine Behind the Microphone
The response from the ACT-NZ First government to the BSA ruling was immediate and coordinated. As The Conversation reported, David Seymour and Winston Peters accused the BSA of operating like a "Soviet-era Stasi." ACT MP Laura McClure then filed a member's bill — the Broadcasting (Disestablishment of Broadcasting Standards Authority) Amendment Bill — in November 2025, as confirmed by ACT's own press release.
The political alignment is unmistakable. Plunket platforms ACT and NZ First politicians consistently. The Free Speech Union — funded by the same libertarian donor network that backs ACT — immediately published support for The Platform, as seen on FSU's own site. Seymour himself appeared on The Platform to discuss the BSA ruling within days of the finding, as shown on The Platform's own Facebook page.
And yet — as Centrist NZ noted — Willie Jackson appears on this same platform and says he wants authorities to "manage and control some of these nut jobs" online, while simultaneously giving Plunket's anti-tikanga posture a free pass. He says the quiet part out loud about media needing accountability, then refuses to apply that accountability to the man sitting next to him.
That is not complexity. That is complicity.
The Five Hidden Connections — All Verified
1. Plunket built The Platform after the 2021 BSA racism ruling, specifically to escape further accountability — confirmed by The Spinoff.
2. The Wright family funded The Platform from BestStart childcare profits — from centres serving Māori and Pasifika whānau — then exited as the BSA moved in on the tikanga complaint — confirmed by BusinessDesk and Webworm.
3. ACT's bill to abolish the BSA was filed within weeks of the October 2025 provisional ruling — a coordinated legislative defence of a political ally — confirmed by ACT.org.nz.
4. Jackson's Roast Busters conduct means he has no moral authority to serve as a neutral media commentator — yet appears unchallenged — confirmed by NZ Herald and NBR.
5. Moana Maniapoto — attacked by Plunket as a propaganda producer — is Jackson's own ex-wife; he sits silent while she is targeted, confirmed by E-Tāngata.
What This Podcast Actually Is
Strip away the fishing yarns, the iwi visits and the nostalgic Radio Live references.
What you have in that video is this:
A recidivist racist broadcaster — already caught once, who built an escape vehicle, who refuses Treaty journalism obligations, who calls tikanga "mumbo-jumbo," whose millionaire backer vanished the moment the regulator moved and whose new funder remains hidden — hosting a politically compromised former minister to perform a debate about media freedom while both men studiously avoid naming the actual harm at the centre of it all.
They debate jurisdiction. They don't debate whether calling tikanga "mumbo-jumbo" harms Māori.
They debate whether the 1989 Broadcasting Act applies online. They don't debate whether a man found guilty of amplifying racism should have an unchallenged national platform at all.
They debate Joe Rogan and Netflix. They don't debate the underage girls the Roast Busters gang victimised while two of Aotearoa's most-listened-to broadcasters asked their friend how much she'd been drinking.
Tikanga is not mumbo-jumbo. It is older than the BSA. It is older than Parliament. It will outlast The Platform, the Wright family trust, and every nervous laugh Willie Jackson deploys to avoid naming racism when he hears it in the room.
Action Pathways for Whānau
- Back Richard Fanselow's complaint — he is the person who triggered this entire process by naming Plunket's racism formally. His courage matters. Support the BSA process even where the institution is imperfect.
- OIA the new ownership structure — who funded Plunket to buy out Wright's 75%? File with the Companies Register. Follow the money.
- Write to Willie Jackson — as a Māori MP and former broadcasting minister, he must be held to account for laughing off tikanga as "mumbo-jumbo" rather than challenging it. His Parliamentary contact is available at parliament.govt.nz.
- Challenge ACT's BSA abolition bill — Laura McClure's bill is a direct response to the Plunket ruling. Watch the Select Committee process and submit.
- Ask about BestStart — the Wright family built their fortune from 270+ early childhood centres, many serving Māori and Pasifika whānau. Whānau deserve to know whether their children's centre profits funded a platform that calls tikanga "mumbo-jumbo."
Koha Consideration
This essay exists because Richard Fanselow filed a formal complaint about tikanga being called "mumbo-jumbo" — and because the people with the platforms, the ministers, the millionaire backers and the political allies would very much prefer nobody connected those dots.
Sean Plunket built his escape vehicle with private money. ACT is building his legislative shield with public money. Nobody funded this investigation except the principle that Māori truth-telling should not depend on the goodwill of those it holds to account.
If this mahi matters to you — if naming the hidden funder, the recidivist pattern, the ministerial silence, and the attack on tikanga matters — then rangatiratanga includes the power to fund our own truth-tellers.
Every koha signals that whānau are ready to fund the accountability that Crown and corporate structures will not provide.
Three pathways exist:
For those who wish to support this mahi directly with a voluntary contribution, please visit the Koha platform.
For those who wish to receive essays directly and support through subscription, subscribe to the Māori Green Lantern.
For those who prefer direct bank transfer, account details are: HTDM, 03-1546-0415173-000.
If you are unable to koha — no worries. Follow and subscribe at themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz, kōrero about this, share it with your whānau and friends. That is koha in itself.
Tikanga is not mumbo-jumbo. Kia kaha, whānau.
Research tools used: search_web, fetch_url. Sources consulted: The Spinoff, NZ Herald, BusinessDesk, Webworm, E-Tāngata, Chris Lynch Media, BSA.govt.nz, LawNews NZ, NBR, Centrist NZ, Te Ara, Free Speech Union NZ, The Conversation, ACT.org.nz, Beehive.govt.nz, Ground News, Pacific Media Watch, Facebook/ThePlatformNZ. Research conducted: April 7, 2026. Unverified: identity of Plunket's post-Wright funding source — no source confirmed. Further investigation via Companies Register OIA recommended.
