Work on Hate Speech Law to Stop, NZ Government Announces

The New Zealand coalition government has put an end to work on hate speech laws started under Labour. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announced on X (formerly Twitter) that he had instructed the Law Commission to abandon the project.

This is despite a 12 percent rise in what NZ Police term “hate incidents” reported to them between 2022 and 2023, to 9,351. The majority were racial abuse (83 percent) followed by incidents targeting people’s sexual orientation (9.7 percent), and people of a certain faith (5.8 percent).

Of the racial incidents, more than a third were directed at people of Asian descent. People of colour were the victims in 8.9 percent of cases, and 7.2 percent were aimed at Māori.

The previous Labour government initially had an ambitious plan to deal with hate speech, but subsequently cut it back in the face of strong criticism from free speech advocates and a pledge from the National Party to repeal laws if it was elected.

The laws were part of the government’s response to recommendations from the Royal Commission into the Christchurch attacks, in which an Australian gunman killed 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques.

Part of Labour’s problem was that it couldn’t agree on how the law would operate and what it would cover, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Justice Minister Kris Faafoi contradicting each other about what was proposed.

While Ms. Ardern initially promised that political opinion would not be covered by the laws, when questioned in Parliament, she remarked that she would not rule it out, saying it would depend on consultation with the public.

When Kiri Allen took over as justice minister, she announced the law would be restricted to a change around incitement against religious groups, with other aspects referred to the Law Commission.

Then Prime Minister Chris Hipkins stepped in and said that even that provision would be postponed and referred to the Commission, allowing it “the opportunity to consider a difficult and highly contested area of law in totality.”

National’s coalition agreement with New Zealand First included a policy to stop the work on reforming the hate speech legislation.

However, as early as December 2022, Mr. Goldsmith had already committed a National-led government to stop any reforms.

“Hate speech legislation ... is not needed, and it will unnecessarily narrow free speech and expression in our country,” he said in 2023. “Proceeding with new hate speech legislation is a distraction from the more pressing issues that Ministry of Justice officials should be focused on. More speech and debate is the best response to speech that people disagree with—not bans and police investigations.”

Mr. Goldsmith’s decision is unlikely to prove popular among organisations representing minority groups.

When Labour referred its proposals to the Law Commission, Chief Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt said it had “given way to often misinformed and opportunistic political debate.”

Meanwhile, Aliya Danzeisen, national coordinator of the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand, said “How many more people need to suffer from hate and for how long before our legislators will have the courage to do what is right? There is no more time or consideration needed.”

It received support, however, from coalition partner NZ First, which tweeted: “Freedom of speech is fundamental to any democracy. We’ve stopped work on Labour’s Hate Speech legislation, the vague and overreaching proposal by the previous government was careless legislating and we’ve stopped it in its tracks.”

The Free Speech Union also tweeted its support, saying “It is [already] illegal to incite violence. It was before March 15, and the hate speech laws had nothing to do with incitement to violence”, in response to a tweet from a journalist saying “... it will remain legal to incite violence against Muslims in New Zealand” as a result of Mr. Goldsmith’s decision.

It appears that Mr. Goldsmith’s action did not halt any progress—contrary to claims, the Law Commission had not initiated any work on the proposal.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/work-on-hate-speech-law-to-stop-nz-government-announces-5611670

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