Every time a Kiwi’s speech is shut down, there’s a politician somewhere up the chain who let it happen, and who has the power to stop it. Some politicians are trying to change things and are showing courage, but what they need now is to see that the public is right behind them.

Health NZ decided to sack Cath Simpson over posts she made in her own time. Labour decided New Zealand needs a regulator to police “harmful” content online. Kiwibank decided American copyright law was the answer to jokes about its sheep.

We’ll keep fighting those decisions in tribunals, in the courts and in public. But the people with the power to stop them happening at all are the ones asking for your vote right now.

Regulators aren’t on the ballot. The people who write their rules are.
Let’s make our voices as loud as possible between now and the election.
Here’s what the last two weeks have looked like at the Free Speech Union & what we’re focusing on in the final sprint to 7 November.

If it’s legal to say, it should be legal to post

On Monday, Labour promised a “Digital Duty of Care”: a law forcing platforms to “protect Kiwis from harmful content”, enforced by a new online regulator with the power to fine them.
Note the word. Not illegal. Harmful. Labour hasn’t defined it, and crucially, it doesn’t have to break any law.

Harm is in the eye of the beholder. Labour’s own examples include “bullying”, and one person’s bullying is another’s robust criticism of an MP. If hurt feelings count, almost anything could harm someone.

But I’m not letting National off the hook, personally. It got the ball rolling with the under-16 ban, and its bill is also far more than just banning kids off social media.

Internal Affairs becomes the regulator, and platforms must assess and curb risks to under-18s, including “false or misleading information”. A platform can’t tell which reader is a teenager, so in practice that’s everyone. Who decides what’s false? The bill doesn’t say.

Labour has promised to get National’s bill to select committee in its first 100 days.
Regardless of who wins, both main parties are on board with building infrastructure which threatens adults’ speech online.

Jillaine took Labour’s plan apart on The Platform, and retired District Court Judge and Union Council member David Harvey has been through the fine print on his blog.

Today, we have launched a new feature on our website, allowing you to easily email your local candidates, as well as the party leaders, asking them to tell you where they stand online speech before election day.

Email your candidates and the parties

Health NZ sacked Cath. We wrote to key parties.

As we’ve previously written about, Health NZ has sacked Cath Simpson, a mental health nurse of 19 years, over posts on her personal X account. The Tribunal had suspended her for two months. Health NZ’s letter even named us, saying our support for Cath helped make the risk of attention “significantly more immediate”.

Cath is appealing, and fighting her sacking. Stand with her here.

Regulators aren’t elected, so this week we wrote to the people asking for your vote: National, ACT, NZ First, Labour and the Greens. We’ve asked each to write regulator neutrality into law, covering employers like Health NZ too.

ACT has already replied, confirming its commitment to professional regulator neutrality. Here’s their statement. I must give credit where it’s due; ACT are backing our professionals this election. We’ll tell you what the others say (or don’t say) before 7 November.

And it’s not just nurses. The Law Society censured Tauranga lawyer Kirsten Murfitt for posting & talking about her client’s open letter online. Like Union Chair Stephen Franks, she was cleared on review, but she’s still about $30,000 out of pocket. Hear her story on the podcast.

Nearly 5,000 of you have now sent our neutrality statement to the regulators. Not one of the 20+ key regulators has signed it yet. Add your name if you haven’t.

Blasphemy by the back door

Police have charged Brian Tamaki under the Human Rights Act’s hate speech section, not the Crimes Act. Now, many people will strongly disagree with what Brian said and how he said it. But if a court decides insulting a faith counts as “racial disharmony”, we’ll have brought back blasphemy without Parliament ever voting for it.

The Greens want hate speech law extended to religion, and Labour hasn’t said where it stands. Our petition asks every leader to rule out blasphemy laws, on the record. About 8,000 of you have signed. Help us hit 10,000 by election day.

The right to say nothing
National wants up to ten years’ jail for anyone who was there and won’t talk to police when a child is killed. These cases are horrific. But the right to silence is one of our oldest protections against the state, and lying to police to cover up a killing is already a crime.

Here’s our response.

In the media: Buck goes global

When Kiwibank used American copyright law to scrub jokes about Buck, its sheep mascot, we wrote to them via an open letter.

Our line, “Using copyright to remove speech a company dislikes is censorship, even when the subject is a sheep”, went from Canada’s CTV to the Taipei Times and SBS in Australia. The Union was quoted extensively in global media. Even John Oliver gave Buck nearly four minutes.

The serious point: a state-owned bank shouldn’t be using US law to silence Kiwis – and New Zealand still has no parody exception in its copyright law.

And finally, some good news
Remember Dr Arna Mitchell? Dr Mitchell is a clinical psychologist whose critique of the WERO report was censored by her College in June.

Dr Mitchell is now one of eight people worldwide shortlisted for the 2026 John Maddox Prize, which honours people who stand up for evidence in the face of hostility. The winner is announced at the Royal Society in London on Thursday.

The College deleted her paper. But now, international judges have put her on a global shortlist. Congratulations, Arna.

If you’re in a part of the country experiencing this weekend’s heatwave, I am very jealous, and I hope you all have a lovely bank holiday weekend.

Best wishes,
Adam Waugh, Communications and Marketing Manager | Free Speech Union

PS. I couldn’t fit all of our video content into this week’s blast, so here’s the video’s we’ve produced this fortnight:

Good Faith Yarns Former Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford talks farming and Wellington in Nelson, and Far North councillor Davina Smolders takes on co-governance in Whangārei.

On the podcast Broadcaster Paul Henry on why people shouldn’t be saved from “lunacy and offence”, and Stephen Franks and Kirsten Murfitt on taking on the Law Society and winning.

the British experience shows how bad Leftist attacks on Freedom of Speech and Expression can get:-

by Peter Immanuelsen

Britain is arresting children for social media posts now.

A 15 year old boy was arrested for posting about a politician on the internet. Just when you thought that Britain could not get more Orwellian, it just has.

It really is unbelievable how this can happen in a country that calls itself democratic. Police arrived at his home in the morning. They came prepared for such a case as this. Four police officers with two police cars.

The police took him outside and searched him in view of his neighbours before putting him in the police car and taking him to the station.

Police took his fingerprints, DNA and mugshot before placing him in a cell. Police also seized his devices.

Now, what on earth could have warranted such a police response against a 15 year old boy you may ask?He was arrested for posts on Facebook that criticized and ridiculed a politician — that’s it. For this, four police officers came and arrested the boy at his house.

Police have not clarified exactly what supposed crime the boy is suspected of and neither has he been charged with any crime and remains on bail.