Education and Training (Freedom of Expression) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Education and Training (Freedom of Expression) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I further nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider this bill.

As we go through my bill this evening, I hope that we can all reflect on how fortunate we are to be able to freely participate in the process and debate the issue at hand. We’ve certainly been doing that this evening. How about that? Two ACT bills in a row. Get used to it. This is the essence of liberal democracy. In this context, it is easy to take free speech for granted, and open debate as well, particularly as we are operating under the guise of parliamentary privilege. That being said, we should never take freedom itself for granted. Free speech is fundamental. It is the cornerstone of liberal democracy and a proven method to confront tyranny, injustice, and oppression.

In the lead-up to this bill, I have spoken about freedom of speech and academic freedom. These are actually distinct concepts. Freedom of speech, an ideal within the broader construct of freedom of expression, is the ability to express one’s thoughts without restriction, so long as you are not harming others or inciting violence on others. Academic freedom, on the other hand, is the ability of academics and students to question ideas and to put forward new ones without being censored, or, worse, risking your career or enrolment status. For academics, it is crucial that they are able to teach and undertake research that challenges the status quo, even if it’s a bit unorthodox if they choose to do so.

Universities are, by their design, centres of inquiry and intellectual debate, most of the time, by which new ideas are brought to life and tested. Virtually every scientific breakthrough and accomplishment throughout history has pushed the boundaries of their times. They were often criticised by academic institutions as immoral and offensive, but are now accepted as fact.

This bill requires that tertiary institutions protect freedom of expression and gives them significant say over how they do so within existing laws. The bill enables them to issue codes of practice that are set out in procedures that students and staff should follow to uphold freedom of expression. Universities will need to take responsibility to maintain lawful freedom of speech for their faculty, students, and visiting speakers.

Having such a process actually helps universities, as it enables them to clearly identify when a speaker presents a real risk of inciting harm or criminal activity, while protecting those who may have unorthodox or slightly strange or controversial views but are otherwise harmless. Massey University released their own policy—of sorts—on freedom of speech, which cites mental harm to students as a reason that speakers may be de-platformed or events cancelled. This is entirely open-ended and subjective, and it will result in a process that is informal and behind closed doors. Taxpayer-funded institutions, through their management, should not be forcing whatever world view they have and that they possess on students, using dubious claims to do so.

A recent survey conducted by Curia Market Research on behalf of the Free Speech Union gathered over 1,200 responses from university-employed academics. In the findings, almost half of the respondents felt constrained to raise differing perspectives and to argue against the consensus—and even more so in discussing the Treaty. On the latter, almost a third ranked themselves as feeling very unfree. If academics feel unable to speak out on any issue, this will have long-run and long-term consequences and effects on students. Their ability to engage in critical thinking will be diminished.

The results of this survey are troubling, and they show that the issues are real here in New Zealand universities. Universities should be environments of genuine diversity and open debate, with the free exchange and exploration of ideas without fear, yet the survey demonstrates that there is fear, and it is only getting worse. If we do not confront these issues, we risk not only losing our freedom but also our problem-solving abilities. It is frankly disappointing that we are even here debating this issue in 21st century New Zealand. In a healthy culture, people are allowed to say unpopular things.

💬 Simeon Brown: Careful!

Speech isn’t—yeah. Speech isn’t about left versus right, believe it or not. As part of the broader attack on liberalism—

💬 Simeon Brown: He needs to be cancelled!

Gee, they’re upset now. Freedom of speech has been contested on both sides of the political spectrum.

💬 Shanan Halbert: What about homophobic ones? Transphobic?

While in contemporary discussions it tends to be pushed by those on the right, for sure, history clearly shows that freedom of speech was the key enabler in many social justice issues pioneered by the left, even if they refuse to believe it—like right now. Kate Sheppard was likely one of New Zealand’s greatest speakers, but her views were radical at the time. We nevertheless became the first country in the world to have universal suffrage to give women the vote when Parliament passed the 1893 Electoral Act, and it is one of our greatest achievements made possible in a culture that enabled free speech.

The anti - Springbok tour is another example. It would not have been as successful as it was had it had been an environment where we weren’t allowed to make unpopular statements. In modern times, we have seen the likes of the group Speak Up For Women repeatedly being shut down. I’m not saying I necessarily support everything they say, but regardless. And of course, I have to mention the case—the famous case—of Don Brash and Massey University’s decision to cancel him, despite the fact that he was only going to go there to talk about his political career. Even the Prime Minister from that party over there called their refusal to host Brash an overreaction. Minister Hipkins said he wouldn’t have cancelled him either and that universities should have a very high threshold around allowing free speech, enabling it, and having robust debate. What a good idea. Thank you, Minister Hipkins. We also have seen issues such as posters at Massey University supporting the Hong Kong protests being torn down, and Auckland University of Technology scrapping Tiananmen Square commemorations after the Chinese Government communist officials intervened.

Freedom of speech is a core principle in classical liberalism and should be protected by law in any democratic nation. It is worth noting that, here in New Zealand, it is neither entrenched in law nor absolute. Instead, freedom of expression is loosely protected by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. In theory, the law enforces the right to speak, associate, to think, and to participate in the democratic process. Liberalism emphasises tolerance and dignity. A person does not have to agree with their fellow citizens about important issues, but acknowledge that each individual should get to decide what they are, who they are, what they think, and how they express themselves without interference from the State. In theory, liberalism lowers the temperature of politics, though I think this evening it’s not working out so well, so it probably reflects more on what’s happening on the Government side over there.

Human dignity is about people having an equal right to autonomy and freedom of choice. Every individual wants to shape their lives as they see fit.

💬 Shanan Halbert: Freedom of choice to be transphobic!

If a significant part of society rejects liberal principles and seeks to fundamentally restrict speech, then dignity is lost, identities take over, and liberalism can no longer maintain peaceful political order. The Government’s proposed hate speech laws, which are being developed under a veil of secrecy, could significantly challenge this inherent dignity.

In closing, I would say that we can be certain that the threats to free speech are not limited to our university campuses. The effects can be felt throughout society—chilling effects. This bill is none the less a positive step to mitigate the growing phenomenon of woke cancel culture in places of learning where open debate should be protected and encouraged. I commend my bill to the House.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. It’s my privilege to stand and respond sensibly and thoughtfully to this bill, the Education and Training (Freedom of Expression) Amendment Bill. While we appreciate the member’s attempts to look after what happens in universities, this goes nowhere near resolving the issues he thinks exist.

He talks about protecting in law freedom of speech and academic freedom, and luckily we already have more than one law that does that, whether it is the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act or the Human Rights Act, or whether it is the Education and Training (Freedom of Expression)—oh no, that one’s no good—whether it’s the Education and Training Act. The Education and Training Act is really interesting because it protects the freedom of speech of academics more than the other Acts that already exist.

So we know that we are acknowledging, in current legislation, how precious it is to protect our academics’ ability to challenge us as a society, to bring new thinking, new evidence, and new science to us and to confront us and our status quo. We protect it; we cherish it.

What this bill does is it doesn’t protect that any further. What it does is it tells academic institutions that the politicians in this House have a much better idea of what it is they should be looking after as far as knowledge goes and science goes in their institutions. We are absolutely supportive of the idea that the law recognises academics as being a critic and conscience of society—and we’ve heard so many times over the last few months as we brought our bills to this House that have protected and extended how we behave as a society.

Years ago, those thoughts and things that are absolutely—and quite rightly—front and centre, normal, and regular today were at the edges of academia a generation ago. We absolutely understand the importance of academics challenging the status quo. The danger when we take away any opportunity for institutions to regulate that—because there is a tension to manage, and those institutions should be free to do it—is that when we shift from dissenting views that are based on evidence and based on science and academic rigour, and we shift into views that are opinions that are based on falsehoods, demonstrable misinformation, what that does is it actually undermines performing a role as critic and conscience of society. What happens is, we’re reducing the independence of our institutions to do what is best for academics, for their students, and for their staff.

We should be trusting them; we shouldn’t go, “Oh, well it’s OK if someone might physically hurt but not if there is mental injury.” They should be entitled to absolutely be trusted to make sure that science has space to breathe.

Academics versus speakers—and we’ve heard about Don Brash coming into Massey University. This is not about academic freedom. Talking about some overseas visitors bringing in their racist attitudes to public spaces in Auckland is not about what institutions do. This is not going to have an impact on what happens in a public space in Auckland.

What this does is it impacts on the freedom of our institutions to do what is right, to make sure that we have a safe space for science and for evidence and for progress. There is a really, really good reason why we trust our institutions to bring true academic rigour to their spaces. It’s really interesting that we hear that we’ve got people who think that the institutions should be told what they use to judge what helps keep their workers safe under the Health and Safety at Work Act.

Mental duress and injury; we keep hearing from the other side of the House how important it is to support our young people and the challenges they have with their mental health—except if somebody’s got a point of view that they don’t like.

Mental injury, mental duress; why should that be any less of a consideration for these people who must care for their students, who must care for their workers, and must care for their academics and their freedom?

By giving visitors more voice, some students and staff may actually feel unsafe, and it actually might reduce the academic rigour that we require. I don’t know how long it’s been since you’ve walked on to a campus and had a good debate with your lecturer. Some of us have done it as recently as last week, and it’s wonderful to be in that space where you feel safe to really, really challenge the science—not the misinformation, not the baiting, but the discipline about academic rigour. It’s a beautiful place to be, and I’m sure many of you remember it, some of us more recently than others. But it’s wonderful, and by bringing this Act to fruition, we are going to limit an institution’s obligation to protect that space.

The ability for visitors to have a greater right to bring misinformation—to bring viewpoints that actually undermine science—isn’t helpful. Like I say, it can constrain true academic rigour and debate, and it can impact on a prospective learning decision to study in a particular field.

We should be making institutions safe places—safe places—for academic rigour, not places where we bring in misinformation and it gets the same status. This bill actually stops institutions from making a solid academic response that’s well-rounded and in the best interests of their workers, their students, their academics, and of course, because they challenge us to be better for all of us.

So it is because of that that I will be opposing this bill and I will not be recommending it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in support at this first reading of the Education and Training (Freedom of Expression) Amendment Bill brought in the name of Dr James McDowall. Congratulations, Dr McDowall, on having this chosen.

The bill’s purpose is seeking to ensure that tertiary institutions who receive public money have some accountability around properly balancing their health and safety obligations, on the one hand, and their obligation to be a place of open debate, on the other hand. Now, the Education and Training Act 2020 and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 requires our institutions to uphold academic freedom and freedom of expression. Our universities are required to be the critic and conscience of society; however, there is no consequence for them failing to do so.

This bill shouldn’t be needed—it really shouldn’t be needed—but we’ve seen a number of examples of why it is needed. Let’s have a wee look just at April this year: Auckland University of Technology cancelling, bizarrely, a talk on feminism, advocacy, and free speech. Back in July last year, seven University of Auckland professors dared to take a position on mātauranga Māori and NCEA science and were publicly chastised by the vice-chancellor. And, of course, the example that we had back in 2018, when Don Brash was cancelled by Massey University for health and safety reasons that were found not to be health and safety reasons and had to be reinstated. So if we weren’t seeing this disturbing trend of things such as this happening, the bill wouldn’t be needed, but, sadly, it is.

But unlike the current Government that when it decides on something, everything has to be centralised and they have to make the decisions, this bill gives the institutions the ability to issue their own codes of practice, to set out their own policies and procedures that student and staff should follow to uphold freedom of expression. So it gives the responsibility back to the institution to ensure that they can get that balance right, but not lean on health and safety as a reason for cancelling.

So if institutions are found to be stifling free speech or de-platforming speakers as a general practice, they may lose all or part of their public funding for failing to act in the public interest.

Now, universities are worried about speakers encouraging violence—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! With apologies to the member. Masks are to be worn in this House unless the member has an exemption or is making a call. So members may not remove their mask, even if only partially to make a call, under these circumstances.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. So if universities are worried about speakers encouraging violence or inciting lawbreaking, they have plenty of protection already. The Crimes Act, the Summary Offences Act 1981, the Broadcasting Act 1989, the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015, the Harassment Act 1997, and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 all place constraints on what people can say, to protect against harmful speech. So tertiary institutions should not be falling back on health and safety, when they have those protections in place. Tertiary institutions should be maximising free expression within these limits, not trying to further constrain it.

National is supporting this bill at first reading. If, by chance, the Government members might vote for it and the bill goes to select committee and beyond, there would have to be some consideration made to how the bill could actually enforce these obligations. In the case of loss of funding, how will that impact some unrelated work at the same institution? How much, and why—and all those details. But I’m sure that Dr McDowall is working on that and is prepared to see a select committee work on that. But given this growing trend of tertiary institutions disinviting or de-platforming speakers, we believe this bill is necessary.

Madam Speaker, thank you very much. I’m pleased to rise and take a call on the Education and Training (Freedom of Expression) Amendment Bill. Can I acknowledge the MP James McDowall and congratulate him on having his bill drawn from the ballot. I will, unfortunately, not be able to support it this evening.

We only had to turn our television on a few days ago and see the terrible shooting in America, in what appeared to be a racially motivated hate crime—

💬 Simeon Brown: What’s that got to do with the bill?

Well, if you’ll listen up, Mr Brown, I will tell you what it has to do with it. Just listen up—less talking, perhaps more listening.

A young person who was radicalised and emboldened by what happened here in New Zealand at the mosque attacks in Christchurch a few years ago—actions based on hate for someone of a different race or religion. People are being exposed to so much, particularly at the moment. There is so much misinformation and disinformation out there, and we’ve seen it firsthand out here on our front lawn. Our place, the people’s place, was desecrated while people had a platform to spread their mis- and disinformation, where they spoke about freedom and freedom of speech; they also spoke about hate.

💬 Simeon Brown: They weren’t at a university. Last time I saw, this wasn’t a university.

Now, as a mother of three children, it is innate for me to want to protect them. Mr Brown, you said you wanted to know what it was about. You need to listen instead of hooha-ing across the House. I want my children to go out and explore the world. I want them to attend university and other learning institutions. But I want to know they are as safe as possible while they do so. I can’t tag along to uni with them, so, as parents, we put a lot of trust in those places—that they will do all that they can to keep our children safe, and that means minimising the risk of mental harm, minimising the risk of physical harm, which they are obliged to do under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. This proposed piece of legislation takes that away. How could I, in all good conscience, agree to a bill that potentially increases the risk of harm not only to my children but to young people all around New Zealand?

Yes, it is important that people have freedom of speech. Yes, it is important that people have different points of view. But it is not OK when people want to talk about hateful things, to spread misinformation, to spread disinformation. So it should absolutely be the right of the tertiary education institutions to maintain their autonomy and to be able to disallow speakers, faculty members, students, and visitors, from preventing hateful and even possibly extremist speech.

This bill even suggests that the tertiary education institution should be penalised and have funding withdrawn, revoked, or suspended if they fail to comply with the requirements to protect freedom of speech. On this side of the House, we have a Government that wants to ensure that Aotearoa New Zealand is a safe place, where people feel safe, where they feel valued, and where people are exposed to the richness of different cultures, different religions, different opinions and views that are contrary to their own, but without the risk of harm.

💬 Simon O’Connor: Oh, for goodness’ sake!

Yes. Just keep on listening, Mr O’Connor. You may just learn something. There is no way that we should take away the rights of tertiary institutions to make their own choice about who speaks on campus. There is no way that we should introduce punitive measures and remove funding. Funding that is removed or withheld is funding that is taken away from the very people attending the tertiary institutions—in effect, penalising the students.

So in summary, I don’t support a bill that likely increases the risk of exposing people to harmful, hateful, or extremist speech. I don’t support a bill that wants to financially penalise tertiary education institutions for not exposing people to harmful hate speech and in turn penalising the students by withholding or removing funding. I do not commend this bill to the House.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe, tēnā koutou e te Whare. I just want to start my contribution today by acknowledging Dr James McDowall, as other members across the Chamber have, for the good luck and good fortune of having his bill drawn. I do, however, hate to inform him that the Greens will not be voting for his bill, which I’ll, of course, address in the next five minutes—

💬 Simeon Brown: Cancel culture, Chlöe!

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —if you’d like to listen, Simeon Brown.

So I never thought that I would see the day that the ACT Party thought that more cumbersome and complicated bureaucracy would somehow be a solution to a problem, let alone a hyped-up problem that we actually already have the legislative infrastructure to fix if we are to pay true heed to the noted purpose of this legislation.

So let’s be really, really clear. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 section 14 says—and I quote—“Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.” Of course, per section 3 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, this right applies to our universities and to our tertiary institutions. Section 5 of that same legislation, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, belies—and I quote—“Justified limitations” that is subject to reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. What that means for anyone who is listening to this debate tonight—

💬 Simeon Brown: Oh, they all just turned off.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: And I really would invite some meaningful contributions here, not just those of purported absolutism and really blurring the lines about what we’re actually discussing in this legislation, Mr Brown. What it means is that when these rights, as outlined in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, rub up against each other—such as, for example, freedom of movement, freedom from discrimination, or the likes of freedom from unreasonable search and seizure—we in this Chamber choose how to balance those rights, and those in State institutions, and those responsible for provision of those campuses in these institutions to which this bill seeks to prescribe how they could balance, and actually not balance, because it is absolutely about absolutism.

There are very recent examples of how we go about trying to balance those rights, as prescribed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, beyond actually those of COVID-19 and the many COVID orders through this House. In fact, I’d refer many members—particularly those from the National Party, who I’m sure will soon stand up and lambast this contribution—to speak to the fact that, for example, they, with the then Attorney-General declaring it an unjust inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, made the decision in the last National Government to deny the rights of prisoners to vote. That is a denial of a right, as prescribed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and something which those on the side of this House who are now seeking to prescribe absolutism to the freedom of expression are saying shouldn’t be balanced.

Every day there are balancing acts that need to occur with these rights that law cannot be too prescriptive in. In a free and democratic society in which we have the opportunity to debate, it is, in fact, necessary. And I’d actually like to acknowledge the fact that ACT themselves acknowledged this when they voted with most of us in this House—not those who have been really barracking the rest of us throughout the rest of the contributions in this debate, but ACT acknowledged, along with most of us, that safe zones around abortion clinics are an appropriate balance of the rights to protect those who are going in to get access to those abortions against the rights of those who are seeking to harass those in the vicinity of those abortion clinics.

This bill does away with that balance, quite explicitly, in fact, by requiring universities to discard any considerations of the health and safety for workers, visitors, and students, to give privilege to whoever wants to come on to a campus and say whatever they want to say. Of course, that could just be spoken word poetry, or it could be to blurt out incessant white noise, or it could be to recruit members for a violent and perhaps bloody coup, like, you know, as acknowledged today and the ACT Party’s Tauranga candidate seemed to so flippantly endorse.

Your right to freedom of speech is not a shield. You can say whatever you want to say, Mr Speaker or other members of this Chamber, but it does not entitle you to protection from the consequences of it, nor does it entitle you to a platform. Perversely, this bill would also seek to remove the freedom of speech of those who oppose the statements of those who are coming on to these campuses to spread their own. The Green Party cannot support this bill in good conscience. It’s far too complicated, unwieldy, and does not achieve the purpose as outlined.

Order! Order! There’s a lot of noise in this House. And, whilst the last speaker had a very loud voice, this speaker doesn’t.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a very shouty night in House tonight, and we talk about the freedom of speech. Can I remind the House that this week, we will celebrate and recognise Pink Shirt Day on Friday, and that particular kaupapa will work to collectively stop bullying in our country. Yet, tonight, we’re putting forward a piece of legislation that is quite counter to what we’re asking. So I ask all members in this House tonight: on Friday, when you wake up and turn up to this place, will you be taking a photo in your pinks? Will you be having your Pink Shirt Day moment to celebrate anti-bullying? Yet, on this Wednesday evening, you’re supporting a bill that puts forward the opportunity for freedom of speech in places that directly impacts negatively on people, how they feel, and their wellbeing.

Also when we go to Pink Shirt Day—and, yesterday, out the front of our Parliament, we raised the flags to celebrate and recognise the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism, and Transphobia. And when we talk about freedom of speech, freedom for who? For those that are transphobic? For those that are homophobic? Are those the people that you want to speak on university campuses? Are they the racists that you want to have the right to speak on our university campuses? Are those the people that you are putting forward in support of this particular bill? I throw you that question, and I ask you to consider that this coming Friday on Pink Shirt Day.

But if I come back to what we’re putting forward, like our member Swarbrick, I am confused why the ACT Party would want to be putting more regulations on the tertiary institutions. Why would you want to do that? You don’t stand for that. That’s why this bill is so confused, right? It aims for politics, it aims for media grabs, and we are about something more substantial in this House this evening.

I look over to the comments of Penny Simmonds, the member who was a former leader in the tertiary education sector. Can she actually tell us this evening that she would allow these people to speak on a campus openly on such subject matters at the Southern Institute of Technology? Would she do that, and honestly, has she obstructed academics on her campus—not to speak—in her past career? I would question where she sits on this bill, even though she has played to the National Party narrative this evening.

What we do have in our country is tertiary education rules that enable academics and all allied staff members in these tertiary institutions to kōrero, to talk openly, respectfully, and academically to deconstruct, reconstruct, and talk about things that are important to people and communities; things that matter. But I come back to the start of my speech because the people that you are asking for, in this particular bill, are going to put forward kaupapa and discussions that hurt other people. They’re not topics. They aren’t topics, the ones that you’ve talked about. They aren’t topics where people aren’t going to be hurt, and you’re asking them to stand up on university campuses and have their say. I oppose this bill. I oppose it once, twice, three times, because that subject matter has no place in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Can I also remind James, who I respect, on our Transport and Infrastructure Committee, actually—a place where we do agree on some things but not on this bill—when we think of women’s suffrage and Kate Sheppard that you mentioned, when we think of the Springbok tour, people had their say; they didn’t need this bill in order to achieve their voice and to move this country forward. I do not support this bill, and I do not commend it to the House.

Order! Just before I call the next speaker, interjections should be witty, funnily enough, and they should be to the point and not altogether that frequent, and frankly, when you wear hearing aids, it’s like a constant groan in your ears, and it’s very boring.

Against the spirit of free speech, Mr Speaker, may I suggest that for mine, you can turn your hearing aid off for five minutes and then turn it back on!

To illustrate the very problem that the left and the radical left are putting across tonight, I would just like to say I have found every contribution from the Labour Party and the Greens—$200,000 - Chlöe Swarbrick—offensive! It’s hurt me! I’m mentally anguished by what they’ve said! My tribe, my community, and my identity has been deeply offended, and no one on that side could dare to critique that, because that’s my experience!

Don’t you dare question what I’m feeling! My feelings trump anything you think and anything your group thinks! My tribe, my feelings, are right, and I am very upset tonight!

I want everything that the Labour Party and the radical Greens say banned! I don’t want to see them on the universities, because if I walk there tomorrow, I could have a hurt feeling—I could have a hurt feeling!

Do you know what—do you know what? I could go to a university and someone could say “Simon O’Connor, we don’t agree with you.”, and do you know what? That’s just going to cut—according to the Labour Party—so much to my heart! They’re going to say, “Gosh, you’re a Catholic.” Oh, what terrible sin could that be? That’s a terrible thing, you know, and I’d feel really hurt about that! “You’re an academic—you’ve studied. You’re privileged.”—gosh, that’s going to hurt!

I’m doing this as parody, because what doesn’t seem to get to the left is that freedom of speech relies on the ability for, actually, an array of ideas. The whole point of freedom of speech is not for the speech we agree with; it’s the speech we don’t, and, unfortunately, our universities have been captured by a bunch of left-wing progressives.

It only needs one quick example: Auckland University of Technology—I’ve written to them recently. Guess what? A bunch of women—that’s probably the wrong pronoun and collective pronoun, but anyway. A bunch of women—I want to be really specific about that gender; a bunch of women—wanted to go on to the university and talk about women, and do you know what happened? They were banned. Women were banned from talking about women’s rights, and not only that; they were abused, they were given hateful speech, they were harassed, and they were bullied from people who called them inclusion officers—from academics. It’s an absolute disgrace—it’s an absolute disgrace.

Let’s be under no illusion here: this is nothing to do with freedom of speech from the other side; it’s all about control. You will only be allowed to think, say, and preach what they believe in. That is autocracy, that is a totalitarian mind-set, and it infects our universities, like a virus. It’s an absolute cancer, and like any cancer—and the doctors know this—you rip it out, and the best way you rip it out is some sunlight.

There is an absolute arrogance—an arrogance of the highest degree—from the left and the radical left that they know best. The thing is that you don’t, and I can say that with confidence, because I might be on the other side and I might have a different opinion, but do you know what? I don’t think I know best. I think I have an opinion; I could be wrong. I’m actually willing to be told I’m wrong without having a bloody cry-baby in the corner—“I need a safe space.” Grow up.

To those academics, those of you who responded to the survey talking of freedom as some appropriated colonial concept: get out. We pay our taxes; you’re an absolute disgrace. To those academics, including those who fought for COVID, who bullied and harassed other academics, those seven who stood up the Royal Society—an absolute shocker and a shame. To those COVID scientists being paid huge amounts of money by this Government harassing their colleagues—an absolute disgrace.

So we need legislation like this. We need more legislation like this, because at the end of the day, our universities are no longer filled with academics. They’re filled with activists, and their mind-sets are weak—and they shake their heads on the other side. We know it’s so weak, because they cannot even sustain the most coherent, simple, basic arguments without crying.

University has flourished throughout the world. It’s been given to New Zealand. By the way, universities are appropriated into New Zealand—I just thought you left-wing academics needed to grow up. They have a lineage of free speech and ideas.

So the final message is really simple. To those on the left, to those academics who do not believe in freedom of speech: grow up. And if you’re not prepared to grow up, go and become a kindergarten teacher.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I had written a speech, but before I read what I was trying to say initially the last speaker, Simon O’Connor’s words were quite unfortunate and sad, especially for somebody like me who, as a man of colour, has faced a lot of abuse—including to the point when I was running for election. The sort of comments the speaker was making are the sort of comments behind which a lot of people hide behind and make those comments—not just in private conversations but also out in public. So I just want to say the last five minutes were very unfortunate, and the words that came out of that speaker’s mouth were really, really unfortunate.

Having said that, I do want to congratulate Dr James McDowall for having his bill pulled out of the biscuit tin. I won’t be—obviously—supporting the Education and Training (Freedom of Expression) Amendment Bill.

Just when I had been elected as a new MP, I received a message one day from one of my constituents saying that a white supremacist group was organising a meeting under a false name at one of the community centres in Hamilton. They got in touch with me, they got in touch with the community centre, and then the community centre—who see their role, their job as bringing people together in Hamilton—felt that this meeting should not be organised by this white supremacist group because it does not reflect the values of the community centre. It does not reflect the value of the community, because these people were trying to sow the seeds of division. Now, the community centre cancelled this right-wing group’s meeting. Now, replace this community centre with an educational institute. Right? Imagine a university or polytech where a similar event is being organised. What this bill asks is that the educational institution shouldn’t be able to refuse speakers they consider extremist or harmful from speaking.

According to this bill, the freedom of expression should be protected by taking away the freedom education providers have in making a sensible decision for the welfare of their students and staff members. So, basically, if this bill goes ahead, tertiary education institutions will not be allowed to rely on their duty to eliminate or minimise potential risk of mental harm to students and staff under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. Not only this, the tertiary education institutions will be ineligible for funding and may have funding suspended, revoked, or withdrawn if they fail to comply with the requirement to protect the freedom of expression.

This bill fails to balance the harm reduction with protection of democratic freedoms like freedom of expression. This bill believes that people should have the ability to express and speak freely, irrespective of the harm or damage that it could be due to induce on its audience. This bill cuts through the institutional autonomy provision in the Education and Training Act 2020, which already has the academic freedom provision for staff and students. What this bill does is it gives the visitors the same rights as the staff and students. As my colleague Angela Roberts recently mentioned in her speech, this can lead to students and staff feeling unsafe, students and staff feeling that their academic freedom is constrained, while also impacting on prospective students—in this particular setting—from being part of that education programme.

Currently, within the framework of the 2020 Tertiary Education Strategy, tertiary education institutions are already expected to ensure that robust policies, plans, and support are in place to address some of the concerns that I mentioned around racism; around bias—both for their students and their staff members. Institutions are expected to provide a safe place. Given what we have seen in this country in the last few years, it is important that we strengthen social cohesion in New Zealand. That’s not going to happen with a bill like this which empowers people to be able to speak against people who might not look like them, whether it is the colour of their skin or whether they associate being part of the rainbow community or—

💬 Simon Court: Sharma! Tell us, which ideas are unsafe? Tell us which ideas are unsafe!

I have just given you three great examples, Simon. Bills like this don’t help the discussion that we need at this point in our community, in our country. I will not be able to commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Just before I call the next speaker, I’ve had to interrupt between every speech and I don’t tend to interrupt but those of you who are meant to wear masks, please wear a mask.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Members may recall a couple of years ago that two Canadian provocateurs who had very strong views about the correlation between race and IQ were denied access to public facilities in Auckland in order to hold public meetings, and that caused quite a furore.

Now, I raise that point because at the same time as that was going on in New Zealand, in Dunedin at the University of Otago was one of the world’s leading researchers, the late Emeritus Professor Jim Flynn, who wrote extensively on race and IQ and gender and IQ and would have had a hundred arguments to refute Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux, the two Canadians who couldn’t come. We had a choice as a country to say: do we allow them to hold their views and express them, however offensive they may be, and then kick them out of the park, or do we shut them down and prevent them from doing so on the basis that their offence could be harmful?

The irony of that is that Professor Flynn, a radical leftist who stood in the old Dunedin North electorate for The Alliance and New Labour, a very left-wing academic, was nevertheless one of this country’s strongest proponents of free speech. In 2019, he wrote a book called In Defence of Free Speech, which his publisher refused to publish because it was going to be considered incendiary. He eventually got it published, and the new title was A Book Too Risky to Publish. And the sad thing about that is that Professor Flynn, in the cradle of the place where people should be able to freely express differing views, could see what we’re debating tonight, and that is that our universities—despite what Angela Roberts has said about this being unnecessary, who then went on to say that universities should be safe. Professor Flynn and I agreed on this: universities should be anything but safe. They should be places to take risks, to challenge, to identify, and—if necessary, or if it happens—to offend. I’ve been on the campus enough to have been accused of being a white supremacist, a transphobe, a homophobe, a religious fundamentalist. Some of that was offensive, to which I say: I get over it, I debate it, I defeat it, I refute it. But I don’t go and hide in a corner and find my safe space, as Jo Luxton would have me do, because the universities are the very place where people need to be put at risk.

I appreciate what Shanan Halbert said. I consider him to be one of the more thoughtful members of the 2020 intake and I understand his concern. But he interjected on Dr McDowall to say “Freedom of speech means freedom to be transphobic.” Well, firstly, the definition of transphobic will be different just about in every single person’s mind in this place. Who decides what their definition is and who was going to take offence to it? The answer to that question of who decides is not so much “who decides”, but how we decide. We decide by dialogue, a two-way transaction of ideas. And the very place to actually consider that are our universities, amongst our young who go out into the world, having often left home, particularly at Otago, to think, to be provoked, to argue, to learn, not to be safe. I think if anybody goes to university to be safe, they are in the wrong place.

Despite what Jo Luxton said and Angela Roberts said, the opposition to this bill—which I believe is necessary for the very reasons of the trend that we are seeing away from free speech, even though it could be harmful and offensive—is the very reason we need it. I don’t want people to be offended, but if they are: argue. Argue against it. Counter the argument, refute the argument, defeat the argument, but don’t hide the argument.

I stand against this bill, for three reasons. It’s recognised in law and in ethics that freedom of speech is not absolute. Secondly, it’s incredibly ironic and hypocritical for ACT to suggest that what they are doing is anything except limiting the self-determination of academic institutions; itself a lasso on free speech. And thirdly, as seductive as it is to look at universities as a group of institutions in their own right, actually the focus around free speech needs to be on content, not on place. So it’s a red herring and can lead to all sorts of other questions about where we might want to make freedom of speech absolute and not look at the harm that is caused.

But I do thank the member Dr James McDowall for getting his ballot drawn, because it has raised a really important debate. I don’t think that free speech has ever before been as critical as it is now, when we weigh it against misinformation, hate speech, and some of the things we see that are going on in the world. I’ll call to mind even the misinformation we’ve seen in the New Zealand context this week, with Business New Zealand and its active misinformation campaign against fair pay agreements, where the manipulation of a headline was done to make something look like a fait accompli and to hoodwink the public. So we all do need to be vigilant about our right to free speech but also our right to be free from misinformation.

There are the needs for limits on unfettered free speech. Penny Simmonds raised health and safety as being incidental; if there was ever a reason for there to be a limit, it would be for reasons of health and safety. What could be more important than that?

It’s also hypocritical for the Opposition to suggest that an institution doesn’t have rangatiratanga around its own free speech. If I look at how they’re doing that, the bill cuts across institutional autonomy provisions in the Education and Training Act. It narrows the choices that institutions can make about how they operate. It provides for regulations about free speech. It requires a code of practice on free speech. These are all anathema to free speech and to freedom of choice. But also, the safety impacts are around students and students’ decisions to learn, and that goes to the question of harm.

The other element that I find really interesting is ACT’s requirement to tag this bill to funding—what a transactional way to look at the world. It doesn’t surprise me, but it’s really interesting that something as fundamental as academic freedom and issues around free speech would be tagged to something around funding. It’s very transactional and it’s very short-sighted.

Simon O’Connor talked about hurt feelings and saying that it’s about crying in the corner—it’s not; it’s about the balancing of rights. If we look at the March 15 attacks, if we look at the harm that can be done to people who are visibly different, even in my own electorate recently with the case of a young woman at school who had her hijab pulled off in what was a racially motivated attack and a religious attack, that is different from being a Catholic. Catholics can’t be determined from how they look, but people who look different, who seem different, are subject to these. When I look at the diversity on the Opposition benches, it’s easy to see why they may not have any empathy with that argument, because they’ve probably never been in that situation themselves.

So, in summary, nobody has a monopoly on the truth, and as we grapple with these issues that relate to individual freedom to speech, we have to ask: where is the freedom to denigrate, where is the freedom to incite violence, where is the freedom to incite anarchy, where is that line, and where is the place for human dignity? These are important questions.

In going forward, we will need to debate them because we live in a context of populism, of misinformation, and of overseas funding coming into our institutions and into our society in a way where it’s really difficult for people to navigate their way forward according to their values and according to what they know to be the truth. So I welcome the debate. I hope that we can take the debate to a more thoughtful level than what has been offered tonight. But these are very strong reasons why I won’t be supporting this bill.

I call Dr James McDowall—five minutes in reply.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, that was a pretty confusing contribution there. But nevertheless I thank all members for their contributions and airing their views. That’s what it’s all about, that we can have this free debate without restriction. It’s too bad that, you know, perhaps some of these views would not be allowed on university campuses, which is actually what this bill is about.

I just want to thank National Party speakers in particular. As Penny Simmonds said, of course the existing legislation should be enough to deal with this issue. We should not have to debate this. But the reality is we do. De-platforming does happen under very bizarre pretences sometimes. The previous speaker, Ingrid Leary, spoke about where is the line? Well, there already is a line in law with criminal activity and incitement to commit violence. These things already exist. One of the examples was somebody being racially abused, which is horrendous, but they were attacked, physically attacked. Well obviously, this bill has absolutely nothing to do with that. So I think the irony of most—if not all—of the Labour Party speeches is just the sheer quantity of misinformation coming from those benches.

I want to further just point out, because I think it’s quite important, people spoke tonight, particularly on that side, about terrorism, about shootings. Several speakers spoke of the mosque terrorist attack in Christchurch, the actions of a deranged individual who came here from Australia, who never actually attended a New Zealand university. Somehow this bill will make others do something similar or had something to do with that. I think the comparison—and also talking about shootings in the United States—is utterly ridiculous and pretty disgusting, actually. It probably falls under their own guidelines of what hate speech might be, so anyway.

All the talk of people feeling potentially unsafe and then people shouldn’t be allowed to spread falsehoods on university campuses, these are ideas. Who decides what is true information, what is false information, and what we need to regulate or don’t. That’s the point of a contest of ideas, is that you can actually air these out. They do say sunlight is the best disinfectant.

This bill is not about enabling bullying. It is to rein in bullying from university coordinators and vice chancellors who enforce their world view on students. I think it was Shanan Halbert, I believe—the Kate Sheppard example was spoken about, given I mentioned it earlier, and the Springbok tour. Shanan pointed out that they didn’t need these laws. Well look, times have changed. Things have changed. Speech’s actually gotten worse—well, the freedom of speech has gotten worse in many aspects of our society. Again, another Labour MP spoke of white supremacy, an event in Hamilton at a community centre. They declined to host them. Well, again, a comparison to a university is just not there. You know, it is misinformation, I’m sorry.

What I would say in the time that I have, again, I respect the views of everyone. I think there was some good contributions, but also some very strange ones that were borderline defamatory as to my motivations behind this bill. I would say that we are creating a cohort of young people who are hypersensitive and no longer daring, no longer prepared, to basically think of the unthinkable. They’re deprived of intellectual rigour and freedom on campuses. This was a chance to actually address that and put it through to select committee, perhaps, and actually take this seriously.

💬 David Seymour: They could still change their mind.

They could change their minds, you’re right.

So we shouldn’t forget that universities are there to provide us with scientists, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and so on. They are not there to provide us with State-sponsored political activists. So it is a shame that the bill is most likely coming to its end now. But I’m glad that we had this debate. It seems I have potentially touched a nerve or two and started some sort of culture war; at least there’s a culture war going on, on that side. Anyway, that’s all for me. Thank you.