Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Urgent Interim Classification of Publications and Prevention of Online Harm) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Urgent Interim Classification of Publications and Prevention of Online Harm) Amendment Bill to the House.

Members, that legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

💬 Hon JAN TINETTI: I move, That the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Urgent Interim Classification of Publications and Prevention of Online Harm) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill.

I am delighted to stand here to present this bill for its first reading, but I also must acknowledge my predecessor, the Hon Tracey Martin, who did the work to bring this bill to this stage. This bill addresses specific legislative and regulatory gaps in our current online content regulation. These were highlighted in the tragic events of the Christchurch mosque attacks on 15 March 2019. The terrorist of the Christchurch attacks sought to exploit online platforms to promote his acts of hate-based violence. Following the original livestream broadcast, footage of the attacks spread across the internet through social media, and in the days that followed we saw thousands of links appear across our social media platforms. Unfortunately some of these links were able to autoplay. Viewing this type of content can be extremely harmful and distressing, and I’m sure that members of this House, like me, know of people—particularly young children—who saw those links and viewed that content, and it was extremely harmful to them. I can only imagine how hard that must be to know that that content was available to the families of the victims and the survivors.

This bill is designed to remove inefficiencies and reduce ambiguities in our censorship system, to safeguard us from the attempts to distribute such hatred and horror online again. This tragic event highlighted to us how important it is to stop such content from being spread. The internet can be positive in so many ways. It can be used for social connection, it can be wonderful for education, for employment, for commerce, for entertainment, but the internet can also have a dark side. It can be abused as a tool to share and promote harmful content. The type of content that I am talking about is already deemed objectionable and is already illegal in New Zealand. The Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993, or the classifications Act, already defines objectionable content. At its worst, this content includes child sexual exploitation, violent extremism, or terrorist content. “Objectionable” is the highest classification that can be given to a publication under the classifications Act. This already means that it is illegal to possess the content and distribute it. The bar for determining objectionable content is extremely high, but the chief censor, in determining this objectionable content, also takes freedom of expression considerations into account.

However, since the classifications Act 1993 we very much know that technology has changed markedly. Technological advances and shifts have changed the way that we access information and we interact with online content. It means we now have to change the way that we tackle the online content, such as that violent extremism. And given the speed and ease that it can spread online, it is vital that we have the tools and the ability to be able to act swiftly. My officials have worked really closely with people throughout the community in preparing and shaping this bill. They have worked with community representatives from civil society and industry in developing the proposals for this bill, and a series of workshops were held with online platforms, internet providers, civil society groups, and overall 200 people were represented at those meetings. I would like to thank those people in the work that they contributed to helping to shape this bill.

This bill will allow us to act swiftly in the future if such events like the Christchurch attacks happen again, and that horrific event is tried to be spread rapidly online. To do this, the bill has six key policy areas. I’m not going to talk about all six, but I would like to highlight a couple of them. Firstly, the bill will make it a criminal offence to knowingly livestream objectionable content, and anyone that commits this offence can face up to 14 years’ imprisonment or, if they’re a body corporate, a $200,000 fine. Now, the 14-year sentence does bring this consistency with the already existing penalty for distributing or creating objectionable content under the classification Act. These penalties are high because the offence captures a range of behaviours and, at the extreme end, this includes documenting and sharing child sexual exploitation and abuse material. Importantly, this bill also allows the chief censor to make interim classification assessments in urgent situations for content that is likely to be objectionable. This really is important, because it means that there will be no delay and that the public can be informed as soon as possible about content that may be significantly harmful, and authorised inspectors will be able to issue takedown notices to combat the posting of objectionable content online. This is consistent with the already existing powers that they have for physical copies of objectionable content. Again, if people or agencies do not take up those takedown notices, they will be subject to a penalty of up to $200,000.

Finally, the bill will enable the establishment of regulations that would allow the Government to implement web filtering of objectionable content if required in the future. Now, this is a point that I want to acknowledge that there will be ongoing debate about. There is an issue whether there’s merits or disadvantages in this web-filtering approach, and this is something that I welcome, this debate being ongoing, when this bill moves through to the select committee process, to ensure that we are able to get the best outcome for protecting New Zealanders from objectionable content online. I really welcome that work coming back from select committee. This bill is one of many actions that this Government is taking in response to the Christchurch terrorist attack of 15 March. This bill is about protecting New Zealanders in the future, and I am extremely proud to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to, first of all, begin my contribution tonight by stating that National will be opposing this bill but I’d like to, first of all, congratulate the Minister in her portfolio and being elevated to her position—congratulations, the Hon Jan Tinetti. I think in her speech she was perhaps suggesting that she looks forward to the continuing debate that we will have on this particular issue, and I’m guessing she’s alluding to the fact that this is perhaps not something that is fulsome in its delivery, because this should really have been part of the wider media consultation—wider media review—that the Government was actually doing, but this particular bill was cast off by the previous Minister to actually deliver to the House very quickly.

I read the Minister’s legislative statement and if I could share some part of it and my particular concern with members present here, it actually says—I’ll cut to the bit that I’m interested in. It actually quotes, “It seeks to address inefficiencies and ambiguities in our censorship system that were highlighted in the aftermath of the Christchurch terror attack on March 15, particularly in responding to objectionable online content such as the depicting of an act of violent extremism or terrorism.” It actually lists the limitations that the Minister suggests—actually highlights or summarises why this bill is actually being presented to the House. Number one, the highest ranking reason why this is actually presented is, I quote, “1. Livestreaming does not fall within scope of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993;”. Guess what—it does and I would suggest to this Minister, a brand new Minister, that if her officials actually give her advice saying that it doesn’t, perhaps she should ask the right questions and perhaps she should do some research to figure out whether it is, in fact, covered off in the Act that she is actually quoting.

The definition of “publication” under the 1993 Act, which she says it doesn’t cover and lists everything, in section 2(a) says “film, book, sound recording, blah, blah, blah …”. It’s got (b), it’s got (c), it gets to (d) and I quote, “(d) a thing (including, but not limited to, a disc, or an electronic or computer file) on which is recorded or stored information that, by the use of a computer or other electronic device, is capable of being reproduced or shown as 1 or more (or a combination of 1 or more) images, representations, signs, statements, blah, etc., etc.” So it does actually cover off—and, simply put, a live streaming is, in fact, a “thing” according to the definition. It emanates out of an electronic file. It is being stored temporarily or otherwise on computers and other electronic devices, and it captures images, signs, statements and words. What it really means is that this reason why this bill is introduced and the reasoning that the Minister has put forward for the House to consider—literally the argument falls flat on her face. This is censorship legislation. It’s a farce at its worst. It’s actually censorship legislation at its worst. And she should have asked her officials to provide her with decent advice. Obviously, the former Minister didn’t ask the same question either.

The topic that the Minister actually raised—all of us in this House probably abhorred the live streaming that the terrorists actually did. When I was introduced to a particular video, I chose not to look at it because I found it objectionable. Yes, I think all of us did. But the thing is that there is currently a law that actually can prevent—and the chief censor can put in interim decisions to prevent it from being shared. And this legislation is not necessary. This is about the Government wanting to provide an internet filter: Government deciding what is objectionable and what is not. And once we start down that path, I’m not so sure where we will actually stop. This is an overly invasive regime that encroaches on the rights of individuals. I mean, the example that I like to quote is the example of the murder of George Floyd in America. If live streaming and the death of a particular individual could be deemed objectionable, that live streaming that was actually shot by the public to show the brutality of the police action against an innocent man would be banned. And these are some of the concerns that the public also has as well.

If I could actually quote some citizens who have shared their concern, one of them happens to be Jordan Carter of InternetNZ. I believe he was a former candidate of the Labour Party. He says, and I quote, “Past filtering attempts have shown that a dangerous side effect is the unintentional blocking of sites that are not hosting objectionable material, in at least one case blocking access to email and online collaboration tools.” This is another example. Thomas Beagle of New Zealand Civil Liberties said, “If you’re a bystander, live streaming an event that turns horrific, how quickly do you have to stop before you’re liable? What if that event is a policeman choking a man to death? Do you think you could weigh up the merits of a value of a video versus the possible object—objectionable”—I can’t pronounce that properly—“objectionableness.” And I agree with him. When someone live streams, it could be innocent when they start, but it could completely turn objectionable, and it is the subjective decision of the chief censor. The very fact that the chief censor could actually empower, authorise an inspector—and often it’s a police officer. It could be a duty community constable who could decide that a particular thing is objectionable, and that is very subjective. I personally might find something that is objectionable that somebody else, one of the members of Parliament present in this House, would not and that is what I’m actually concerned about. A blanket filtering of things that are subjective is not something that I would feel comfortable about, particularly on the internet.

This, as I indicated, should have been part of the wider work that the Government was doing in terms of regulation into the media. It should not be rushed, and piecemeal legislation is a bad way to make law. I think the Minister should have taken heed of her senses where she was going when she suggested that this was going to be debated in select committee. She should have actually maybe listened to her gut that bad rushed law, piecemeal law, is not a good way to make law. I think when people like Jordan Carter, InternetNZ, actually raises concerns, and I think there are other Government departments that have also raised concerns when they were being consulted—I think that should have actually raised alarm bells that this should not have been introduced.

This will actually go to select committee, obviously, because Labour has the majority in this House. And so I shall have to look forward to the discussions in select committee but I raise my strong opposition on this.

One of the things that happened after the terrible 15 March event was that there were no enforceable laws or regulations present, but it was the platforms who took it upon themselves to remove those offensive videos. One of the issues about live streaming and internet is that it is fast. Can the chief censor stop somebody live streaming right now? If I happen to live stream right now, can the chief censor stop it? No, but the ability for the chief censor to deem that objectionable already exists. So what does this law actually do? I am a little bit unclear and, hopefully, it will be made clearer once we actually have some submissions on this bill at select committee.

Kia ora. Tēnā koe e te Māngai. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this incredibly important piece of legislation. I think I can say that I reckon just about every single New Zealander remembered exactly where they were and what they were doing at the time when the news broke of what had happened in Christchurch at the mosque attacks. I think we can all recall that and I think we can all recall how we felt. I remember personally, when the news came out piece by piece and the dust settled from the events in Christchurch, the fact that this had been live streamed to the world, and I remember how I felt. And somehow it made the crime or the horror inflicted somehow seem worse, to me. I felt angry, to be honest, that New Zealand had been used as a platform for terrorism, and I still do.

So I believe that it is important that today we spell out the case for change to remember why we are putting in place this legislation and hearing it today. The perpetrator of the Christchurch terror attack sought to exploit online platforms to promote acts of hate-based violence. The footage of the attacks once uploaded and online spread rapidly. They went through social media, and it was unclear at this time whether the live streaming of the attack even constituted a criminal offence simply due to the fact that it was a live stream rather than a recorded video.

It’s at this point that I would like to clarify some of the points raised by the previous speaker as for the necessity for this legislation to be enacted, because technological advances in the way that we have access to the internet and we interact online, to me, means that we also need to change the way we tackle objectionable material online. Things move fast, incredibly fast. Technology changes, and we as a democracy that is caring and responsive need to change as those technological advances speed up.

It is vital for New Zealand to have the tools and the ability to respond swiftly in real time when these events occur. It is also important that we do this without compromising our essential freedoms. The internet can be a force for good as well as of darkness, and it’s important that we get this balance right. But to clarify some of the points that were raised by the previous speaker, it’s important to note that live streaming does not fall within the scope of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993, and therefore it is in fact unregulated.

The chief censor’s decision on objectionable content risks being delayed because of the current statutory framework. It’s a requirement to produce a written rationale for the decision within five working days of giving their decision. Because written decisions are complex legal documents that give limited resources of the classification, they can take longer than five days to prepare adequately. This can cause the chief censor to delay publicising their judgment and providing clarity to the public. In the meantime, people are sharing content online. We know how many shares or how many likes can be delivered in a number of minutes. So waiting for over five days for a censor’s determination is simply inadequate to be able to rapidly respond to incidents such as what happened in Christchurch.

The Government cannot require the removal of objectionable content from online platforms such as social media or other websites. This is part of what the Christchurch Accord was and what the Prime Minister has set out, and this bill is a key deliverable in a domestic programme that is being progressed as part of that work that the Prime Minister initiated under the Christchurch Call to Action. It has discreet legislative regulatory updates to address those specific gaps particularly such as the ones identified through the Christchurch attacks.

The responsibility of internet service providers, and we heard some quotes there from internet service providers and online content hosts, for removing objectionable online content is unclear currently under the existing legislation, particularly in respect to the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015, for hosting that content, and that’s where greater clarity is required.

Current instances of internet blocking, such as a filter, as mentioned, for use in blocking child sexual exploitation are operating without a clear regulatory framework or guide to their use and are dependent on those internet service providers opting in on a voluntary, and that currently happens now with child exploitation. Approximately 85 percent, I understand, have opted in. So that’s the case for change. That’s the shortfalls within the existing legislation.

This bill is important because it is designed to reduce the inefficiencies and the ambiguities in our current censorship arrangement. This bill will allow for urgent prevention and mitigation of harms caused by such objectionable publications, by providing additional regulatory checks and tools to combat the spread of objectionable violent extremist content online. Under this bill, it will be an offence to make, possess, or supply, or distribute objectionable publication, and the bill does this in six main ways.

We’ve already heard some discussion around the point the member has made in relation to the establishment of a filter. I take that on board and I would like to get to that point by stating that the filtering provision in the bill may attract a lot of discussion, and rightly so. That is the process and that is why this bill will be receiving a full parliamentary process and a full ability for submitters to come forward and to make their views known.

There are concerns about ensuring sufficient legislative safeguards to prevent the improper use of a filter system. The bill, it’s important to note, only gives the Government explicit statutory authority to explore and implement the mechanisms for a filter through future regulations. It does not automatically establish a filter. We currently have a filter, as I’ve mentioned, for child sexual exploitation. This is only applied on an opt-in voluntary basis.

We believe the bill does explicitly provide for appropriate checks and balances relating to the filter. This includes lifting several provisions from regulations into the primary legislation. For example, clarifying that the filter only applies to objectionable material and identifying the full range of stakeholders who must be consulted. And we expect to hear from those stakeholders during the select committee process, which we welcome everybody who is concerned to submit on.

The establishment of a new offence is important. But in addition to that, this bill also enables the chief censor to make an interim classification so that we can quickly respond to content once it is uploaded. Also, authorised inspectors will be able to issue a takedown notice to combat the posting of objectionable content online. That is consistent with the powers they have for physical copies of the same objectionable material. It basically brings online content in line with hard copy. Online content hosts that do not comply with a takedown notice will be subject to a penalty of up to $200,000. So this enables New Zealand to be able to respond to emerging international trends of more harmful content available online.

As a parent, as a New Zealander, as a mum, as a member of this House, I believe that we have a duty to protect people from being exposed to objectionable material, and I welcome the select committee process, just going forward to that day. I would like to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The National caucus on this side actually understand the intent of why the Minister has put this bill forward. It’s just the parts and the make-up of the way it’s done that leaves us in a place where we’re opposing the bill. No one would disagree with the first part of the previous speaker Ginny Andersen’s speech, where she talked about March 15. There’s no doubt that this bill is a direct response to the events of March 15, the terror attack in Christchurch. And according to the Minister’s statement here, virtual witnesses were traumatised by the content. Now, no one—no one—deserves to see content like that. The events were abhorrent, and everything that went with it, with the filming of it and everything else, actually made the whole process even worse, and even more abhorrent than what it already was.

But the problem that we have with this bill, and the problem that I have with this bill, is the word “objectionable”. March 15 was absolutely abhorrent, and no one should get to see that. But the problem that we have with “objectionable” is when you open up the word objectionable, we could have a wide range of opinions here tonight, sitting in the House, of things that some people consider objectionable and some people don’t. So what is tending to happen with some of these bills—and I really appreciate for this one that it’s actually going to run a normal parliamentary process, so that’s one thing that we should be thanking the Government for, that they are intending to go out and give the public the opportunity to have their say, because we haven’t been seeing that too much in the last couple of days, since Parliament’s come back together.

So as the chair of the Governance and Administration Committee, we need to give this a very full hearing, and we need to make sure that we go through every clause in this piece of legislation, listen to the feedback, to ensure that this is not an overreach, because one of the things that this Government tends to do is it has a good intention of solving an issue, but it overreaches, and the unintended consequences that this Government puts in place, often, are not what was intended in the first place.

Melissa Lee has made a statement in the House tonight that live streaming does fall within the scope of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993. So we’ll look very closely at that. You know, it says in here in the statement that the Government cannot require the removal of objectionable content from online platforms. Well, maybe that was the view of the people who put this together, but we need to investigate and see whether it’s already possible to do that.

So in looking through what’s going on, it’s an overly invasive regime that encroaches on the rights of individuals. And it puts New Zealanders in potentially incriminating situations without their knowledge or consent, and that would be a terrible place for us to go as a country. So a live stream showing something that does not fall under this definition of something objectionable could rather quickly switch to objectionable content without the knowledge of the individual that was sharing it. So it’s not as if somebody’s intended to set out to do something, but something all of a sudden appears, something happens, and all of a sudden this person becomes criminal because they’ve accidentally captured something that they didn’t intend to capture in the first place. So we’ve got to be very careful where we’re going here.

It places an extraordinary amount of power, as it’s currently written, and discretion into the hands of the classification office. We significantly risk the goodwill of the global telecommunications firms as well as local digital stakeholders, by imposing what could be crippling civil penalties for something that’s outside their control. These businesses are already attempting to stamp out material that is considered abhorrent. Yes, abhorrent—not objectionable but abhorrent. And we on the National Party side of the House—we don’t want to see abhorrent material either, but we’re just really concerned about the reach.

So some of the concerns that have been brought about in discussion around these bills talk about how over a dozen agencies could end up queuing, demanding, that it will be expanded, so they also get the power to block websites. Crown Law may want to block overseas newspapers that break New Zealand suppression laws. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment will want to block any sites Hollywood studios complain about. The police will want to block websites. The Ministry of Health will want to block websites. Once you have a compulsory Government filter, it only gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So we’ve got to be careful that we constrain this bill to what it is that the Government is trying to achieve.

So, again, we talked about the bystanders who may actually get caught up, unintended. If I compare this piece of legislation—at least, as I said before, it’s got a full consultation process, but there was another piece of law that was led after the March 15 event. It was one that our party supported, and it was the gun legislation during the first tranche of the laws. But in the second part of that, we fought really hard to change some things, because the unintended consequences of that one was it captured competition shooters, and it captured people who were just out trying to do pest control and conservation. There were a range of people that were captured in there who were all disadvantaged by the fact that one person had done something extremely abhorrent. And I don’t want to see us as a society go there again—actually, punishing the masses because of the actions of one person or a group of people.

So let’s just try and keep it to abhorrent rather than objectionable. We’ll have a look at it, we’ll listen to what the submitters have got to say, and see if we can make some changes to this on the way through, and then we might reconsider where we’re going. But at this point in time, the National Party oppose this piece of legislation and we won’t be voting for it tonight. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Just to respond to some of the points raised by other speakers, it has been mentioned that the provisions already exist in the principal Act, but, in fact, if I look at that provision, it refers to discs and stored information. I don’t know about other members, but I certainly haven’t seen a disc for a number of years. Clearly, that legislation is out of date, and we need to move with the times. Live streaming is a very different proposition from recording, and we need legislation to reflect that.

We’ve also heard about the fact that this bill looks at objectionable material. Well, with respect, the censors are making decisions about objectionable material all the time based on written submissions, but with live streaming there simply isn’t that opportunity; it happens in real time. Therefore, there needs to be decisions made quickly. We heard about the rights of individual New Zealanders, but those individual New Zealanders now have a great deal of power in their hands that they did not have previously, because of the advances in technology, and with that power comes responsibility and the responsibility not to harm others.

We need to unpack what this proposed legislation can do. First, it is to remove harmful content, and I believe that is the primary intent, based on the fact that this came out from that terrible incident on 15 March. The penalties are a secondary matter, and surely in a country where we have mens rea and we look at intention, those people who innocently find that they are capturing offensive or objectionable material live streamed—that will be taken into account at the time that penalties are considered. The most important element is to remove the content before harm is done.

I do commend this bill. It’s a very important bill, ensuring that New Zealanders stay safe but also that they feel safe. It’s an emotional piece of legislation for many of us, particularly people in my electorate in Taieri. This is very relevant, because the terrorist actually lived in the electorate for some time, and the Muslim community in my electorate found out later that they were actually the original targets of the mosque attacks. So they had to deal with that. They had to deal with seeing members of their own community, many of whom were friends and whānau to them, be impacted by that terrible, heinous event, but also the live streaming of it made that a double injury for them.

So the bill seeks to provide protection against the live streaming and the hurt I’ve just described, and it will prevent hate speech. That is an end in itself, but it is also to prevent the proliferation of further hate. We know from what we have seen overseas that hate can spread just like a virus in the fertile world of fake news. We are operating in a different media landscape than when the principal legislation was enacted, and I can tell you, as a former journalist and media lawyer, that I am the first person in this House to defend free speech. However, that free speech needs to keep up with technology, and it needs to keep looking at the balance of power and responsibilities of individuals and of the way that individuals can now influence and spread information.

I did mention in my maiden speech recently that access to truth is actually, I believe, a critical issue of our time, and the issues that are raised by fake news, by live streaming, by the power that vests in individuals and also in the platforms that allow individuals to have mass audiences are really complex, difficult issues to deal with, and we must deal with them if we want to avoid the peril and the dramas that we have seen on foreign shores.

It’s been claimed that this is an overbearing piece of legislation, but these decisions to remove live streamed content are not final; they are interim classifications, and final orders are to be made, as my friend said on this side of the House, after 20 days. We have interim orders already available in many other areas of media law where the harm is deemed sufficiently serious. For example, we have name suppression laws, and we certainly have a number of interim laws available in all areas of child protection, not only the child protection that is available around protecting children from sexual exploitation and the media but also ex parte interim orders relating to other areas of child protection. Interim orders are a part of our democracy, and they are countered by the opportunity to then have a full and substantive hearing down the track.

So it is appropriate to use those interim orders to prevent harm, and the merits can be debated after that. With live streaming, if we were not to have this legislation, given that it is not covered by the principal Act, we simply negate the opportunity to mitigate the harm that could be done from objectionable or even heinous material being live streamed.

The issue of filters has been raised. As has been said by other members, this potentially is a really complex area, and, like other members in this House, I welcome the opportunity to discuss that and to hear submissions on that in select committee. But what I do applaud is the fact that a mechanism will be there to anticipate changes in technology that will enable those filters to be able to be applied should they be deemed necessary. We cannot constantly play catch-up to technology that is causing harm, and that caused the harm that it did on 15 March, because the law is not keeping up.

This bill enables us to have things in place so that there can be proper debate and that we can move quickly when we need to in order to be able to reduce harm to members of our community. During that debate, I think it’s very valid for us to look at where we cast the net with filters, and, in many instances, the net will need to be cast more widely; in other instances, it will need to be cast narrowly. I really welcome anyone listening to the debate to submit on that when that goes to select committee.

Finally, I’d just like to say that the internet is no longer a free and friendly environment. We know that it is controlled by big business. We don’t even know some of the entities behind some of the platforms. To suggest that a voluntary regime might be adequate simply doesn’t wash—or “Yeah right.” It’s not going to happen. We need to be able to give our Muslim community and others who feel vulnerable in our society the assurance not only that we will keep them safe but that they can feel safe when they go online, that they will not accidentally happen upon something traumatising, something damaging, something that is going to perpetuate hate speech or that is going to harm them or, indeed, their children.

I know recently there was a video on TikTok where we had message warning us to please make sure our children weren’t watching, because there was a TikTok of somebody committing suicide. These are the kinds of perils that parents face at the moment, and as a mother of a seven-year-old, I want to know that we have the adequate protection in place, that we can stop those live streams or those events from happening online, and keep our children safe.

So let’s ensure that we don’t make it easy for terrorists to hijack our media platforms for their 15 minutes of fame and their evil campaigns, and please let’s make sure that New Zealand remains safe and that New Zealanders feel safe in a very quickly evolving world that we need to keep ahead of and make sure that we have adequate laws and protections in place so that we can roam that world with liberty and with security, not worried that we’re going to stumble across something that could potentially be incredibly damaging to us or our children. So I do commend this bill to the House very strongly. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe, tēnā koutou e te Whare. I’ve been googling, because that seems to be the kind of theme in Parliament this week, this notion that’s called “the Streisand effect”. It’s defined on the internet, on the Google, as “a social phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information has the unintended consequence of further publicising that information, often via the internet.” This is exactly what happened in a situation in 2003, when someone by the name of Barbara Streisand attempted to hide photos of her Malibu mansion.

With that kind of introduction, it probably makes sense to provide at the beginning of this speech a bit of an understanding to the House of where the Greens are coming to on this. We’ve had extensive discussions about this, and whilst on paper about 90 percent of this legislation seems to be hitting the right note, the 10 percent that is not, if weighted properly, makes this something that we cannot vote for. So the Greens will not be voting for this legislation at first reading, and we very much hope that there is substantive debate and discussion throughout the select committee process—a committee that I understand, as most are in this Parliament, is weighted primarily towards the Government—and that there is a genuine attempt to take on board, and not just push through, the comments, the recommendations, of the general public, because there’s an opportunity to do something really important here.

So, as has been outlined by others, there’s a number of things that this legislation attempts to do. The first is to make a criminal offence of knowingly live streaming objectionable content. On the face of it, it doesn’t inherently seem like a bad thing. There is also the opportunity for the chief censor to be allowed to make interim classification assessments in urgent situations for content that is likely to be objectionable. This, importantly, speeds up a process that is currently incredibly cumbersome. It also, therefore, as a result of that chief censorship opportunity, enables authorised inspectors to issue what are called takedown notices, and there are enforcement clauses that follow.

But the part that is the most objectionable to use—I guess, rather ironically, given the context of what we’re debating—is that this bill enables the establishment of regulations that would allow the Government to implement web filtering of objectionable content if required in the future. That is where the Greens cannot support this piece of legislation, because whilst it has been put by members on the Government benches, particularly as my colleague who I worked closely with on a number of issues, Ginny Andersen, put it—inherent in this draft law is not the ability to straight off the bat create this internet filter system. In fact, it only just enables the power to do so, but that’s the problem. We don’t actually know what we’re dealing with here. There’s no parliamentary oversight whatsoever on the kind of internet filter system that could end up being created, not only by this Government but by a Government in the future, and that—that unbridled power of regulation—errs towards far too much authoritarianism for my liking.

Whilst we’ve been debating this bill in the Chamber tonight, I have been discussing it with, right next door, our neighbours in the Chamber, David Seymour and ACT, and it would interest those who are interested in political ideology to know that whilst we vehemently disagree on economic ideology, there is substantial overlap when it comes to social liberties. The idea of freedom of speech, however, is not a shield. Freedom of speech enables you to say things; it does not defend you from the consequences particularly of saying daft things and particularly where violence and deeply abhorrent racist behaviour ends up as a result.

So the question, I’m sure, that is pressing on the minds of Labour members in this Chamber in particular, is why the Greens are opposed to this filter, not only for the opportunity for overreach—you know, “If we were able to carve this out a little bit more in the legislation, perhaps that would satisfy?” But that is not the case, because when it comes to filter systems—again, I’ve been back on the Google, and I’ve found that Google itself was actually shut down in the early 2000s as a result of the voluntary systems that were undertaken in the early 2000s to banish or attempt to prohibit that highly objectionable and abhorrent sensitive material when it comes to children and the violation of those children.

What that demonstrates inherently, and you can look at examples in other jurisdictions of how this hasn’t worked—unless, of course, you’re looking for a key performance indicator of complete authoritarianism and control therein—is that anybody motivated can get around internet filters. They can do so by the use of things like virtual private networks (VPNs). It also has the opportunity to capture unintended content. But worse than that, it also has the ability to completely miss the intended content in the first place. The likes of which is currently being proposed, that is leaving all of this stuff to the regulations, is the equivalent of me handing you a piece of paper and saying, “Please draw the rules,” and then enforcing those rules without having had any parliamentary oversight of what those rules actually are. And that is a problem when it comes to, particularly, the potential to curtail the opportunity of all New Zealanders—and, might I add, actually, particularly minorities in this country.

Here I’d refer, actually, to Anjum Rahman of Inclusive Aotearoa Collective, who agrees with this idea of a filter in theory, and has been recognised for her incredible work in response, particularly, to that terrorist atrocity in Christchurch. She herself has warned that this practice of a national filter could and has the potential to end up disempowering those who it is intended to protect. That is the problem. We are centralising far too much control with the progression of this legislation. So, in my final few moments to contribute to the House tonight, noting that, of course, this will pass with this solid Labour majority—outright majority of Government—I hope that we have the opportunity to discuss this in depth and really mull over those submissions from the general public when it comes to the select committee stage, and hopefully improve the legislation substantially therein.

What we are looking at here is a bill that was prompted by an incredibly abhorrent, disgusting terrorist attack that everybody in this House thinks has no place in Aotearoa New Zealand. But it happened here. That it happened here means that here exists racism, and, dare I say it—because I know it makes some people’s skin crawl when they hear it—white supremacy. I really want people to think about that, because if the idea of talking about something like white supremacy makes you feel uncomfortable, does it make you feel more uncomfortable that we’re grappling with something that actually is causing harm to minority communities, or is it the fact that you feel personally offended?

This is the point of freedom of speech; it comes with consequences. If we are to want to genuinely deal with the actual core root of this issue, then we need to do things like tackle racism and tackle white supremacy, begin to unpick them, begin to have these conversations. But that does not start with curtailing the opportunity to have those conversations in the first place. Ironically, the very mention of some of these buzzwords—if, enabled by this legislation in future, further down the track, by some virtue of regulation, there is an algorithm that has the opportunity to do these things, then it might capture conversations just like this, which are so important to the flourishing of democracy and our ability to begin to unpick these deeply problematic viruses that exist within our society and cause undue violence.

The Greens will not support this at first reading, and we very much hope that there is a response from the general public and that that response is listened to at the select committee stage, so that this law may be improved for all of us. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to commend the previous speaker for that contribution, although I’d comment that while what Chlöe Swarbrick said is true, that we often find ourselves with common cause on issues of social liberty, she’s never been able to explain to me why she doesn’t trust politicians in the Government to regulate how you use your body and your mind but she’ll allow them open season on all the rest of your property. I look forward to the day when Chlöe Swarbrick and the Green Party can explain that seeming inconsistency.

I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Urgent Interim Classification of Publications and Prevention of Online Harm) Amendment Bill. Now, maybe people listening might see some of the confusion inherent in the bill just by reading or listening to what the title of it is. The truth is it is a nonsense that cannot work, that has been trumped up to solve a problem that it actually doesn’t align with whatsoever, and it will reduce New Zealanders’ most basic freedoms to think their thoughts and speak their minds without concern for arbitrary coercion by the State.

Mr Speaker, I want to tell you that I was in Christchurch on 15 March 2019, ironically on a Speakers’ tour with my good friend Trevor Mallard, and we were visiting the University of Canterbury when we were told that there were active shooters loose in the city of Christchurch. I watched the video that was live streamed—I watched it along with about 500 other students cradled over their phones, and we watched it for the simple reason that we didn’t know what was happening, but it seemed like a very real possibility that if there was an ongoing terror attack, then a university with students huddled in a great hall is a place that they might come to next.

I make this point for two reasons: one is that I’m not blind by any stretch of the imagination to the horror of what happened on that day, but number two is that within minutes of me and some of those students watching that video, it had been taken down. Why? Because every major internet company that has any kind of reputation worth anything was scrambling to get rid of it as quickly as they were aware and as quickly as they could. That leads to the question: what is it that the Labour Party members think an agent of the New Zealand Government could have practically done in that window of time to have changed the outcome? And what do they think that the New Zealand State, an organisation that can’t even get personal protective equipment to the right place at the right time in the middle of a pandemic, is going to do to keep up with future changes in the way the internet works?

That’s the simple reality: the connection between this legislation and the terrible attacks on New Zealanders on 15 March 2019 is totally symbolic. There is no practical connection. There is no morsel of truth in the idea that this legislation practically addresses what happened that day. That means that the connection is purely rhetorical, that it’s purely symbolic, and that it is, frankly, a Government that is trying to sell the sizzle because it has no sausage to sell.

It happens against a backdrop of a Government that does this all too often, a Government that told us only last year—I think it was November—that we needed an extra five days’ sick leave for 2.7 million workers because maybe some people, probably numbering in the hundreds, would need to take 14 days off with COVID-19, and just this week, the Government said, “Actually, we’ve got a special programme to compensate people who do need to stay home, get tested, and potentially isolate for COVID-19.”, showing that they never needed that policy. Well, this bill today is another example of the Government using one tragic cause the public cares about to sell another agenda.

What is the agenda behind this bill? It is the idea that some people should be able to have an apparatus to tell other people what to say and think. We’ve established it’s nothing to do with Christchurch, it’s nothing to do with the terror, because, practically, it wouldn’t have helped on that day, and it won’t help in any similar situation in the future. But what it is about, as we heard from Chlöe Swarbrick, is giving this Government or some future Government the ability to set up a filter that controls what sort of information can come in and out of Aotearoa New Zealand. I think that is an affront to freedom of expression, at a time when free expression is already under threat.

We have a crisis where we are unable to have honest conversations and work through our problems in a civilised manner. Too often, people are cancelled out and beaten down for expressing the views that they honestly hold. People are taken off radio stations, in the case of Sean Plunket, as we’re hearing reported today. People feel unable to speak their mind because they don’t know how they might find themselves beaten down for expressing an honestly held opinion.

In that environment, we are a much poorer society, and we’re also a more dangerous society, because people who do have truly objectionable views are going underground. They’re going to places that this legislation will never touch, because the people that express truly objectionable views and who have truly objectionable material, they won’t be doing it on Google or Facebook or Instagram, or any reputable company that could be named by members of this House. They won’t be doing it on 8chan, which was the thing that the real freaks went to when 4chan kicked them out, which was the thing that the mild freaks went to when normal social media kicked them out. They’ll be doing it on some sort of platform that most people in this House have never heard of, except for some of the slightly odder people that have joined the Labour Party caucus lately. This legislation won’t reach those dark corners of the internet. What it will do is supress and frighten people who are trying to have honest conversations about their own lives and the future of our country.

It would be right and proper for this Parliament to say this law tonight doesn’t solve the problem that it’s advertised to solve. There’s no practical way it can do that. It would be right and proper for this Parliament tonight to say this legislation has effects that we are not comfortable with. We don’t know how a future Government might use the power to set up an internet filter on what people can access online. It would be right and proper for this Parliament to say that this legislation won’t be effective at getting into the really dark corners of the internet, which are the ones that we should be most worried about. And it would be right and proper for this Parliament to say tonight that we actually, if we have any goal when it comes to speech and conversation, need to start encouraging people to speak freely in a civilised and respectful manner, because there’s far too much hate, there’s far too much identity politics, there’s far too much cancel culture, and it is breeding resentment that is going to lead to backlashes that will take New Zealand to a far less united and far less civil place.

That’s what the Labour Party needs to understand. That’s what those Labour backbenchers have signed up to and what they should’ve been asking questions about in caucus. “When the leader’s office gave me these speaking notes to support this bill that I don’t really agree with, that I actually should’ve questioned a few more times, did I really trust them? Will I really be pleased that I supported this, looking back in the future? Is this really what I came to Parliament for, to erode the rights of New Zealanders without actually solving any practical problem?” Those are the questions those Labour backbenchers should be asking themselves, and, if they do, they will cross the floor and defeat this bill, that doesn’t solve any real problem but restrains the freedoms of New Zealanders to think their thoughts and speak their minds freely. That would be a good night for parliamentary democracy, but I suspect they won’t have it in them, and it will be just ACT, National, and the Greens opposing this affront to freedom of expression. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Debate interrupted.