Denis Dutton - Politics and Activism

Politics and Activism

Dutton supported "conservative ideas" and was a member of the Libertarian Party for some years.

Dutton was one of the founding members and first chair of the New Zealand Skeptics. His skepticism led him to believe that "climate change is still an open question".

He was also a passionate supporter of public radio. In the early 1990s he founded the lobby group The New Zealand Friends of Public Broadcasting in response to proposals to devolve New Zealand's two non-commercial public radio stations.

In 1995 he was appointed to the board of directors of Radio New Zealand, where he served for seven years. After concluding his term as a director, Dr Dutton and Dr John Isles issued a report criticising Radio New Zealand for loss of neutrality in news and current affairs, failure to adhere to charter and opposed to contestable funding of broadcasting.