That’s a question that arises following Auckland Mayor Phil Goff’s action to not allow speakers who upset the notions of the Political Correctness Brigade to use council owned venues; and the cancelling of the speaking event with Don Brash by the Massey University Vice Chancellor.
The short answer is yes, sort of.
The statement appears in section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990:
Freedom of expression
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.
There is qualification to that, however, specifically in Section 4 of the Summary Offences Act which deals with “Offensive behaviour or language”:
Subsection 1:
Every person is liable to a fine not exceeding $1,000 who,—
(a) in or within view of any public place, behaves in an offensive or disorderly manner; or
(b) in any public place, addresses any words to any person intending to threaten, alarm, insult, or offend that person; or
(c) in or within hearing of a public place,—
(i) uses any threatening or insulting words and is reckless whether any person is alarmed or insulted by those words; or
(ii) addresses any indecent or obscene words to any person.
Does (b) cover hate speech? Most people will have seen signs wielded by Muslims in demonstrations like those in this picture taken in London:
Probably not, as they are general threats of violence rather than specific threats against identified individuals.
However, that consideration didn’t stop the Kapiti police showing up to harrass Dale Evans and Kerry Bolton last year — on Dougherty’s demands — following their little street theatre protest in April about the KCDC’s over the top Political Correctness culture — see the letter reproduced in this post last year.
We gather Dougherty’s legal advice was that the action he could take against Dale Evans for expressing his views about the council was limited to a Tresspass Notice, which he duly issued.
Nevertheless, the existence of the words “offend or insult any person” in the Section quoted above is disconcerting. We would like to think that this type of Police State harassment against those who partake in peaceful protest against the KCDC (or any other government body or its bosses) won’t occur again.
Section 14 of the Bill of Rights is not unlike Article 35 of the Chinese Constitution which states “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.” Of course, as you correctly pointed out both are subject to qualifications.
Presumably the qualification to ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘of the press’ in China concerns criticising the government.
Just to clarify: My wife and I agreed to help Dale set these up as a personal favour. We did not regard them as an effective way of putting over any message, and tried to dissuade him from doing so. After we had finished placing them, a few minutes later, Dr David Scott came out of the council premises. My wife and I stated to David that we did not consider these to be effective and rather that they were counter productive. David agreed, and asked Dale to take them away, not before however, as we were discussing this with David, some screeching, histrionic nutter, employed as a ‘consultant’ by council, came out and started shouting at David, for reasons still unclear. Sue George came along and called her back inside.
It has since been claimed that this display was intended to target the complainant against David Scott in the recent ‘sexual harassment’ travesty. Like the other claims by this woman to the news media that she has been ‘victimized’ by Dr Scott’s supporters, this is nonsense. She had not been mentioned or alluded to in regard to Dale’s display, but rather this was at a time when there were other matters of a very bizarre character, that had taken place among senior staff. However, as we told Dale at the time, the message he was trying to get through would not be apparent to the public.
Prior to this, CEO Dougherty came out and spoke with us, He was fine with the display being left outside council premises and made no objection at all. None. That Dale was subsequently trespassed was just another example of KCDC nonsense,. and one of many examples of how the Kapiti police so readily act on nonsense at the behest of council.
Obviously, some senior staff member must have persuaded Dougherty to demand that the police visit you and Dale Evans and we can safely guess who that was. That person was — and almost certainly still is — malicious, paranoid or both.
Liberalism does not guarantee any such freedoms when the parameters of what liberalism allows behind the facade of slogans are transgressed. Once the guillotine was used to uphold ‘liberty, equality, fraternity,’ and the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.’ Now more subtle, Orwellian and Huxleyan methods are used. But when all that fails, there’s still the mob veto.
Reblogged this on Rangitikei Enviromental Health Watch.
Can’t see what this subject has to do with Environmental Health in the Rangitikei
Central and local government bodies who try to hide their actions from the people and try to silence their critics with Police State tactics isn’t just confined to the KCDC.
Cr Elliot we’re very interested in Council events nationwide, we have a LG Watch page FYI. Our info does state our interest extends beyond just the Rangitikei.