Sean bloody Plunket, once a prominent voice in New Zealand’s media landscape, has descended into an ugly caricature of his former self, a broadcaster whose penchant for provocation has long overshadowed any claim of journalistic integrity.
His latest foray into controversy, a tweet mocking the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by referencing “anorexia” in a manner that denies Israel is murdering children through mass starvation (another war crime), marks a new low in a sad career littered with offensive outbursts.
The disgusting now deleted anorexia tweet not only drew rightful condemnation from all corners of New Zealand's politisphere, but also provided further justification for millionaire Wayne Wright Jr to have apparently cut Plunket's funding back in March 2024. This incident, however, is merely the latest in a long line of deplorable statements that have exposed his disregard for decency.
It’s official. @SeanPlunket is a complete fuckwit. To be making fun of the starving children in Gaza is absolutely despicable.
— 🌼 Random Kiwi 🌼 🇳🇴🇳🇿🇺🇸 (@RandomKiwiNZ) July 27, 2025
The Platform is for drop kicks! @theplatform_nz 🖕 pic.twitter.com/kJE8jPZlte
Plunket’s history reads like a catalogue of conceited moralising and divisive hot takes. In 2024, he compared Māui dolphins to “Down syndrome kids” and declared they “deserve to die,” a remark that sparked yet another public apology from the deluded washed up has-been. His 2021 claim that a Māori iwi “did not care about child abuse” during a COVID-19 discussion led to a Broadcasting Standards Authority complaint, a fine for MediaWorks, and his exit from MagicTalk, where colleagues later described a toxic workplace rife with homophobic, misogynistic, and transphobic rhetoric.
In 2023, he waded into the culture wars swamp, asking Prime Minister Chris Hipkins to define “what is a woman” in a press conference stunt that went viral for all the wrong reasons. That same year, he amplified anti-transgender activist Posie Parker (aka Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull), decrying counter-protests as “mob rule” while prioritising white female callers, revealing a clear ideological bias against a marginalised group.
His social media presence is equally peppered with reprehensible and dangerous rhetoric. Plunket’s received numerous Twitter suspensions, most notably in 2023 for breaching “hateful conduct” rules by sharing the banned Christchurch mosque shooter’s manifesto and private court information about David Farrier’s protection order. He again became an apologist for genocidal Israel in 2023 by retweeting a baseless theory blaming incest for “sickly children” in Gaza, further cementing his reputation for peddling harmful and dishonest narratives designed to blame the victims.
Misinformation is a recurring theme: in April 2023, he shared a fake ad claiming Jacinda Ardern hid a speaking engagement, only retracting it after it did the damage he intended. Plunket then falsely alleged Stuff was somehow biased because it received funding from Ngāi Tahu, a claim debunked by Stuff’s owner, Sinead Boucher. Rather than fostering free speech through open discussion, these incidents highlight the dishonesty of an unprincipled hack only interested in divisive rhetoric to gain the public's attention.
I struggle to think of a more odious New Zealand broadcaster than Sean Plunket
— Liam Vincent (@liamvincent26) July 27, 2025
Plunket’s fall from relevance is stark. Once a fixture on Radio New Zealand and TV3, his departure from mainstream media and retreat into fringe outlets such as The Platform, his own online echo chamber with regular appearances by New Zealand's most deluded cookers, signal a career in terminal decline. The loss of advertisers, funding, and public trust, underscored by legal battles, like a 2025 Employment Relations Authority ruling against him for workplace aggression, reflects badly on an old man terribly out of step with the ethical requirements that modern journalism demands. His provocative style, once a drawcard, is now so unhinged that it alienates more than it engages, leaving him preaching to a shrinking choir of similarly deranged contrarians desperately battling with their own insignificance.
In a media landscape that increasingly values accountability and empathy, Plunket’s brand of shock-jock vitriol is an anachronism. His disgusting Gaza tweet, mocking a preventable humanitarian catastrophe, isn't just a moral failure but a professional one, proving he no longer commands any semblance of respect for the profession. New Zealand deserves journalists who inform rather than inflame, and Plunket, with his track record of cruelty and misinformation, is no longer fit for that role. His legacy is one of squandered potential, a cautionary tale of how chasing controversy can reduce a once-respected voice to irrelevance.
