Oppose this new hate speech bill

Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, June 26th, 2021 - 206 comments
Categories: human rights, International, labour, uncategorized, United Nations - Tags:

Hate speech is about to get a lot more criminalised with much stronger penalties. It’s worth going back to what the Royal Commission actually considered, since that’s the basis of proposing this law. The Royal Commission in fact found that trying to protect religion from very strong opinions is simply not a good idea:

… we acknowledge that there are distinct freedom of expression issues if sharing a particular religious belief system is treated as a protected characteristic. There is a strong tradition in New Zealand (as in many other countries) that religious belief systems are open to debate and that this can be vigorous. Strongly expressed challenges to a religious belief system may also amount to criticism of those who adhere to it.” (Vol. 4 para 49)

They saw how unwieldy and impractical such a law was in the United Kingdom, and concluded:

For this reason we do not support the introduction of an equivalent provision to New Zealand law.”

They do say that a tweak to section 61 of the Human Rights Act to  include “electronic communications” would be a good idea. I agree. They also recommend a new section into the Crimes Act 1961 with up to three years jail for:

intent to stir up, maintain or normalise hatred against any group of persons in New Zealand on the ground of the colour, race, or ethnic or national origins or religion of that group of persons;” and “says or otherwise publishes or communicates any words or material that explicitly or implicitly calls for violence against or is otherwise, threatening, abusive, or insulting to such group of persons.”

Not sure why it had to be specific to just those categories, but I’ll let that go for now. It would be worth considering. We already have organised groups who plan and incite violence against other similar cells in our community. They also deal drugs, and the Police are doing a pretty average job to decrease their power – but Police aren’t seeking new legislative powers to combat these little terror cells. But they do stroll our streets in daylight fully identifying themselves and their threat of terror. There’s no ‘lone wolf’ terror threat from these ****, and that illegal weapons are used by these terrorists are well attested in court records. No need for more laws against incitement to terror when court approved wiretaps and informants are well used already. Regrettably I find myself on the same side as our effective Leader of the Opposition David Seymour who said recently:

Democracy and the ability to have civil and honest conversations is already becoming imperilled, which is why this is the worst possible way to empower lynch mobs who choose to take offence at ideas they don’t support.”

And even more weirdly, it’s now the Pentagon military chiefs who are having to defend free speech as radical ideas from censorious United States politicians:

If we look back on the origins of the Labour Party, there are plenty of photographs of Michael Joseph Savage and others bringing in some of the most volatile ideological concepts that society had then known, standing in front of crowds declaiming against capitalism in front of thousands of workers. Strike after violent bloody strike from Waihi onwards saw gradual growth in support for the Socialist Party, Independent Political Labour League, United labour League, and whole bunches of pretty muscular and aggressive unions. They spoke to those gathered thousands to specifically incite rebellion against specific companies, specific bosses, imperialism generally and compulsory military service, and their pamphlets and cartoons were by today’s standards outrageously slanderous. I doubt the Labour Party would have been able to exist today if this proposed control of speech had occurred then. We know what the bosses and rulers would have done, because they actually did it.

Where would we be now if such freedom of expression had been stopped?

New Zealand is extraordinarily fortunate that since the 1880s Maori leadership haven’t incited military violence to resist the early state. I’m tempted to say that such incitement is coded into the Haka we now use before Rugby games. But we have instead in New Zealand a very long tradition of civil society resistance that leads to renewal.

Do we need to go through the Springbok Tour resistance, and how much force the state put against protest, and how much force was organised by the protesters? This is how the state deploys the law when it feels like it.

The key difference between violent resistance in our history since the New Zealand wars, and the Christchurch Massacre, was not the regulation of speech but the collection of semiautomatic weapons and ammunition to carry out the murders. The buyback was a good idea and I hope Police continue to use its provisions.

We already have the capacity to remove speech which is so harmful that it should be removed, through the Chief Censor. Yesterday he ordered a specific cartoon of Muslims to be removed, and it was done. No law needed to be changed for that.

In recent weeks we have seen blowback against something as otherwise timid as resistance by cyclists against the dominance of car users and the assets freely given to them, versus their own safety despite ample evidence that they have a disproportionately high injury and death rate. Civil disobedience of this very mild form generated a storm of reaction. This illustrates how brittle resistance is, and how society polices against it well and truly enough without a further change of law. So we need our existing freedom of expression protected more, not less.

Let’s re-state this human right.

The right to freedom of expression is recognised as a human right under article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recognised in international human rights law in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. That’s relevant to us right here. For sites like The Standard, we allow people to be called wankers and cunts, and then we scorch them like they’ve never been scorched before, edit them, and send them to the free expression sinbin. That’s waaaay before they start targeting threats to incite violent acts against any group. No law should seek to limit what society already polices well by itself.

That right is specifically enabled by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 which affirms that “everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.” It’s very hard to see how this proposed law will be consistent with BORA. Granted, no right is unlimited.

The best signal that we don’t need this law, was in how New Zealand reacted to the massacre in the first place. We all rallied round. As the Minister of Ethnic Affairs Priyanca Radhakrishnan said herself at the media conference proposing the bill: “We are generally regarded as a country with a high level of social cohesion and we’ve see that as a team of 5 million has largely come together to rally around both in the aftermath of March 15 and also during the Covid-19 lockdown.”

But she claims that remaining underlying vulnerabilities need this extra control of expression. She didn’t show evidence for that.

We actually know where the main weakness of New Zealand lay to protect us on that day, and it lay instead in our ineffective intelligence community – who really got away from this scot free. The terms of reference for their reform were ludicrously narrow, so we’ll never hear adequate truth on it. The Commission found that

Public sector agencies involved in the conter-terrorism effort are not set up to collect and aggregate information like medical and firearms licensing records. Looking back to 2014, the intelligence and security agencies were in a fragile state. A rebuilding exercise did not get underway until mid-2016 and was still unfinished when the terrorist attack took place in 2019.”

The Commission didn’t find that they could have stopped it, but didn’t answer the question of whether they could have if they were structured and resourced better to do so.

It was not our freedom of speech laws that failed to protect our Muslim community in 2019: it was the state.

206 comments on “Oppose this new hate speech bill ”

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  1. Anne 1
    26 June 2021 at 10:49 am

    Suggest you watch a replay of this morning's The Nation where the subject was discussed at some length by Kris Faafoi and a panel of three diverse people… all of whom were remarkably in agreement.

    It certainly helped to clarify aspects of the proposal for me and there is no intention to pass any law until there has been a thorough conversation with members of the public.

    In short, it is far too soon to come to any conclusion about the efficacy of the proposal until the government is much further down the track with it. All credit to them for having the guts to have a go.

  2. Byd0nz 2
    26 June 2021 at 10:50 am

    Well whatever. I will continue to hate all money based Political Systems and will continue to encourage young people to revolt against these systems in favour of a money free united world, where the emphasis is on maintaining a habital Earth and welfare of it's citizens

    • gsays 2.1
      26 June 2021 at 6:41 pm

      I vote for that. ^

      Sharing is the way forward, politically, socially, evolutionary.

  3. lprent 3
    26 June 2021 at 10:55 am

    I have to agree. The problem isn't the hate speech. As a society we can deal with demented dimwits. It isn't the intent that is the problem. I am perfectly happy calling a demented dimwit out for who I think they are. So are many others.

    The problem is when a demented dimwit gets enough power like automatic weapons, bomb making components, or other other tools of mass death. That allows them to cause damage far outside their normal abilities to convince and convert.

    We need to control the potential actions. Not people's ability to defend with words against the words of idiots.

    • Grumpy 3.1
      26 June 2021 at 11:06 am

      I agree but why limit your tools of power to things that involve violence?

      Other things that greatly enhance a group’s power to convince and convert surely include the judicial system and the media.

      The best counter to bad arguments is good arguments. Free speech is our best counter to tyranny and the first thing tyrants get rid of.

      [error fixed in e-mail address]

      • lprent 3.1.1
        30 June 2021 at 1:02 pm

        Just as a point – "Free speech" in the way that you just used it is a meaningless bit of verbal/written stupidity.

        There are always consequences and costs to any kind of speech. That is why uncivilised monkeys like yourself who use meaningless dumbarse slogans without bothering to define what those slogans they are should never be permitted comment about legal issues. What you effectively said in your comment above is 'gibber, slogan and gibber!'.

        Please don't use stupid slogans like 'free speech', and 'tyranny' around me because I will use as a reason to call you stupid and then start in on your other gross personal characteristics. You clearly neither understand the meaning and history of the words and phrases that you a echoing like brain-dead parrot.

        You are also unlikely to understand exactly what the history of those phrases means. Historically they are most commonly associated with various types of repression. The obvious example being their widespread usage in justifying slavery – which is the point of my second paragraph.

    • Foreign waka 3.2
      26 June 2021 at 2:18 pm

      I would be convinced of the earnestly of it all if the gangs would be dealt with but they aren't. How much mayhem they perpetrate and the menace is growing. Meanwhile an Orwellian package is being introduced to shut people up when half drunk espousing none sense.

      Looks like a chicken something to me. Gangs no, but lets just shut down opposition to anything we, the elected omnipotent say. The proposed penalty is more than when you kill a child!

      Don't get me wrong, racial hatred and inciting should be subjected to more stringent laws but just having an universal "shut up" law smacks of the same power drunk approach of the ilk like Erdogan.

      It is quite frankly equally concerning if naivety or intend is displayed. I guess this is the result of not knowing history and by that I mean over centuries and around the globe how to erode step by step freedoms and rights. To undermine a valid discourse of opinions in areas like religion and politics generally would imply that only one person holds the absolute truth. Australia looks more and more attractive.

  4. Anker 4
    26 June 2021 at 10:56 am
    • The full consultation on this bill is good. As opposed to the debate on gender self I’d, which isn’t a debate. Crown law had to advice the then minister Tracey Martin that it was undemocratic to pursue the change as there was no public consultation.
    • the current minister ignores the voices of women who oppose the bill or even hear their legitimate concerns.

    I am very wary of the current proposed changes to the freedom of speech act. Glad you felt reassured by the discussion Anne. I respect your opinion on this.

    • Anne 4.1
      26 June 2021 at 11:19 am

      The point which seems to have to be raised time and again is the devastating effects that hate speech/action can have on a person or group of persons sometimes lasting a lifetime. Anyone who has been on the receiving end of excessive hatred (regardless of the cause) can tell you all about the long-term consequences of such behaviour.

      Hate speech/action goes beyond the occasional demented individual like the perpetrator of the ChCh massacre and needs to include those who incite harm in a physical and/or psychological manner towards individuals simply because of who they are. It is insidious and it will continue to fester and grow in this country until an acceptable deterrent is in place that the majority of people can live with.

      Currently, the laws in NZ are not proving sufficient to counter the problem.

      • Red Blooded One 4.1.1
        26 June 2021 at 11:43 am

        yes 100%

      • KJT 4.1.2
        26 June 2021 at 12:02 pm

        Why specify groups.

        Isn't "hate speech" against any person equally bad?

        Individual bullying and harassment, both on line and off, is endemic amongst young people, for one.

        Including religion is a worry.

        Imagine if, after the law change we said. "Destiny church is an thieving outfit that takes money from the distressed and gullible". I can imagine the price of defending yourself, if they lay a criminal complaint, will have a chilling effect.

        Politicians already get to use libel laws to stifle debate. How much more ammunition will this give them?

      • weka 4.1.3
        26 June 2021 at 12:09 pm

        Anne, can you please give some real life examples of the hate speech you refer to that you think should be a criminal act? Is there anything you’ve seen on TS? FB? In person?

        • RedLogix 4.1.3.1
          26 June 2021 at 12:16 pm

          The simple fact is that if you try and say anything meaningful you will inevitably offend someone. In that light virtually everything ever typed on the internet could be defined as hate speech.

          • weka 4.1.3.1.1
            26 June 2021 at 12:42 pm

            Well no, there’s clearly an intent to differentiate between objectively assessed hate and subjectively experienced offense. Harm vs hurt is a useful way to consider that. I’d still like some examples because I don’t believe as a society we are sufficiently skilled to enable such a law well.

            • RedLogix 4.1.3.1.1.1
              26 June 2021 at 12:53 pm

              Existing law quite clearly covers off objective harm in my view. Inciting violence or criminal acts was always off limits.

              Inciting 'hatred' is however a much more slippery matter. Hatred is an emotional state (and may well be very offensive to be on the receiving end of ) – but it's not a measurable harm in it's own right.

              At the very least enshrining 'hate' as an objective harm thoroughly muddles an already porous boundary.

        • Anne 4.1.3.2
          26 June 2021 at 3:08 pm

          I am talking about the whole spectrum of hate activity from the individual who chooses to target another individual by way of overt and covert means (it happened to me – two individuals) and a group of people who choose to target another group of people in the same manner.

          When people's lives are seriously affected by a person or persons who set out to destroy, entrap and discredit them then the perpetrators should be regarded as having committed a crime. With the advent of social media this kind of targeting is getting out of control and there seems to be no consequences for most of the culprits.

          There are a myriad of news stories about people being physically and verbally abused because of who they are and sometimes it crosses a line into serious covert persecution – as it did with me.

          Women are often the victims but it is not confined to them. It can also happen to men. In the past there was virtually nothing you could do about it. Nobody wanted to know – including the police.

          That is not good enough. There needs to be more teeth in legislation so that appropriate action can be taken against those who make a habit of persecuting others.

          • weka 4.1.3.2.1
            26 June 2021 at 3:44 pm

            Anne, I understand your rationales. What I’m looking for is concrete examples of the things you think should be covered by the new law. Presumably there are lots of historic instances but I’d like them named because I don’t understand what people are thinking about.

            • Macro 4.1.3.2.1.1
              26 June 2021 at 6:51 pm

              How about this?

              https://www.vox.com/culture/22548759/britney-spears-court-remarks-conservatorship-mockery

              During Britney Spears’s explosive remarks about her longstanding conservatorship, made before a Los Angeles court on Wednesday afternoon, one of the most heartbreaking moments came toward the end.

              Spears devoted much of her 20-minute statement to outlining her problems with the restrictions of the conservatorship: how she has an IUD she’s not allowed to remove; how she has been forced to perform against her will; how she was forced onto lithium against her will.

              Then Spears took time to explain why she had never spoken about her conservatorship in public before. She offered a very simple reason: She thought people would make fun of her if she did.

              “I didn’t want to say it openly, because I honestly don’t think anyone would believe me,” Spears said. “That’s why I didn’t want to say any of this to anybody, to the public. Because I thought people would make fun of me or laugh at me.”

              Spears doesn’t need to say why she assumed people would laugh at her if she told them that she was having a hard time. We already know why she was concerned about that: because it happened to her before, in the 2000s. That’s part of what landed her in her conservatorship in the first place. When Spears shaved off all her hair and hit a paparazzo’s car with her umbrella, she was very clearly struggling, and the world responded by mocking her viciously.

              “Britney Spears Needs A Makeover Almost As Bad As She Needs A Lobotomy,”

              Perez Hilton drew sperm on photos of Spears’s face

              So of course Spears expected that if she made herself vulnerable to the public, the public would respond by pointing and jeering. That’s how her life has always worked. So she hasn’t spoken about her conservatorship or about the strictures under which she is living for 13 years.

              That sort of stuff is not ok. In my view it is criminal, no matter who the person is. We have one of the highest suicide rates of young people in the western world. One of the prime risk factors and causes of suicide is exposure to bullying Causing someones death is not just a misdemeanour.

              • Anne …
                26 June 2021 at 7:17 pm

                yesyesyes

                On and off for years I was bullied and persecuted but was too afraid to tell anyone because I knew I would not be believed. When I finally came forward that is what happened.

              • weka …
                26 June 2021 at 8:20 pm

                I agree. It won't be covered by the legislation, which afaik is about protected groups not individuals.

                • Macro …
                  26 June 2021 at 8:54 pm

                  The young woman on TV news tonight for StandTFU was not doing so just as an individual speaking out about hate speech which she apparently endures on a daily basis but also for all young people like her who just happen to be muslim and coloured.

            • Simbit 4.1.3.2.1.2
              28 June 2021 at 3:52 am

              Several years ago, I discouraged my students (undergrad and postgrad) from reading social media or mainstream media on Maori issues, and essentially disengaged my courses from researching much of the internet-located debates, due to online abuse. Stuff was particularly bad. Now I am in Canada and would still never dream of exposing students (Indigenous and international) to ongoing online threats. The threats are real, with individuals targeted and assaulted in the streets and workplaces. Assaulted as in shot, stabbed, raped. And every expose seems to lead to more violence. Minorities in Canada and NZ – two internationally respected states – live in fear for their lives.

      • Patricia Bremner 4.1.4
        26 June 2021 at 1:57 pm

        Yes Anne, repeated attacks wear down the hardiest souls, and "toughen up" it's "just words" is a weasel way out of owning the bullying/hate/.

        Australia treat this as infringing on Human Rights. There as here, Parliament is the safe place to indulge in full blooded criticism, (and that hopefully will be protected.)

        Inciting antisocial behaviours should be punished as severely as the behaviours are.

        The party who vacariously incites bad behaviours is just as guilty. imo, also the bystanders who do nothing need to examine their beliefs about what it is to be human, and what is valuable. "Free speech" is not the right to be abusive of difference.

        Those who fail to control their abusive speech are still bullying, and as a measure of acumen, self control is a good guide. Delayed gratification, the ability to think things through in a rational manner, and present an opinion or different point of view, without insult or verbal harm.

        First rule of discussion, drop "You…" Begin with what is being discussed, keeping personalities out of it. Just my tuppence worth, and I agree Anne, our law is weak in this area.

        • Anne 4.1.4.1
          26 June 2021 at 3:59 pm

          "Free speech" is not the right to be abusive of difference.

          My sentiments exactly!

          It must also include those who carry out abuse/persecution for political reasons and perceived notions of misadventure – example: all Muslims are terrorists.

          Common jealousy can often be the initial trigger and that should be taken more seriously than it has to date.

        • Foreign waka 4.1.4.2
          26 June 2021 at 6:56 pm

          Free speech was fought for as right for all, politically and in any other area. Many have died for that right, lest we forget. This should never be confused with inciting hatred or violence by a few with problems that range from political indoctrination to mental instability. You will not get rid of this by introducing a dictatorship like approach to justify a revenge factor.

          And to say this openly, lets change the attitude in childhood. With mothers and fathers taking responsibility about the separation and segregation of the "other". This is where things change. Attitudes cannot be legislated away.

          If I may say that I belong to a group of people whose parents, grandparents know a lot about what it means why some people bully, sideline, fan violence, even kill. I can reassure you that reducing democratic rights will do exactly the opposite you seek to achieve.

          • Patricia Bremner 4.1.4.2.1
            27 June 2021 at 11:01 am

            Family and Community attitudes of fairness kindness guardianship and communication, but if all this fails?

            Then it is agreed rules regulation and policed implementation.

            What do we do about the subversive? The aggressive? The over zealous?

            Would community service sentences do more? Community meetings?

            • Foreign waka 4.1.4.2.1.1
              27 June 2021 at 4:01 pm

              You will not change any of these things by introducing laws that forbid opinions to be voiced across the spectrum. What would you "classify" as subversive? Once you open that door there is no return. The list can expand and include one day……You.

              Besides, police and other services do track certain people of interest and monitor gatherings etc. If anything, I am more concerned that gangs and their activities are not curtailed but if someone says something the neighbor does not want to hear, the person can end up in jail.

              Learn from others what happens when you open these doors and live with the human fallacy, ignorance or else you have to introduce a dictatorship to deal with the fears, assumptions and pointing the finger at the "other".

              I will tell you at this point that I have seen more racism from one of those "protected" groups than any other in my almost 40 years in NZ. If this law is introduced, it would be from my perspective be very Orwellian, by basically convincing me that left is right and blue is green.

  5. Forget now 5
    26 June 2021 at 11:22 am

    No, I am not persuaded to oppose these changes to the Crimes Act & HRA. Rights go both ways; the right to speak versus the right to not be injured by others' verbal assaults. No one (except maybe ACT) is suggesting that; fraudulent lying, or false accusations, are acceptable in our society. So these are controlled, if not eradicated, by laws. I do not think it is unreasonable that the harassment and intimidation of our most vulnerable citizens be likewise curbed by legal means.

    While the Christchurch atrocity may have been the initial spur for these proposed law changes, it is no longer the sole justification for them. I disagree that these are issues that NZ society already polices well by itself. Queerbashing (both physical and verbal) has long been an accepted part of our society, existing laws (and their implementation) have proved insufficient there at least.

    Still a couple of months yet to get my submission sorted though. The pdf (in a wide variety of languages) on the link below goes into the six proposals in some detail. As well as reasons for adopting these changes, even if you don't particularly care about other's wellbeing compared to your own convenience.

    Inciting hatred is prohibited under international human rights treaties. Aotearoa is party to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which requires states to legislate against racist hate speech, which Aotearoa has done. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) also requires laws against advocating national, racial or religious hatred that amounts to inciting others to discrimination, hostility or violence.

    https://consultations.justice.govt.nz/policy/incitement-of-hatred/

    • Ad 5.1
      26 June 2021 at 11:55 am

      Agree that whole-class rage still exists, and I'd agree that more enforcement is good – particularly if it's public social enforcement.

      But what does this bill add compared to already functioning relevant statutes?

      • Forget now 5.1.1
        26 June 2021 at 12:45 pm

        I do not agree that the relevant statutes are functional at this time. Most important for myself is Proposal 6:

        This proposal would make changes to the prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Human Rights Act to clarify the protections for trans, gender diverse and intersex people. This would be done by changing the wording of the ground of “sex” to include “sex characteristics or intersex status” and adding a new ground of “gender including gender expression and gender identity”. This would clarify that it is illegal to discriminate on the grounds of gender, gender expression, gender identity, sex characteristics or intersex status.

        Dispelling the present ambiguity would in turn mean that Proposal 1 expanded protections would then apply to queer Aotearoans:

        This proposal would change the wording of both incitement provisions so that they applied to more groups that are protected from discrimination by the Human Rights Act. They would still apply to groups based on “colour, race, or ethnic or national origins”, but would also cover speech that incites hatred or hostility against other groups protected from discrimination by the Human Rights Act.

        Proposals 2 & 4 are mostly about streamlining legal jargon, which seems useful enough and probably the least controversial. Proposal 5 is the one seeking to institute the international agreement we signed up to:

        Aotearoa has signed up to the ICCPR, but the incitement to discrimination is not currently prohibited by Aotearoa law. The proposed changes would allow Aotearoa to better align our law with the ICCPR.

        Proposal 3 which drastically increases the penalties for those convicted of inciting hatred is (in my guesstimate) likely to be the hardest fought. Empty gestures being easier than actual change.

        The current penalty (which means punishment) if someone is found guilty of the criminal incitement is a maximum of three months in prison or a maximum fine of $7,000… This proposal would increase the maximum penalty for the new criminal offence to three years imprisonment, or a fine of up to $50,000. As this offence captures behaviour that seeks to spread hatred towards groups in society, the Government considers that the penalties should be higher than those for directing hate at an individual.

    • KJT 5.2
      26 June 2021 at 12:07 pm

      I don't think driving it underground solves the problem.

      Isolating the real "haters" in their own little bubble so they reinforce each other, rather than having them out in the open where they are exposed to disagreement, argument and in some cases, ridicule (Is hate speech against haters, hate speech?) is more effective.

      There is often something in their lives that motivates them. Often ideas can be changed. But not if you drive them underground.

      • Sacha 5.2.1
        26 June 2021 at 3:29 pm

        Muffled hatred from a dungeon causes less harm to others.

        • KJT 5.2.1.1
          26 June 2021 at 8:55 pm

          Not sure if that is true.

          Isolated and ostracized people, often ones who are/were abused, bullied themselves, become haters or even, mass killers.

          Isolating them even more, makes them less exposed to views that differ from their own.

          • Sacha 5.2.1.1.1
            26 June 2021 at 9:21 pm

            I guess it depends whose interests you believe are most important.

            • KJT 5.2.1.1.1.1
              27 June 2021 at 10:21 am

              Not really the point.

              Everyone's, including victims interests are served by addressing hatred, like crime, at the source

              It is the same argument people make when I advocate sending less people to prison. "Don't you care about the victims". Of course I do. But dealing with the criminals before they become criminals is much better for the victims as well.

              Sending people to "crime University" is paradoxically really only effective detterents for "white collar crime".

              Isn't it better that the crime, or hate is addressed before it results in more harm?

              And isn’t it better that antisocial views are out in the sunlight. Having to hide them doesn’t change the views.

              Lastly do we want politicians weaponising this, as they have done with libel laws.

              What I would like to see is more protection for individuals from bullying, abuse and verbal/ written harm. For any reason.

              • Sacha …
                27 June 2021 at 1:24 pm

                'Out in the sunlight' is where somebody who is not affected by hateful views believes they should be during the decades that the enlightened discourse will be held.

              • greywarshark …
                28 June 2021 at 9:08 pm

                KJT A very sensible overview IMO.

            • Populuxe1 5.2.1.1.1.2
              28 June 2021 at 10:21 pm

              Isn't it a bit naive to assume that only the people you don't like can end up at the pointy end of laws like this? Off the top of my head I can think of a dozen countries, special interest groups, and religious organisations that would jump at the chance. Gosh, it's not like rich white men have ever abused defamation law.

    • weka 5.3
      26 June 2021 at 12:10 pm

      FN, what would be some real life examples of verbal queer bashing that you think should be criminalised under this proposed law?

      • Populuxe1 5.3.1
        28 June 2021 at 10:26 pm

        I'm of an age where if someone is going to call me the f word from a moving car all I'm going to do is roll my eyes and give the finger. I'd be much more worried about such a law being used by religious groups against the rainbow community who often don't always have the best relationship with police. It ends up policing legitimate anger, frustration, and outrage.

  6. Pat 6
    26 June 2021 at 11:46 am

    Law v lore

    The problem with law is it disallows nuance whereas lore allows for the natural distribution of things.

    If we want a polarised society by all means remove the nuance

  7. weka 7
    26 June 2021 at 12:06 pm

    Very good Ad.

    from the RNZ link,

    That would mean anyone who "intentionally stirs up, maintains or normalises hatred against a protected group" by being "threatening, abusive or insulting, including by inciting violence" would break the law.

    what does that mean in real life term? Has anyone seen potential scenarios explained?

    • Craig Hall 7.1
      28 June 2021 at 4:57 pm

      Particularly since inciting violence if the suggested violence rises to variations of criminal assault/injuring/wounding is illegal currently.

  8. weka 8
    26 June 2021 at 12:12 pm

    Also from the RNZ link, spot the missing characteristic 🙄

    It is currently only an offence to use speech that will "excite hostility" or "bring into contempt" a person or group on the grounds of their colour, race or ethnicity. Gender identity, sexual orientation, religion or disability aren't protected grounds.

    • Mika 8.1
      26 June 2021 at 1:37 pm

      Weka, agree. Already notable that women will not be entitled to protection under the proposed law. Given New Zealand's atrocious record of sex based violence against women and girls, I'm shocked that noone considers us a class of people who should be protected from hate.

      • Mika 8.1.1
        26 June 2021 at 1:46 pm

        If anything, I am concerned that the bill will mainly be used to prevent women from speaking about our experience of being female in a patriarchal misogynistic society. If we talk about how gender identity theory and it's implementation in law is harmful to women, either individuality or as a class, you can bet your bottom dollar that gender identity ideologies will be frothing at the mouth to submit complaints to the police.

        You just need to look at how it has rolled out in UK & Scotland.

        I think this will result in the effective criminalisation of feminist speech. Even if the bar for conviction is high, the constant threat of reporting from gender ideologues will discourage women from speaking about the issues that affect us.

        • Forget now 8.1.1.1
          26 June 2021 at 1:57 pm

          Leaving aside the merit of your claims; Mika. The reason that women aren't being added to the HRA is that they are already right there – first on the list (that goes up to (m) so far, but has not yet found a place for trans Aotearoans):

          Prohibited grounds of discrimination

          (1) For the purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are—

          (a) sex, which includes pregnancy and childbirth…

          • Anker 8.1.1.1.1
            26 June 2021 at 3:05 pm

            Yes FN now but it appears we women's human rights are so easy to over look.

            The human rights act sets out that women should have access to private women only public toilets and change rooms. That women should have separate sporting competitions and that women are entitled to separate accommodation in hostels etc and separate schools.

            So then the govt attempts to bring in a gender id bill that potentially over rides those rights clearly set out in the human rights act. The minister of women ignores women who raises concerns about this and when women try to hold public meetings to discuss this four councils cancel their meetings and activists right these women off as a hate group.!

            Not to mention the Govt's report about how to get more inclusion in sport, which would mean trans women competing in women's sports at school and community level. No one is stopping trans people from competing. Two categories for sport is the obvious way forward. Women and other.

            So excuse me for not feeling relaxed about the proposed changes.

            • Sacha 8.1.1.1.1.1
              26 June 2021 at 3:32 pm

              The human rights act sets out that women should have access to private women only public toilets and change rooms. That women should have separate sporting competitions and that women are entitled to separate accommodation in hostels etc and separate schools.

              Which part of the Act does that?

              • Anker …
                26 June 2021 at 4:56 pm

                Human rights Act

                Section 43 1. Section 42 shall not prevent the maintenance of separate facilities for each sex on the ground of public decency and safety.

                Section 49 Nothing in Section 44 shall prevent the exclusion of persons of one sex from participation in any competitive sporting activity in which strength, stamina or physique of competitors is relevant

                Section 29/4. : Section 27; Section 55 and section 58 are also relevant to women rights

          • weka 8.1.1.1.2
            26 June 2021 at 3:48 pm

            And yet, the proposed law wants to remove sex by class and replace it with sex characteristics. What are they?

            Most important for myself is Proposal 6:

            This proposal would make changes to the prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Human Rights Act to clarify the protections for trans, gender diverse and intersex people. This would be done by changing the wording of the ground of “sex” to include “sex characteristics or intersex status” and adding a new ground of “gender including gender expression and gender identity”. This would clarify that it is illegal to discriminate on the grounds of gender, gender expression, gender identity, sex characteristics or intersex status.

            from your comment up thread.

            • weka 8.1.1.1.2.1
              26 June 2021 at 3:49 pm

              And yes, gender identity should be in the HRA, as should gender non conformity. How society manages that is kind of tricky give the poor undertaking of gender and war raging around sex and gender

            • Anker 8.1.1.1.2.2
              26 June 2021 at 5:02 pm

              Which proposed law wants to remove sex by class and change it to sex characteristics? The hate law? Oh that is worrying. So we are not a sex class now we are a bunch of characteristics? Holy hell. I have commented before on the deconstruction of women as a sex class. So if what I am assuming is right, then here we go.

              • weka …
                26 June 2021 at 5:24 pm

                Yeah this one worries me. Haven’t read the long discussion doc yet and don’t know what they mean, but in the face of it it looks like removing sex, and replacing it with secondary sex characteristics. I’m guessing. But this is a government that decided Stats NZ should prioritise gathering gender ID data as the default and not sex unless there is a good reason, and chose not to consult with women (this is the Green Party). I think there is reason to be concerned about this instance and how far the public service sector is now thinking like this as a baseline in policy and law development.

                we should be preparing for a fight

                • Forget now …
                  26 June 2021 at 10:33 pm

                  Or you could read the; Proposals Against Incitment of Hatred and Discrimination, and prepare a submission, rather than for a fight; Weka.

                  Disambiguation seems to be the reason for the word change from Sex to Sex Characteristics. Again; now's the time to tell them if you can think of a better way to express that.

                  The Government considers that the current provisions are not clear enough that trans, gender diverse and intersex people are protected from discrimination. The Government and the Human Rights Commission consider that the existing ground of “sex” covers these groups, but “sex” and “gender” are different concepts and the law could be clearer…

                  Feedback on Proposal Six

                  – Do you consider that this terminology is appropriate?

                  – Do you think that this proposal sufficiently covers the groups that should be protected from discrimination under the Human Rights Act?

                  – Do you consider that this proposal appropriately protects culturally specific gender identities, including takatāpui?

                  The National Council of Women of NZ has been consulted on a variety of legislation, and made many submissions. Are they the wrong kind of women too? The results of their Gender Attitudes Survey, suggests that trans-excluders are a vocal minority, rather than being particluarly representative of wider society.

                  While the large majority of New Zealanders (80%) believe gender equality is a fundamental right, in both 2017 & 2019 surveys, 20% of respondents did not agree with this point of view, which cannot be dismissed as an insignificant percentage of the population. This is a concerning result which requires attention because it drives the core beliefs that underpin gender inequality.

                  https://genderequal.nz/ga-survey/

                  • weka …
                    26 June 2021 at 10:52 pm

                    Do they say what 'sex characteristics' means? No point in asking for feedback if they won't define or state intention.

                    My own view is that sex should remain, and gender should be protected as well without removing women's sex based rights. The bit you quote is about gender ID, but doesn't talk about women. Have you considered why they've done that?

                    "Are they the wrong kind of women too?"

                    What does that even mean?

                    I believe gender ID should be protected as a fundamental right. Most GCFs I follow do too. Unless the survey asked what beliefs were held, conflating that result with women's right to single sex spaces is misleading.

                    The issue for feminists isn't whether GNC people should be protected as well (they should), it's all about not throwing women under the bus to do that.

                    We won't know how wider society thinks about issues like self-ID until we ask them. Women in particular. And have an open and frank debate. Thankfully Stand Up For Women won their injunction and are now free to book public spaces to hold public meetings so that the wider public can indeed take part in legislative change in NZ.

                    (the left should be paying attention there too, because that case was won with the help of the right. Telling women to stfu doesn't actually make them stfu. Own goal there liberals).

                    • Forget now …
                      27 June 2021 at 12:38 pm

                      Had a glance at the cabinet paper, and even it doesn't go into details of the terminology of “sex characteristics or intersex status”. Pdf via:

                      https://consultations.justice.govt.nz/policy/incitement-of-hatred/

                      I can't cut and paste from it, so quotes will be brief.

                      Examples of inciting discrimination of a group include encouraging their exclusion or unfavorable treatment in the provision of goods and services, rental housing, or employment… as it is unlawful to discriminate against population groups, it should also be unlawful to incite others to discriminate against those groups…

                      since 2006 the government position has been that sex discrimination includes gender identity… This position has not been tested by the courts and gender and sex are different concepts…

                      Some people may oppose the inclusion of gender identity and sex characteristics as prohibited grounds of discrimination. It will be important to communicate that this proposed inclusion confirms our existing understanding of the law.

                      Trans people are frequently discriminated against in housing, employment, and provision of goods and services. Which may or may not be illegal at this time. Courts can only judge on the basis of laws written (and precedent too I guess, but that's just conventions of interpretation of written law). Also, most trans people avoid the police; as even when not harmful, it seldom achieves anything.

                      Trans women are not women, while trans men (and oft-forgotten eNBys) are simple fashion victims; according to your previous comments (I tend to skim over certain discussions, so might have been someone you were talking to – already have enough tabs open). So essentially I was asking; if this is a war where (cis) women are bunkered-up defending their rights against the hordes of gender deviants, do you see gender-collaborators as also not really women? For example the NCWNZ who have been unequivocal in their support for gender equality. But I obviously failed in communication – just don't like war analogies for civil discussions during peacetime.

                      Labour government is still dithering (to quote Beyer) about reducing costs for gender affirming documentation. The cynical might almost think that they are pushing through this unambiguous addition of gender diverse Aotearoans to the HRA before they open up that other can of worms. We probably have different viewpoints on the merits of that strategy, if so.

                    • weka []
                      28 June 2021 at 1:24 pm

                      Had a glance at the cabinet paper, and even it doesn’t go into details of the terminology of “sex characteristics or intersex status”. Pdf via:

                      https://consultations.justice.govt.nz/policy/incitement-of-hatred/

                      Thanks, I will see what I can find when I get the chance too.

                      Examples of inciting discrimination of a group include encouraging their exclusion or unfavorable treatment in the provision of goods and services, rental housing, or employment… as it is unlawful to discriminate against population groups, it should also be unlawful to incite others to discriminate against those groups…

                      since 2006 the government position has been that sex discrimination includes gender identity… This position has not been tested by the courts and gender and sex are different concepts…

                      Some people may oppose the inclusion of gender identity and sex characteristics as prohibited grounds of discrimination. It will be important to communicate that this proposed inclusion confirms our existing understanding of the law.

                      Not quite sure what you are saying there. Trans people as a group should have protection from discrimination. Women’s rights to exclude trans women (and any biological male) in specific situations should be retained. That’s not discrimination against trans people, and in reality many women’s groups will choose to be open to women and trans women. Trans women can choose the same (to include women, to be trans women only, to be trans only). Trying to force women to give up single sex spaces is where the conflict of rights is happening.

                      How that would be in a hate speech law is secondary to the issue of not removing women’s rights, and definitely not doing so without widely consulting women.

                      Trans women are not women, while trans men (and oft-forgotten eNBys) are simple fashion victims; according to your previous comments (I tend to skim over certain discussions, so might have been someone you were talking to – already have enough tabs open). So essentially I was asking; if this is a war where (cis) women are bunkered-up defending their rights against the hordes of gender deviants, do you see gender-collaborators as also not really women? For example the NCWNZ who have been unequivocal in their support for gender equality. But I obviously failed in communication – just don’t like war analogies for civil discussions during peacetime.

                      Again, not following that. If you want to know what I think, always best to just ask outright. Trans women are trans women. Trans men are trans men. I don’t really understand NBies, and think there are lots more issues going to arise when they gain political power. I don’t think trans men or NBies are fashion victims (whatever that means). I think there are females who do well as trans men and there are those who really don’t and we should be looking at how hard it is to be a butch dyke for instance and why some women feel better off choosing surgery. Until detrans people are fully in this conversation I will know that the trans activist side has some shit to sort out. The existence of detrans doesn’t mean that trans people don’t exist, it means that some people are getting badly burned by the ideology. It won’t hurt trans people to be honest about that.

                      I’d suggesting not using war analogies. When I say there is gender/sex war, I’m not making an analogy. I’m saying there is an actual massive, largely two side conflict that is intent on fighting to gain rights. You can call it a right instead, but the ‘no debate’ position (largely promoted by Stonewall UK afaik) is why it’s a war. We could have been having a discussion all this time instead of the bloody battles.

                      You’re the one framing trans people as deviants there, not me. I certainly don’t think they are.

                      As for the whole not really woman thing, this tells me more than anything that you simply don’t know the GCF position. Women, as females, aren’t an identity. It’s just biology, an observable phenomenon. I can’t say that NCW women aren’t realy women, anymore than I can say that the sky is green or gravity doesn’t exist or that cats that don’t climb trees aren’t really cats. It’s a nonsense (and frankly offensive).

                      There is a conflict within feminism over women’s rights and the sex/gender war. That’s women’s business as far as I’m concerned.

        • Anker 8.1.1.2
          26 June 2021 at 2:27 pm
          • 100% agree Mika re gender critical women speaking up .

          you only have to look at recent cases in the UK

          Maya Forstator, who lost her job for saying that biological sex matters and that she didn’t supported gender ID. She said this on her personal Twitter account.

          she had to go to the court of appeal to have the employment tribunals decision overturned. This took 2 years. Her words were not hateful in any way. But if our law change allows people to say they are offended, for example by gender critical views, these sorts of comments could be deemed hate speech.

          a law student in Scotland, Lisa Keoghan was investigated by Abertay University for saying women have vaginas and are not as strong as men, after complaints about this was offensive by fellow students. Lisa had argued that it was not fair women should have to compete against trans women in sports………some of her fellow students were offended, so where would this sit under the proposed changes to legislation?

          Harry Miller an ex cop had thepolice visit him at his work place and was put on a hate event register, which future employers could access. The event was in the context of of an on line discussion about gender self ID he posted a poem (someone else’s). Btw, I thought the poem was tasteless, but having the police turn up? The police were clear that he hadn’t written hate speech. He took Humberside police to court and won. The judge described Humberside polices actions as Orwellian.

          there are many more examples like this.

          and yes backing Weka, what are some of these examples of hate speech

          • Nic the NZer 8.1.1.2.1
            26 June 2021 at 6:28 pm

            The people who follow this ideology literally believe that societies power relations and hierarchy comes about through language. There is no real moral point around a lot of the areas of pushed for trans rights expansions. Its just about the change of language and the acquired ability to influence and shape the changes in codes and laws which results.

            • greywarshark 8.1.1.2.1.1
              27 June 2021 at 1:34 pm

              Looking at the body in the UK who have been promoted (at great expense) to control the language and actions of citizens, including government, who could be considered to be acting wrongly – under very wide-ranging legislation:

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_and_Human_Rights_Commission#Controversy

              It should be noted that these people are getting mouth-watering sums for their task. It therefore is likely to be a thorn in the side of anyone that they can point a finger at; there must be justification for their role, their appointment, and their emoluments.

              Also it should be noted that many people amongst the downtrodden are doing great work in helping people who are in need, and constantly are under-funded or receiving less each year because of government's attachment to the idea that things are improving, and all these helpful measures will soon be redundant. Hah.

              The wealthy are playing with us, we human units who haven't 'made it', don't conform to the requirements of po-faced people looking straight ahead to the goals that pull them like magnets, if they haven't just withdrawn into gated communities of self-satisfaction and good living.

  9. Stuart Munro 9
    26 June 2021 at 12:35 pm

    I agree Ad – my take was that any law should focus on harm and prevention – instead we have a dubious category thing that will protect rainbow sparkle ponies but not religion, or vice versa – without a mandate or a plausible public interest.

    Waste of time – and it will certainly offend someone without good cause. You'd think mature MPs would know better.

  10. Drowsy M. Kram 10
    26 June 2021 at 12:53 pm

    "Oppose this new hate speech bill"

    What bill?

    Protecting free speech and protecting people from hate speech will require careful consideration and a wide range of input, Faafoi said.

    Radhakrishnan said the programme had a broader reach than ethnicity and that others who feel marginalised were being included.

    She said the government wanted input from the public on how the programme can be forwarded.

    Public submissions open today [25 June] and close on 6 August. The government's discussion document includes steps on how to [make] submissions. [PDF]

    And, from that discussion document:

    Freedom of expression is an important value that this Government defends. It is enshrined in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, alongside freedom from discrimination. An aim of these proposals is to better protect these rights, including the rights of people who are the targets of hate speech to express themselves freely. The Bill of Rights Act allows for justifiable limits on rights, balanced against others’ rights and interests.

    These proposals seek to apply the incitement provisions more broadly to other groups that experience hate speech, such as religious groups and rainbow communities. The proposals do not lower the high threshold for criminalising speech or prevent public debate on important issues.

    Thanks Ad for drawing attention to the discussion document "Proposals against incitement of hatred and discrimination" [PDF] – we can all benefit from a greater awareness of, and involvement in the process of progressing any proposed amendment(s) to the Bill of Rights Act through to the Select Committee stage. Ngā mihi, DMK.

  11. Anker 11
    26 June 2021 at 1:10 pm
    • Speak up for women have been accused of being a hate group. Perhaps under the new law it would be enough for anybody to claim such and then individuals within that group would be charged under the new law (although it seems maybe gender identity is not going to be protected under the new law)??)
    • Btw as I posted last night, Speak up for women took two councils to court (having been cancelled by 4 councils and they won their case.
    • the judge was very clear that SUFW isn’t a hate group and that Palmerston North council had significantly failed in terms of meeting its free speech obligations
    • greywarshark 11.1
      27 June 2021 at 1:17 pm

      Good to hear about Anker. We had one of our newest and youngest city councillors saying that he was more than deeply upset at the women being able to say how they felt at having their identity subsumed by Johnny come latelys at will. And the local hall wasn't put out of bounds to this group of what some might have called 'harpies or witches' in another century.

      Schopenhauer on the will of humans.

      Schopenhauer's philosophy holds that all nature, including man, is the expression of an insatiable will. It is through the will, the in-itself of all existence, that humans find all their suffering. Desire for more is what causes this suffering. The World as Will and Representation – Wikipedia

      https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › The_World_as_Will_a.

  12. RedLogix 12
    26 June 2021 at 2:29 pm

    Great post Ad. Your writing is perhaps the main reason I still return here despite many other demands on my time at present.

    On reflection I'm prompted by the link between the ChCh massacre and this legislation to recall the old legal adage that " bad cases make for bad laws".

  13. Incognito 13
    26 June 2021 at 3:45 pm

    The Criminal Court of Justice should be the last resort, when all avenues and measures have failed (AKA the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff or the gravedigger in the cemetery). Last thing we need is to become a society ruled by litigation or fear of litigation – suffice to say that the poor tend to lose most. Don’t ever forget that in NZ the politicians are the Legislature, i.e. the lawmakers, and they can make good and bad law.

    The Court of Law is not the place to decide ethical-moral issues. These need to be debated and decided in the public area (NB not arena as it is not a fight to the death nor bread & circuses) and in public fora such as this site. These decisions are not verdicts, not set in stone, but snapshots and under continuous review and subject to change. They are the mores and, as such, time- and place-bound.

    As I see it, Law defines the boundaries, although these can be fuzzy. What happens within the confines of these boundaries is what this is or should be about.

    We seem to avoid public debate at all cost (…) and end up with unworkable, inflexible laws or poorly working ones with an awful lot of finger-pointing, blaming, and washing our collective hands off it. We go for the ‘nuclear’ option in 2 seconds flat, which is rather ironic.

    If we want a better society, we have to step up and do the mahi, 24/7. I don’t think we’re ready for this yet and we’re missing a few important tools to help us get there, if this is our collective wish and desire. Time will tell and I cannot predict the future, so I won’t hazard a guess.

  14. McFlock 14
    26 June 2021 at 3:50 pm

    I'll look at the actual bill before I judge.
    Chch couldn't have happened without guns, but nor could it have happened without the arsehole.

    And what it exposed was that he had local supporters who had been parading their hate on the side of vans. He might not have ever spoken to them, but they were still his supporters.

    I'm not saying that the NZ-created channels that had content pulled by youtube all would all come under this new law, but they are all currently legal. A nice little community of hatemongers who have their little rallies. And then if some random thug commits a hate crime after that rally, it's got nothing to do with the people who organised the rally, or created the local web content.

    So maybe there is a wee gap in our public protection that a new law can fill. The penalty for failure is high, but so is the penalty for inactivity.

    • weka 14.1
      26 June 2021 at 5:39 pm

      Wasn’t Nazi van dude arrested and put in prison? Under existing legislation. So less a legislative issue than a cultural

      • Drowsy M. Kram 14.1.1
        26 June 2021 at 5:54 pm

        Maybe aspirational, like "the 2007 anti-smacking legislation"? Not popular at the time.

        New Zealand prohibits “inciting racial disharmony” under the Human Rights Act 1993. Section 61 makes it unlawful to publish or distribute “words which are threatening, abusive, or insulting” or “likely to excite hostility against or bring into contempt any group of persons … on the ground of the colour, race, or ethnic or national origins, disability, age, political opinion, employment status, family status, and sexual orientation.” Section 131 (Inciting Racial Disharmony) lists offences for which “racial disharmony” creates liability.[58] However under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 New Zealanders are free “to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.”
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_by_country

        • Poission 14.1.1.1
          26 June 2021 at 6:00 pm

          Which done nothing to constrain violent extremism against children.

          https://www.childmatters.org.nz/insights/nz-statistics/

          • Drowsy M. Kram 14.1.1.1.1
            26 June 2021 at 6:23 pm

            Sure, not a magic bullet; not for everyone. But "aspirational" – progressive even.

            Number of parents smacking children drops by half in 15 years

            Researchers found minor assaults against children reduced over that time by almost half, from 77 percent to 42 percent.

            Severe assaults decreased by two-thirds, from 12 percent

            In 2007, the anti-smacking law came into effect but researcher Geraldine McLeod said it was difficult to say whether it was a big factor in the decline.

            Over the study period, views around the acceptability of physical punishment have changed as well, McLeod said.

            Would be interesting to research whether the introduction of the 'anti-smacking law', including the often heated public debates before and after, has contributed to changing the "views around the acceptability of physical punishment".

            Physical Abuse
            Physical abuse can be caused from punching, beating, kicking, shaking, biting, burning or throwing the child. Physical abuse may also result from excessive or inappropriate discipline or violence within the family, and is considered abuse regardless of whether or not it was intended to hurt the child. Physical abuse may be the result of a single episode or of a series of episodes.
            https://www.childmatters.org.nz

      • McFlock 14.1.2
        26 June 2021 at 6:02 pm

        Not for the van or the rallies or even any of his language in court, from what I can find.

        He literally had to share murder video to break a law.

        And he's NZ's only ~adjacent fuckwit. So I'm not sure complacency is an option.

          • McFlock 14.1.2.1.1
            26 June 2021 at 6:14 pm

            So we should wait until a NZ nazi does something in NZ? Is that the point?

            • Poission 14.1.2.1.1.1
              26 June 2021 at 6:25 pm

              Formulate policy to constrain concrete problems,not ideal goods (to use Popper) and to cite Popper "Utopian ideals are the most dangerous as they lead to Erewhon"

            • Foreign waka 14.1.2.1.1.2
              28 June 2021 at 2:20 am

              The gangs up and down the country wont allow another power group to steal their terretory of violence, rape and murder. They flaunt breaching the law and nothing happens. But yet, there are groups of people who would gladly lynch others whose conviction is that, there are only two genders. Go figure.

              • McFlock …
                28 June 2021 at 12:42 pm

                Again, does the existence of gangs mean we should wait until a massacre is committed by a NZ nazi before doing anything about nazi-adjacent rhetoric?

        • weka 14.1.2.2
          26 June 2021 at 6:52 pm

          so the van thing isn't covered by existing law? Or no-one acted on it?

          • McFlock 14.1.2.2.1
            26 June 2021 at 9:00 pm

            Not even sure it would be covered by a new law.

            But it deserves looking at before I start clutching my pearls of freedom.

            • Incognito 14.1.2.2.1.1
              26 June 2021 at 9:16 pm

              It didn’t deter his customers, it seems, which is quite telling.

              • McFlock …
                26 June 2021 at 9:51 pm

                If they knew all the symbols.

                The sun-thingy logo looks pretty. $14.88/m is a good price. Few other things like that. Put it all together and it's a goddamned nazi billboard way beyond the odds of coincidence, if you can read the symbols.

                That's why the internet works so well for them – the wee winks and nudges meet all the different folk in their basements. On the side of a van it was local numbers. On the internet, they end up killing people.

        • weka 14.1.2.3
          26 June 2021 at 6:55 pm

          the language he used in court is a good real life example upon which to look at the proposed law. Do you think what he said should be a criminal offence under the proposed law?

          • McFlock 14.1.2.3.1
            26 June 2021 at 8:59 pm

            I think it already is – offensive language.

            But that's a piss-all penalty not worth pursuing through the courts in most instances.

            Something along the lines of what he said, with the ~adjacent icing on the word-cake? I wouldn't be opposed to a less-than-token penalty for that.

            • weka 14.1.2.3.1.1
              26 June 2021 at 9:18 pm

              I get the feeling he was urging the judge on to go hard (Dickhead), so yeah, a fine wouldn't have been a deterrent. But it might make his workmates think twice if it was being used.

              • McFlock …
                26 June 2021 at 9:31 pm

                They'll get a collection up to pay the fine. Probably make money on the deal.

                • weka …
                  26 June 2021 at 10:54 pm

                  it's always about the people not fully radicalised. Those are the ones to convince otherwise.

                  • McFlock …
                    26 June 2021 at 11:06 pm

                    It's also about getting them on record and establishing datapoints for the people who should be watching these groups.

                    • weka …
                      26 June 2021 at 11:07 pm

                      sorry, what is?

                    • McFlock …
                      26 June 2021 at 11:28 pm

                      Charges. That is the other point to having a distinct offence.

                      There are some very good ~adjacent-watchers in Aus who can pick through a photo of some right-wing talker, pointing out the various people in the audience or as part of the speaker's protectors, and listing their records.

                      A conviction for hate speech sums up the crowd quicker than one for offensive language.

            • Populuxe1 14.1.2.3.1.2
              28 June 2021 at 11:41 pm

              I think it was probably more contempt of court, which is a bit stiffer

        • Gabby 14.1.2.4
          27 June 2021 at 10:53 am

          So that little swung dash and the word adjacent mean something do they?

          • McFlock 14.1.2.4.1
            27 June 2021 at 3:50 pm

            Sorry, yeah. I adopted it when people started debating the semantics of whether someone in a torchlight parade chanting about "replacement" were actual nazis or white supremacists, or ticked every single box to qualify for the term "fascist".

            I don't cared about the semantic debate, they're damned close to either term. Hence "~adjacent": nazi-adjacent, fascist-adjacent, etc. Some dictionaries often use the same symbol (or a plain hyphen) to show different uses of suffix/prefix words or phrases.

            oh, and "~" is called a "tilde". fun typography fact 🙂

            • Gabby 14.1.2.4.1.1
              27 June 2021 at 5:07 pm

              Fun double pedantry, it's a swung dash when punctuating and a tilde when an accent.

            • weka 14.1.2.4.1.2
              27 June 2021 at 5:40 pm

              you wouldn't call Nazi van dude a Nazi?

              • McFlock …
                27 June 2021 at 6:07 pm

                I would.

                And then someone eventually will wander by and start a massive semantic digression about whether the dude was a card-carrying member of the NSDAP (pretty sure that argument was on TS, can't find it though). Or put quote marks around the word when calling him a Nazi, like he's not really a nazi but that's what others call him.

                Either way, a derail.

                • weka …
                  27 June 2021 at 6:19 pm

                  good move then.

                  • McFlock …
                    27 June 2021 at 8:33 pm

                    The idea was in the right direction. Obviously I'll have to tweak it as some folk obviously don't know the context so it looks random.

                    Surprised all that was so long ago. Feels more recent. Ever since lockdown my internal calendar has been complete bullshit – probably a combination of "before covid appeared / after covid appeared" and just getting older lol.

    • Sabine 14.2
      27 June 2021 at 9:24 am

      and CHCH is also the poster child for the total failure of the police and surveillance apperatus in this country.

      the guy was here legally

      the guy obtained his guns legally

      the guy was a lawful gun owner, until he started killing. And all that was never ever captured by the Police or the surveillance state.

      i doubt that any hate speech laws would prevent another such event from happening if the police and the surveillance state is again asleep at the wheel.

  15. Muttonbird 15
    26 June 2021 at 4:54 pm

    Facts are, along with the good, social media, radicalises, antagonises and makes some more dangerously and belligerently isolated.

    Society has been found wanting in identifying dangerous people and in some cases do nothing but encourage them. No one called the Christchurch murderer out.

    So, where society failed, legislation must step in.

    • Foreign waka 15.1
      27 June 2021 at 4:16 pm

      This can only be after the fact surely, otherwise you propose a police state?

      • Muttonbird 15.1.1
        27 June 2021 at 5:09 pm

        My point is that advocates of the status quo believe we are self regulating enough as a society to prevent atrocities happening.

        Well, we are clearly not. In the case of the Christchurch massacre it was depraved islamophobia. This was the top of a pyramid, the base of which is casual but active racism. The type of thing you would see several times a day on Kiwiblog before, immediately after Christchurch, they had to bring in pre-moderation to make sure none of their user's darker thoughts made it into cyberspace.

        With premod across the board, Kiwiblog itself has brought in these hate speech laws of the own accord but there is no law to say they couldn't revert to their old ways.

        This legislation seems to introduce the idea that the new purveyors and conduits of opinion must take a role in ensuring that opinion is not hateful.

        I want to also make the point the The Standard has not made pre-moderation mandatory and I think that reflects very well on its membership…as opposed to Kiwiblog which had to do a massive purge.

  16. Anker 16
    26 June 2021 at 4:59 pm

    quick question Muttonbird. Did the Chch terrorist give any hints to anyone he was ult right? Did he post or publish anything? Genuine question.

  17. Nic the NZer 17
    26 June 2021 at 6:15 pm

    A lot of the issues in Canada appear to be down to amateur application of the new legislation. Unfortunately the notion of what constitutes hate speach is quite problematic to interpret consistently.

  18. RedBaronCV 18
    26 June 2021 at 6:16 pm

    Well there goes talk back radio! And we would no longer be able to comment in any negative way about Gloriavale or Destiny church? Nor am I too happy about protecting religion – most fundamentalist branches of all types of religion seem to have as a first principle the suppression of women and their rights. OTOH I assume one would no longer be able to sledge solo parents and beneficiaries? I could see a hard right wing loving this as they would be able to use this against their perceived enemies. Be careful what you wish for here.

    I'll read it up but my strong inclination is "no" particularly the religion bit. We have already had cops taking names at a roadblock and being visited by the Police after a euthanasia meeting. Not that they should of course.

    And all this from a government that can't be bothered criminalising the internet sharing of intimate photo's without consent of all parties or criminalising the deliberate sharing of protected data ( e.g health) leaving affected parties trying to prove some form of "harm".

    Women vote on the left heavily but looking at this government they seem far more interested in measures not supported by women or which look high on the list to actvely harm them.

    • Mika 18.1
      26 June 2021 at 7:21 pm

      Women vote on the left heavily but looking at this government they seem far more interested in measures not supported by women or which look high on the list to actvely harm them.

      I quite agree. I'm a Labour Party member and I campaigned hard for the 2017 & 2020 elections. I feel so betrayed by the way our Labour government is undermining our interests as women. Where is this wholesale capitulation to gender identity theory coming from, because it has nothing to do with socialism, or even social democracy?

      • RedBaronCV 18.1.1
        26 June 2021 at 9:15 pm

        Yeah I didn't do so much here on the ground last time but my donations are going down. Think I'll focus them on the more balanced individuals. The Greens seem to have become a bit of a collection of grievance groups and I wonder if the way the party operates means that it can be taken hostage by relatively small groups fairly easily on some policy matters.

        But here in the Wellington Central and Rongotai electorates (Nat vote for the last decade about 25%) most of the Labour and Greens councillors have just dumped pretty heavily on their electors despite widespread public engagement that brought up a great number of viable solutions to the problems – solutions which have been totally ignored. It might have put my house value up by another half a million but it's a property developer dream that enshrines renting not ownership and is actually breaking up existing communities.

        So how do we get listened to.

        • weka 18.1.1.1
          26 June 2021 at 10:57 pm

          the gender/sex war aside, the Greens' internal policy development process seems relatively robust in terms of democracy. Never quite clear what the relationship between the GP and green councillors is though, that's a different kete of ika.

          One of the reasons I write for TS is because it's another space where things can be debated.

          • RedBaronCV 18.1.1.1.1
            26 June 2021 at 11:35 pm

            Part of the trouble with some of their policy though is that when it gets huge dollars attached to it (cycling bridge for "not their voters") it hasn't road tested well in the wider community. They were lucky to survive their CGT policy at the last election although there are a number of less contentious but probably equally as good or better initiatives that could have come though.

            But we do need a green policy – and they look like they need to do the work to identify the best use of resources – not rely on sound bites.

            • greywarshark 18.1.1.1.1.1
              27 June 2021 at 1:05 pm

              From Mika above – Where is this wholesale capitulation to gender identity theory coming from, because it has nothing to do with socialism, or even social democracy?

              I think it is a side-issue brought forward because it is current and capturing attention and apparently caring, because Labour does not want to tackle the real issues of housing and child poverty and insufficient planning for the CC and tech future effects. These they must take for consideration. to the wealthy and middle class elite which own Labour.

              • Mika …
                27 June 2021 at 2:40 pm

                Hmm, I'm more cynical. It's hard to imagine a social movement that would be more likely to destroy the left than gender identity theory. What is it doing in our movements and parties? Who benefits from this is the question?

                • greywarshark …
                  27 June 2021 at 3:57 pm

                  Who benefits – who is behind those doing the pushing – what is their zeitgeist from setting doubts in our heads as to whether we are Arthur or Martha? Eddie Izzard for instance, has decided female, but he has been thinking about his gender direction for decades. Young people have always been malleable and through the internet have formed into a hugely suggestible mass.

                  • Forget now …
                    27 June 2021 at 4:20 pm

                    And yet it is the Woman's Liberation Front (WoLF) and their ilk who are all too willing to side with, and receive funding from, the Heritage Foundation.

                    How about those who share your trans-exclusionary objectives (if not intentions): The Republican party in the USA, Orban in Hungary, Putin in Russia – do none of you take a look around sometimes and ask yourselves the question of; who is using you, and to what ends?

                    • weka …
                      27 June 2021 at 5:30 pm

                      not sure why that comment got caught in the filter.

                    • Incognito []
                      27 June 2021 at 9:52 pm

                      It’s just a precaution and it’s not a very recent change; see Pre-Mod list.

                    • greywarshark …
                      27 June 2021 at 8:58 pm

                      Forget now – do you? do none of you take a look around sometimes and ask yourselves the question of; who is using you, and to what ends?

                      It is not clear who you are referring to here – your trans-exclusionary objectives. It is a confusing situation – this identity movement, and terms get thrown around. One needs to know whether is is meant to be insulting or not.

      • Foreign waka 18.1.2
        28 June 2021 at 2:34 am

        Reset is the keyword.

    • SPC 18.2
      27 June 2021 at 12:59 am

      Except there is a bill before parliament at the moment – digital harm – Louisa Wall.

      • RedBaronCV 18.2.1
        27 June 2021 at 1:17 am

        As far as I can see a private members bill in the name of Louisa Wall that was drawn by ballot. Which says even more about Labour's commitment to issues that harm women – they don't care enough to do anything about it at all. You women just got lucky in the ballot -so thanks Louisa for being one of a kind.

        And FWIW I don't think there should be any sharing of digital images without informed consent of the people in the photo. That includes promo, streetscapes, office parties the lot. Facial recognition is here and it's very big brother.

        • McFlock 18.2.1.1
          27 June 2021 at 2:13 am

          that seems bad for the news industry, for a start. "Riots, but we can't show them because we don't have permission from everyone on camera".

          • RedBaronCV 18.2.1.1.1
            27 June 2021 at 12:05 pm

            Face Blur?

            • McFlock 18.2.1.1.1.1
              27 June 2021 at 3:41 pm

              matched against a permission list for every single shot? E.g. mps in the lobby?

              And sometimes the news is about who happens to be somewhere even when they don't want to be identified. Consider the UK health secretary getting caught on camera breaking isolation rules (with his tongue), or our own David Clark being filmed by a rando doing his cycle thing?

              Randos don't always have face-blurring tech, and besides that would defeat the purpose because all the news would see is a blurry outline and a promise that the person is the minister for health. Whereas unblurred footage lets you see who exactly they are.

              • RedBaronCV …
                27 June 2021 at 8:29 pm

                Okay I'll modify. People going about their lawful private business in a public or private space.

                • McFlock …
                  28 June 2021 at 12:45 pm

                  What if it's in the public interest to know that, say, an MP who advocates for less tobacco control is meeting regularly with a tobacco company exec? Lawful, private… but maybe still in the public interest?

  19. Patricia Bremner 19
    26 June 2021 at 7:35 pm

    Ad this has caused great discussion, and I hope interested parties read the views expressed. Perhaps this is what is needed? More consideration of the problems before any legislation is promoted.

  20. peter sim 20
    26 June 2021 at 8:50 pm

    No legislation has been promoted.

    advantage and JC(ollins) are omniscient, as usual.

    Saturday can be a dull day on the net.

    No legislation has been put up. No public consultation on proposed legislation has been announced.

    Why the chatter?

    • Incognito 20.1
      26 June 2021 at 9:07 pm

      Incorrect

      Submissions are open from 25 June 2021 to 6 August 2021.

      https://www.justice.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Publications/Incitement-Discussion-Document.pdf [pg. 6]

      • Forget now 20.1.1
        27 June 2021 at 10:57 am

        That document has certainly incited discussion, just a shame so much of it is off topic to its purposes.

        I personally would have thought that there'd be more discussion that under the current proposal 3, being convicted of the expanded incitement of hatred offence would bar the perpetrator from running for parliament:

        Proposal Three: Increase the punishment for the criminal offence to better reflect its seriousness. This would be changed from up to three months’ imprisonment or a fine of up to $7,000, to up to three years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to $50,000.

        ***

        The seat of any member of Parliament shall become vacant…

        if he or she is convicted of an offence punishable by imprisonment for life or by 2 or more years’ imprisonment

        https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0087/latest

        That second quote is from the Vacancies section of the Electoral Act (55, 1, d), which seems relevant, and I couldn't find anything more directly about disqualification of candidates. In any case, that seems to be a problematic outcome to me.

        The obvious solution would be to drop the maximum imprisonment term to 23 months & 29 days or less. Though now that I'm typing, it strikes me that having the 3year sentence for persistent offending might be justifiable if there was a lesser sentence for first and second offences. National and ACT just love their 3strikes laws, so surely they'd support that !

        • Incognito 20.1.1.1
          27 June 2021 at 11:43 am

          Many of the response I’ve seen so far are more reflexive than reflective and the convo reflects this. I wonder how many will make a constructive submission by the 6th of August.

          • greywarshark 20.1.1.1.1
            27 June 2021 at 12:55 pm

            peter sim – Has an avatar arisen from sim city? It's a good learning place about elements of town planning and our nation could do with everyone being getting time to play it on computers at a workshop for those wanting to be participatory citizens. But the philosophical side of society, which is at the base of how to treat and react to each other, no.

          • Anne 20.1.1.1.2
            27 June 2021 at 1:04 pm

            I will be looking into the possibility of making a submission based on my past experiences. However it is difficult due to the nature of the case.

            Imo, the current system of justice in this country is seriously out of whack. For decades individuals who have threatened and persecuted other individuals have been getting off scot-free. The law is so weak in this area that many hundreds of victims never saw justice and likely never will. What we get to hear about in news bulletins is only the tip of the iceberg.

            Even when a case does manage to be heard by way of a court or news story, the culprits are invariably not named so that no-one knows who they are. That allows them to do it all over again further down the track.

            It is an indictment on NZ's piss-poor justice system that this situation still exists despite the fact we are supposed to be living in enlightened times.

            • Incognito 20.1.1.1.2.1
              27 June 2021 at 1:38 pm

              Good on you, Anne. A good submission takes time and effort, and for some, emotional labour.

              You touch on a good point, which is that shifting all the heavy lifting to the justice system is asking for drowning in quicksand. Just like so many other Ministries, Agencies, Departments, and so on, it is swamped and stretched beyond capacity.

              As an example, close to my heart:

              The promised review of the Official Information Act (OIA) is one of eight projects deferred by an overloaded Ministry of Justice policy team, documents show.

              https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/124553308/official-information-act-review-deferred-because-of-justice-ministry-policy-work-overload

              They just don’t have the bandwidth to deal with all these things at the same time in an adequate way, so things, important things, are deferred and delayed and possibly even cancelled.

              Personally, I think it fits with the Left’s authoritarian tendencies to shift (too) much power and control to the State and over-centralise this.

            • Forget now 20.1.1.1.2.2
              27 June 2021 at 2:04 pm

              This quote from the Royal Commission in the Cabinet notes stands out to me:

              …hate speech is anathema to social cohesion. Preventing the incitement of hatred is aimed towards making people feel safe.

              It is up to the members of the public, who can be bothered making a submission, to judge how close these proposals came to the target for which they aimed. Though I reckon they'll mostly be tallying up submissions into predetermined categories, based on the feedback discussion points at the end of the proposal questions in the (pdf) discussion document. So it might not be worth your while to go too far from those topics, let alone mention personal details that might make you an easy target for opponents.

              To me it boils down to a few apparently simple questions:

              • Should NZ comply with the The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)? Or should we withdraw from it?
              • Should we do the bare minimum to technically comply with the ICCCPR? Or should we extend protection against incitement to discrimination to all Aotearoans prohibited from discrimination in the HRA? (extending s131 incitement protections to those groups in; HRA s21, 1, a-m)
              • As the legal status of trans Aotearoans is unclear, should they be included in HRA act protection? (gender discrimination prohibition as; HRA s21, 1, n)
              • What punishment is appropriate for those don't abide by the prohibition on inciting hatred? Is removing their opportunity of running for public office just? In what circumstances?

              Or maybe not so simple after all.

            • SPC 20.1.1.1.2.3
              27 June 2021 at 6:33 pm

              The irony being is that many individuals are targeted for the same reasons and sometimes by the same people, but unless there is evidence of a group profile being the reason there is no real protection in law, and not this proposed law either.

              In some of those cases, media publicity allows people to come together and make a more compelling case – which resulted in belated court action in the Times Up Me Too area and more recently Dilworth school etc.

              • Anne …
                27 June 2021 at 7:06 pm

                The irony being is that many individuals are targeted for the same reasons and sometimes by the same people,

                Spot on SPC and insightful.

                It doesn't necessarily follow they belong to the same political or social class. It can also be for reasons concerning an event where a formerly influential group wished to ensure the truth would never see the light of day.

                You are right. There is no protection for those affected especially when the net was cast far and wide and the targets were not always known to one another. And yes, the new proposals do not cover the circumstance.

                However the initial link in my case can be summed up under one surname – Muldoon.

        • Sacha 20.1.1.2
          27 June 2021 at 1:28 pm

          being convicted of the expanded incitement of hatred offence would bar the perpetrator from running for parliament

          Given the likely threshold for a conviction, I have no problem with banning such offenders from office. Might be a good way to prevent neonazis while lowering the MMP party % limit further.

        • Populuxe1 20.1.1.3
          28 June 2021 at 10:12 pm

          I can think of a couple of Green MPs who might regret chanting certain things at a Palestine Peace rally in that context.

  21. RedBaronCV 21
    26 June 2021 at 9:36 pm

    Maybe we could say that it can be done in person like it used to be at a speakers corner. Anybody with a grievance could use a well aimed tomato.

    • weston 21.1
      26 June 2021 at 11:16 pm

      Exactly RB or a rotten egg etc .I think its bad for society to have TOO many controls because we all need to vent occasionally in fact i,d like us to adopt the practise of an asian country , cant remember which one that has one day a year where the kids have a right to waterbomb anyone they like reguardless of who they might inconvienience or piss off theres a vid of it on yt looks hilarious loads of fun on a hot day .I pity also the poor buggers that have to read the thousands of submissions to the bill their heads will be throbbing about ten minutes in i reckon !

    • Ad 21.2
      27 June 2021 at 11:19 am

      You say tomato, they say to martyr

  22. RedBaronCV 22
    26 June 2021 at 9:42 pm

    There is also a social cohesive aim. Not sure where that is going to go.

  23. RedBaronCV 23
    26 June 2021 at 11:27 pm

    I thought the link below was interesting – using novels to predict conflict up to 5 years in advance. Maybe we should be looking at these outbursts/speech more deeply to predict future flashpoints. No matter what we think of some of these statements they represent a belief or underlying grievance that is the fuel. Do we need to pay more attention ( not appease) to what conditions have caused these people to fall away from society rather than just shrugging them off. And no I am not supporting the violent acting out of them, We want to catch and neutralise this at the speech stage not just send it underground.

    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jun/26/project-cassandra-plan-to-use-novels-to-predict-next-war

  24. weka 24
    27 June 2021 at 11:24 am

    Ok here’s an example for the pro-hate legislation people. Photo on left is a screenshot from a tweet by the trans person who took the photo. It’s of a sign at the Trans Pride parade in London. Should the original tweet be a criminal offence? How about the sign at the parade?

    For context, JK Rowling has publicly spoken about women’s sex based rights. As a feminist. In the gender/sex war, threats of violence against gender critical people by trans activists are overwhelmingly done to women.

    https://twitter.com/blablafishcakes/status/1408791892700151819

    Edit: that account is currently locked. The tweet showed a sign at the Trans Pride parade saying #KillJKRowling.

    • RedLogix 24.1
      27 June 2021 at 11:38 am

      Yes. The first one is an open and shut incitement to kill.

      The second one in the parade probably wouldn't stand up on it's own in a Court, but might well support a conviction if it could be shown to be part of a wider pattern of behaviour to incite violence.

      Both are totally fucked.

      • Sacha 24.1.1
        28 June 2021 at 2:23 pm

        And both are directed at a named individual, not a group of people – therefore not hate speech. Other laws apply.

    • Anker 24.2
      27 June 2021 at 2:09 pm

      Thanks Weks. I couldn’t open Twitter as I am not on it. But can well imagine it. I have seen a lot of the hate towards “terfs” on the net. The hate and the shut down of debate is what first got me following this particular issue. Before this I had no issue with transgender people. Still don’t but it is the demands for compliance to the ideology, else your accused of being trans phobic. I have since read a lot about the issues and have great concerns about 12 years been given puberty blockers when there is no good evidence they work and 16 year old girls been given full mastectomies and at 18 years old hysterectomies.
      SUFW have been labeled a hate group but their Opponents to shut debate down.
      anyway back to the topic. I am very concerned that gender critical views would be labeled hate speech. This would effectively shut down women’s voices who are gender critical. Rather than shut down people who attacked J K Rowling, an open debate is better. Stonewall up till ver recently has effectively silenced women. Let’s not give the state any further powers

      • Incognito 24.2.1
        27 June 2021 at 2:25 pm

        It appears that the account owner has changed their settings on Twitter; I cannot access it any longer either [I’m not on Twitter either but this shouldn’t matter].

      • weka 24.2.3
        27 June 2021 at 5:24 pm

        you can click on the date and or the image link and see the photo without an account, but as Incog said, the tweet is now hidden.

        It's not trans people that are the problem, it's trans activists and the trans-ideology movement. A lot of misogyny happening.

        The UK GCFs have made progress. Twitter got hauled up in front of parliament to explain why they were letting violent images of the kill terf kind be directed at women. It's worth tracking down the audio of that if you have the time. Twitter have since amended their policy, and pretty much every tweet like that that I report now gets removed. There's a whole post in why twitter had to be told to do this by a government.

        A number of court cases have set precedents. Maya Forstater's appeal around her firing is very important because not only did the judge say she shouldn't have been fired, but he said that her views were worthy of protection under UK freedom of expression law.

        Harry Miller who got arrested for tweeting a rude and somewhat offensive limerick about trans people won his case, I haven't read the details but its easy enough to find online. I would have moderated him on TS, but as Ad points out in the post, this is where intervention should be happening, not via the courts. The thing that stands out for feminists is that women get *routinely subjected to much worse, and society basically doesn't give a shit. That's worth thinking about too.

        The university that deplatformed two GCF university professors did an internal review that found in favour of the professors. This is huge because the attacks on GCF academics has been the forefront of the suppression of debate.

        SUFW's win the other day is promising, including that the judge said they're not a hate group. Problem is that they've allied with the right, because the attacks from the left have been intense. TERFS is trending on twitter tonight because there's a public meeting in Auckland to discuss the self ID bill.

        I'm not writing posts yet on TS, basically out of self preservation.

        Sorry if you know all this, I think it's worth laying out for other readers.

        • weka 24.2.3.1
          27 June 2021 at 5:28 pm

          Oh, and major trans activist org Stonewall in the UK is in free fall as multiple organisations pull out of its diversity approval programme after finding out SW have been lying about UK legislation around single sex spaces (SW want single sex spaces removed from law). GCFs have been pointing out the lies for years. Finally got through I guess. Some of the UK women MPs have been staunch in defending women's rights.

          • Forget now 24.2.3.1.1
            27 June 2021 at 11:55 pm

            I'd be more convinced if I saw someone holding the Kill JKR placard during the march there Weka (the rot in hell one seemed less offensive, though still not what I would chose to brandish). But individual placards do not demonstrate that the march generally was in favour of these messages, let alone trans Aotearoans.

            As for Stonewall, the last I saw was one (of 14) founder Parris wanting to focus more on the LGB than the T+ part of the community:

            Dissenters point out that LGB and T causes have long been entwined, with the trans activists Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson having been important figures in the gay rights scene at the time of the 1969 New York uprising from which Stonewall derived its name…

            others suggesting employers were leaving the Diversity Champions programme because of disquiet over its transgender inclusion training. The Telegraph reported that six public-sector organisations had left out of about 850 members listed on Stonewall’s website, although those exits were since 2019 and none had publicly cited the issue of trans rights as motivation for leaving.

            https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jun/05/stonewall-trans-debate-toxic-gender-identity

            But yeah, tomorrow is the 52nd anniversary of Stonewall riots (actually from about 1:20am so only a couple of hours now), so it'd be nice if you could tone back the rhetoric a bit for that. Even if this is the world some might want trans people to return to, tomorrow is not the best day to say so:

            During a typical raid, the lights were turned on and customers were lined up and their identification cards checked. Those without identification or dressed in full drag were arrested; others were allowed to leave. Some of the men, including those in drag, used their draft cards as identification. Women were required to wear three pieces of feminine clothing and would be arrested if found not wearing them.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots

            • weka 24.2.3.1.1.1
              28 June 2021 at 1:52 pm

              I’d be more convinced if I saw someone holding the Kill JKR placard during the march there Weka (the rot in hell one seemed less offensive, though still not what I would chose to brandish). But individual placards do not demonstrate that the march generally was in favour of these messages, let alone trans Aotearoans.

              The #killJKRowling sign belonged to a trans person, who presumably put it on the ground to take the photo they then posted on their twitter. When I looked yesterday they’d locked their account so I can’t link to it. Might be able to find a screen shot if it was important.

              Agree not about NZ, it was London. But we’re not talking about general NZ, we’re talking about where the limits of the proposed legislation should be. I’d be just as happy to talk about the issue if that was an anti-trans placard (this just happened to show up in my twitter feed while I was thinking about the post). It’s also common on twitter to see trans activists post violent comments at GCFs, including sexually violent ones. Whether this will become common in NZ I don’t know, but again, where should the boundaries be?

              As for Stonewall, the last I saw was one (of 14) founder Parris wanting to focus more on the LGB than the T+ part of the community:
              Dissenters point out that LGB and T causes have long been entwined, with the trans activists Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson having been important figures in the gay rights scene at the time of the 1969 New York uprising from which Stonewall derived its name…

              The problem isn’t LGBT+, it’s the suppressive and aggressive reaction when some LGB people stood up and formed their own orgs. Based around sexual orientation without reference to gender ID. The inference being that they *have to included trans or else.

              others suggesting employers were leaving the Diversity Champions programme because of disquiet over its transgender inclusion training. The Telegraph reported that six public-sector organisations had left out of about 850 members listed on Stonewall’s website, although those exits were since 2019 and none had publicly cited the issue of trans rights as motivation for leaving.
              https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jun/05/stonewall-trans-debate-toxic-gender-identity

              The UK Equality and Human Rights Commission left the scheme. It also supported freedom of expression in the Forstater case that found in Forstater’s favour (her GC beliefs are protected). And the investigation into deplatforming of professors at Essex Uni found that Stonewall had mislead the university over legal rights in its advice to them. It’s not hard to make the connections here and between Stonewall’s self-serving misrepresentation of equalities law.

              But yeah, tomorrow is the 52nd anniversary of Stonewall riots (actually from about 1:20am so only a couple of hours now), so it’d be nice if you could tone back the rhetoric a bit for that. Even if this is the world some might want trans people to return to, tomorrow is not the best day to say so:
              During a typical raid, the lights were turned on and customers were lined up and their identification cards checked. Those without identification or dressed in full drag were arrested; others were allowed to leave. Some of the men, including those in drag, used their draft cards as identification. Women were required to wear three pieces of feminine clothing and would be arrested if found not wearing them.
              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots

              Nope. Not least because if you are going to slur my beliefs in this conversation about this topic (hate speech) and use the Stonewall Riots to shut me up, I’ll talk louder. I’ve not see anyone in this debate on TS want a return to the 1960s culture that hated on gay, lesbian and trans people, what are you even on about there?

              Also, Trans activists don’t own Stonewall history, many of the LGB GC people in the UK, who have been at the forefront of the fight, are long time gay rights activists and have skin and blood in the game as well. There’s a prominant GC man on twitter who was at Stonewall ffs. Until TAs learn how to share this, there won’t be peace.

              There’s nothing I am saying here that runs counter to the liberation sought by the Stonewall rioters. The GCFs in the UK who I am following are left wing, many are lesbian and gay. I’ll stand up for their rights and I’ll stand up for trans people’s rights as much as anyone’s. I won’t shut up about women’s rights in the process. And I won’t accept my views being framed as regressive or anti trans.

              • Forget now …
                30 June 2021 at 11:32 am

                Didn't read this till Wednesday – been busy with more active things. Doesn't seem much point in continuing a days old thread. Especially since we're stretching the topic well beyond the OP (though arguably related to proposal 6 of discussion document).

                OM if anywhere. Even then; I'm not going to change your mind, you're not going to change mine. There's not lot of point to that either.

  25. RedBaronCV 25
    27 June 2021 at 1:16 pm

    Maybe we could use it against the banks who promote hate and derision against people who want to use on the ground banking rather than the fraud infested online banking options.

  26. Forget now 26
    27 June 2021 at 3:51 pm

    Only skimmed over this page previously, as it is specifically not relevant to the proposals that are under discussion, Now that I look at it though, I can see how people might be opposing these; which are not presently up for discussion, with what actually is under consideration:

    Related work not being consulted on in this document…

    • strengthening the capacity of the Human Rights Commission to respond to hate speech, racism and discrimination

    • Police-led work to accurately identify, record, report and respond to hate-related crime

    • Ministry of Justice work relating to hate crime

    • work to counter violent extremism and terrorism

    • changes to the definition of objectionable under the Films, Videos and Publications Classifications Act

    • the creation of the Ministry for Ethnic Communities to improve outcomes for ethnic communities

    • work on social cohesion

    • developing a National Action Plan Against Racism, and

    • work on strengthening resilience to mis- and disinformation.

    Which makes more sense now why O'Connell's petition was so passingly referred to in the Cabinet notes.

    https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-NZ/SCR_100039/f2bfd9b62e151787cabd88400f3c884417a16e23

  27. Gosman 27
    28 June 2021 at 12:46 pm

    I am unaware of any right leaning person who supports this proposed law change but I am aware of a number of left wing people (Martyn Bradbury, Chris Trotter, John Minto, etc) who oppose it.

    This raises a question of whether something so fundamental to our pluralistic society as free speech can be altered by a government simply because they have the majority in Parliament rather than seeking a broader support for any changes.

    • weka 27.1
      28 June 2021 at 1:03 pm

      I guess that is the point of putting the document out for debate and submissions.

      • Gosman 27.1.1
        28 June 2021 at 1:22 pm

        What is likely to happen (as we can already see) is that the proposed changes are going to be opposed by all the major right leaning political groups in the country. At which point would you not agree that the government should withdraw them as not having broad based support?

        • weka 27.1.1.1
          28 June 2021 at 1:25 pm

          I think there's going to be a fair amount of opposition across the political spectrum. I'm happy for now to see what debate comes from the document.

  28. Gosman 28
    28 June 2021 at 1:47 pm

    This is a good opinion piece from Tova O'Brien why the both Kris Faafoi and Jacinda Ardern have handled this very badly so far.

    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/06/tova-o-brien-jacinda-ardern-has-misled-the-public-and-shut-down-debate-on-hate-speech-laws.html

    • Muttonbird 29.1
      28 June 2021 at 11:29 pm

      The first link from the FSU:

      Meh. I don't understand tax law, but am forced to comply.

  30. RedBaronCV 30
    28 June 2021 at 10:05 pm

    Had some further thoughts about this and to date the protected classes are things that basically you are born with and can't really change. Skin colour, gender, ethnic group .

    I cogitated about allowing religion onto the list because basically it is a belief system like so many others that can be changed or dropped or swapped at any time. And how on earth do you define a "religion" Jedi Knights anyone? Remember the fun we had with the census question? Who gets to define what is a religion? Most definitions I can think of would apply equally to the supporters of a soccer club. As an aside I've always wondered if Stonehenge was an early Wembley soccer stadium.

    And how do we distinguish between between milder forms of a religion and the fundamentalist sects? Mainly because Fundies of any type of religion seem to be "very bad news" in wanting to inflict their standards on the rest of lessor believers.

    Lastly does anyone historical perspective on the church state perspective? Are societies where the ruling class is based on adherents of the one religion more or less violent? Did separation result in less violence and fewer burnings at the stake ?/

    Plus there does need to be much more protection for us slightly shorter people!!!!

    • Anne 30.1
      28 June 2021 at 10:29 pm

      I had an ancestor who was burnt at the stake. He was a protestant evangelical during the reign of Mary 1 [Tudor]. He refused to become a catholic so was given the full treatment. There is a ground level plaque at the Tower of London marking the spot where it happened.

      Personally I think he was barking mad. He could've become a catholic to appease Mary then when Liz 1 [Tudor] became Queen he could have swopped back to being protestant.

      Just saying because RBCV mentioned the old practice of stake burning.

  31. Populuxe1 31
    28 June 2021 at 10:18 pm

    What probably doesn't get enough attention is that even if your utterance/communication turns out not to have broken the law, you still have to go through some sort of police investigation to get to there. That in itself is the kind of intimidation that countries and religious groups with terrible human rights records love using against critics they can't otherwise get at.

    • RedBaronCV 31.1
      28 June 2021 at 10:26 pm

      Yep and it's not something our cops have a great record on is it.We'd just get their prejudices and they seem to have enough trouble in that area already. Plus why do we have to treat the whole population as if they are "criminals in waiting".

      • Populuxe1 31.1.1
        28 June 2021 at 10:48 pm

        Apparently because an unimaginably terrible thing happened one time that had never happened before in the last 100 years or so, and is probably very unlikely to happen again, and was successfully dealt with by our existing laws, but now it apparently defines all levels of civic discourse.

        • RedBaronCV 31.1.1.1
          29 June 2021 at 5:18 pm

          Yeah Isee this as fake consultation at its absolute best if you can't even tell us how "religion" is defined. It's not as if the various authorities were not warned but chasing animal activists who might take some photo's of pigs or chickens was so much more important.

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