“The Government’s proposed hate speech laws are a huge win for cancel culture and will create an even more divided society,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.
“What sort of government promotes social cohesion by having the state go around punishing people for unpopular views?
“This is a solution looking for a problem and will take away basic rights to free speech, it will shut down debate and make people too afraid to express valid opinions.
“It will put cancel culture on steroids.
“Whether Justice Minister Kris Faafoi likes it or not, Police will face pressure to prosecute people with unpopular views.
“There will be petitions and lynch mobs stating if the Police don’t prosecute then they’ll be complicit in hate. It will leave our already over stretched Police in a hopeless position.
“The last thing a brave and hardworking front-line cop wants to do is be weaponised into culture wars.
“The only people who win from today’s announcement are the Twitter mob and the perpetually offended.
“Faafoi also needs to explain his comments about sentencing. As it stands there are violence offences that carry a maximum sentence of two years in prison and his Hate Speech Laws carry three years.
“That means you will get longer in jail for insulting that assaulting.
“These laws are being pushed following the Christchurch terrorist attacks. The Minister today admitted these laws wouldn’t have prevented the attacks from happening. He doesn’t even know what problem he’s trying to solve.
“Faafoi is just going through the motions on this law. His claims that he is engaging with political parties is bogus. He has not replied to our correspondence after asking ACT to meet.
“ACT will continue to fight this law which will do nothing but divide society even further and ultimately increase hateful attitudes in our society.”
ACT’s petition to protect Free Speech can be found here.
In contrast to the likes of Andrew Little, Kris Faafoi comes across as level-headed, even sensible — but he’s simply obeying what most in Jacinda’s cabinet want: to silence ideological opponents. National, ACT and Winston Peters all made clear their opposition to any law changes in this area last year. —Eds
I wonder if the comrade’s new law might be applied to the racists who got Lee Williams sacked by Synlait?
Unlikely: the law will probably be worded to be one-sided against pale-skins, and that reflects the official racism already in place. Those who criticise/spoof any Maori politician need to be Maori themselves, or they will be on the receiving end of the vile hate campaigns that you mention. The Chinese owned Synlait breached the Human Rights Act and Lee Williams should get one year’s salary in compensation.
Prosecution of ‘unpopular views’ is the least of it. The atmosphere engendered by the legislation will be suppressive, without the need to prosecute. People will do what is expected like a pavlovian dog, through of conditioning. Non-resistant, docile.
Repudiation of obviously abusive comments against anyone on account of their race, ethnicity, culture, religion etc. is commendable. One should not need recourse to abuse and insults and threats to affirm one’s own heritage.
However, this is one-sided: Euro-NZers are continually denigrated and the Settler heritage made synonymous with ‘white privilege’ and ‘white supremacy’. If a euro-Nzer expresses any affinity with his or her own heritage they are damned and vilified, and subjected to ignorant abuse from the Human Rights and Race Relations offices. You can be sure they will not get a fair hearing by most of the mainstream media.
One might recall the modest and very short-lived effort by a few students at Auckland University to form a European culture group, and the promptitude at which the ridiculous R R Commissioner of the time, condemned them.
One might ask whether scientific research into aspects of multiculturalism that does not accord with the state dogma will be subjected to prosecution, or those few politicians who might question some aspect of NZ’s immigration based on such issues as the UN Global Compact on Migration in regard to what the UN calls ‘replacement migration’?
Will the Maori Council’s aim of cultivating ‘pride of race’ (sic) as described in the Maori Development Act 1962 be subjected to questioning on the same basis as if a Euro-NZ group formed to cultivate ‘pride in race’? We already know the answer.
The draconian use of police to enforce this state dogma was part of Section 25 of the Race Relations Act 1972 and was eventually ditched as unworkable. However, with the mass hysteria that has since been generated over the decades, and especially with the cynical use of the Tarrant atrocity, it seems that the politicos and liberal bureaucrats regard the time as right to reintroduce their crypto-bolshevism with gusto. In conjunction with the indoctrination inculcated by the histories curriculum for 2022.
Yet when driven against the wall, with a feeling of nothing to lose, with a feeling of alienation by the denigration of one’s heritage, as Jung explained, repression leads to undesirable and unexpected consequences.