The Free Speech Union says renewed calls for hate speech
laws represent a return to a debate New Zealand has already
had and one where the evidence, experience, and the public
ultimately rejected censorship as the answer.
“Chief
Executive Jillaine Heather says there is no denying that
words can be cruel, hateful or simply offensive. People can
be insulted, humiliated, intimidated, and hurt by what
others say.
“But acknowledging that reality
doesn’t mean hate speech laws are the answer. In fact, the
evidence from around the world suggests they make the very
problems they are intended to solve even worse.”
The
Free Speech Union played a leading role in the successful
campaign against the previous Labour Government’s proposed
hate speech laws, arguing that vague speech restrictions
would chill legitimate public debate while doing little to
reduce prejudice or violence.
“The case against hate
speech laws has only become stronger since we ran the last
attempt at hate speech laws out of town.
“Countries
with hate speech laws have not eliminated hatred. Instead,
they have increasingly found those laws being used against
political dissidents, religious minorities, feminists,
comedians, journalists, and ordinary citizens expressing
unpopular views.
“Once governments are given the
power to decide which opinions are too harmful to be
expressed, those powers rarely remain confined to genuine
extremists.”
Heather says history repeatedly
demonstrates that censorship powers never stay in the hands
of those who created them.
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“The people with the
least institutional power are often the first to discover
that speech restrictions can be turned against them.
Today’s protected viewpoint can become tomorrow’s
prohibited opinion. Free speech is not designed to protect
popular views; it exists precisely because power changes
hands.”
The Union says there is also little evidence
that governments can manufacture social cohesion by policing
language from the top down.
“Social cohesion cannot
be legislated into existence. When governments elevate
certain narratives while suppressing others, they do not
eliminate disagreement. They drive it underground, fuel
resentment, and undermine trust in public
institutions.
“People are far more likely to live
peacefully together when they know they are free to disagree
openly than when they fear saying the wrong
thing.”
Instead of expanding censorship laws, the
Free Speech Union says New Zealand should recommit itself to
a culture of tolerance.
“A tolerant society is not
one where nobody is offended. It is one where people accept
that living in a free society means encountering ideas they
dislike, reject, or even find deeply upsetting.
“The
answer to offensive speech has never been to empower the
state to decide which opinions are permissible. It has been
to answer bad ideas with better ones, challenge prejudice
through persuasion, and reserve the criminal law for conduct
that genuinely threatens or incites
violence.”
Heather says if calls for hate speech
laws pick up steam, the Free Speech Union will once again
lead the case against them.
“We’ve had this debate
before. We won it because the evidence was on our
side.”
