In the wake of Australia passing hate law reforms late
Tuesday following the Bondi terror attack, advocates for
hate speech laws have been reenergised in New
Zealand.
Since 2021, successive New Zealand
governments have started, paused, and then stopped policy
and legislative work on hate speech.
Race Relations
Commissioner, and founding member of the Free Speech Union,
Dr Melissa Derby has suggested there is room to expand New
Zealand’s laws, describing the issue as “complex and
nuanced”.
PILLAR Executive Director Nathan Seiuli
says that framing is exactly how the public is softened up
for bad legislation.
“Calling the hate speech issue
‘complex and nuanced’ convinces people that the
legislation will be likewise ‘complex and nuanced’. To
the everyday person that’s how it this legislation will
appear. In reality, hate speech laws are vague by design and
easily reinterpreted by whoever holds power next,” Seiuli
said.
“Once the state claims authority to decide
what speech is acceptable, the boundaries do not stay fixed.
They expand. They shift. They are enforced unevenly. And
they are used to silence opponents.”
Seiuli said
there is no historical evidence that hate speech laws
produce greater social cohesion, prosperity, or public
safety.
“If New Zealand wants stronger communities,
we should protect the freedoms that allow disagreements to
surface, be challenged, and be resolved in public. We do not
build trust by criminalising speech. We build fear,” he
said.
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Mr Seiuli said minorities are safer in a society
that protects free speech than in one that promises
protection from speech.
“Minorities often have the
least political capital. When speech rules change, they are
the first to lose the ability to speak back. Freedom of
speech is not the threat. It is the safeguard,” he
said.
PILLAR has predicted that calls for hate speech
and hate crime expansions would reappear in the lead up to
the election.
“We are prepared to oppose these
proposals at every step, and we will do so with the backing
of freedom loving Kiwis who do not want New Zealand governed
by fear, fragility, and censorship,” Seiuli
said.
