Push for free speech in New Zealand

It's feared David Seymour's proposal to change parts of the Human Rights Act would do more harm than good.

The ACT leader wants to decriminalise language that is threatening, abusive or insulting.

"The idea you could be potentially punished for saying something that was offensive or insulting... is something that worries a lot of Kiwis," he told Newshub Nation on Saturday.

Seymour's solution is to repeal a part of the Human Rights Act which protect against "threatening, abusive or insulting" language "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 of that group of persons".

He also wants inciting racial disharmony to no longer be a crime, nor for it to be offensive in public.

Matthew Tukaki, head of the Māori Council, says "irrelevant" Seymour's views are dated.

"This inference that it's okay to give licence to people who would think it acceptable to call me the N-word, or 'black something something', it's not acceptable in today's New Zealand," he told Newshub.

"I am sick and tired, as a Māori, of having to put up with people suggesting that this is a debate that we need to have or should have - that we should somehow listen, and somehow find an excuse for why some people call me the N-word," said Tukaki, calling Seymour's Bill a "protection racket for those who think it's their right to call me a n****r".

"I say to David Seymour if you were black and someone called you a n****r, or a fat black bastard or a black c**t, you’d want to have some protection and right of legal challenge."

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So people should be prevented from telling me what they think of me?  A dubious proposition.