“Well, that was short-lived!”
That was the opening line from Hobson’s Pledge leader Don Brash in a message to supporters this morning, slamming the New Zealand Herald publisher for pulling a front-page advertisement which was set to run tomorrow.
In the message, Brash also said NZME had cancelled further full-page ads, which had already been approved to run in regional papers.
According to Brash, the Herald touched base to let the right-wing lobby group know there’d been a development with its advertisements.
“After careful consideration and in light of feedback we’ve received from our subscribers and our team, NZME has decided not to proceed with running the advertisement,” Brash relayed from an NZME spokesperson.
He said the Herald “caved to the cancel mob of Te Pāti Māori activists” and suggested NZME would not have rejected ads objecting to proposed amendments to the Marine and Coastal Area Act, or that Māori never ceded sovereignty.
Brash also took the opportunity to call on his supporters to contact the Herald and express their thoughts on the move.
“It is outrageous that Te Pāti Māori and its posse of academics and activists are able to dictate what ads are published in the Herald,” Brash stated.
It’s unclear which of the 20 regional papers published by NZME were to host the full-page advertisements.