Media Cooks Up An Angle At InterFaith Dialogue For

Television news over-played its hand this week while claiming the Destiny Church protest had “hijacked” interfaith dialogues in Waitangi.

Thousands of Destiny Church followers had marched to Waitangi treaty grounds to protest a National Statement on Religious Diversity.

The statement is one of the foundations of the talks which aims to reduce religious radicalization and violence.

The national statement's first point is that “New Zealand has no established or official religion” and it is this that has provoked resentment from Destiny Church. Its members argue that New Zealand has a Christian heritage and it should be formerly recognised.

TV3 news later that night ran a story with the headline claiming that Destiny Church had high-jacked the talks.

Members from the New Zealand delegation were dismayed at the way the media handled the Destiny protest.

Reverend Fei Taule’ale’a’ausumai from the Presbyterian church was disappointed with the media, pointing out that it had missed much of the good things the talks were achieving.

“A lot of energy has gone into it and is still going into it, when the key issues have been missed,” said Mrs Taule’ale’a’ausumai.

Pushpa Wood from New Zealand Indian Central Association said many of the international visitors were not even aware of the destiny protest until they went to their hotels that night and watched the news.

Dr Manuka Henare, leader of the New Zealand team at the talks said “it was a very orderly protest” and that there was communication between the protesters and the delegates.

The protesters remained off the conference grounds and were peaceful, they performed a haka, and, presented their proposal to Dr Henare, which was to have New Zealand’s Christian heritage recognized and then left.

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