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I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Australia's Parliament has been called back two weeks early to push through new gun and hate speech legislation in the wake of the Bondiet terror attack. The recommendations are reminiscent of those made by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the March fifteen terror attack in Christchurch. Since twenty twenty one, successive governments have begun, paused, then stopped altogether all policy and
legislative work on hate speech. So where do our laws sit today? Are they good enough? Or should we follow Australia's lead and finally tackle this issue once and for rule. Today on the Front Page, Race Relations Commissioner Doctor Melissa Darby is with us to talk about how to tackle this growing issue. First off, what do New Zealand's hate speech laws look like at the moment.
At the moment, under the Human Rights Act, there is protection for particular groups based on particular characteristics. There have been some questions as to whether or not those laws cover groups sufficiently. I will make the point that this is certainly outside my sort of scope. As Race Relations Commissioner, I am here obviously to make sure that the rights
of various groups are upheld. But some of the more technical analysis of these laws, where the threshold might sit, how they sit alongside things like freedom of expression, of course, which is another human right, requires them quite serious legal analysis, so that I guess we're balancing all of the considerations in the mix, and.
Do you think that they are good enough a moment? Do they cover enough groups?
I think there would be room for expanding the laws. There's certainly been that has been what some committees or commissions have recommended. The Royal Commission of Inquiry, for example, into their christ Church musk attacks, recommended changes to our hate speech legislation. Whether that happens or not is secondary to the fact that we should be addressing.
These issues in New Zealand.
A lot of groups that I've engaged with in my time in this role. I've been in the role of Race Relations Commissioner for about a year now, engaged with groups up and down the country. A number of groups are very concerned about hateful rhetoric, and all groups want better education about the impacts of harmful speech. Some groups absolutely want legislative change some darings. And it's important to note too that even within communities there are a variety of views.
And in terms of those views, what do most groups want first straight off the bat, I.
Think groups want better education and better public awareness about the impact of harmful and hateful rhetoric on groups. I think that there's an opportunity for us to provide spaces and places for us to mix and mingle with people who are different from us. Communities up and down the country have told me that that's what they want to do. They want to get to know their neighbors, They want to mix and mingle with people who are from different backgrounds.
They don't want to live in a divided New Zealand. Rather, they want to live in a united country. And so I think there's an opportunity for us to provide better spaces for that to occur, to remove the fear and mistrust and suspicion that often occurs when there's.
A bit of a vacuum.
I think that communities, actually a lot of them have said to me, if not all that better education in this space about the impact of hateful rhetoric would hopefully go some way to perhaps others recognizing the impact of some of their actions, but by the same token, us providing opportunities for us to connect together with people who are different to us shows us that we are far more alike than we are different, and perhaps remove some of that fear that can often fill a gap and
loewer of anything else.
Well, when it comes to hate speech laws and those reforms, it's always a hot topic, and we've seen time and time again and successive governments of all different colors and stripes pick this up, put it down, cancel it, rejig things.
I mean, is it just because it is.
So wide reaching and there's that tension between free speech versus hate speech.
I think the Australian example has shown us how complex these issues are. I think we know that, but I do think that we've failed to recognize the degree of complexity and nuance in these issues.
I'm talking in your general terms here.
But I think a lot of people see, if you are for free speech, you must therefore not have any concern whatsoever about hate speech, or if you want changes to our hate speech threshold and laws, then you must want to censor everybody. And I think that's a very
binary way of looking at a very complex issue. We can understand and appreciate and want to protect the fundamental human right of freedom of expression and I guess the freedom that affords all of us in a country like New Zealand, while at the same time being very concerned about some of the increasingly harmful and hateful rhetoric that we're seeing directed at communities.
I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive.
I think we need to come together as a country and discuss or hold a constructive, mature, facilitated conversations about how we actually address some of these issues so that we can balance as best we can those two things that are often pitted as competing with one another, and in some senses they do not necessarily, so I accept completely that the threshold for things like incitement needs to be high in order to protect freedom of speech.
But that doesn't mean that we should accept as a country some of the harmful rhetoric that's directed at communities in many instances, and certainly what I've been doing in my time as Race Relations Commissioner is calling that out and doing.
My best to create greater public awareness about the impact of some of this rhetoric that we're seeing on different communities.
In New Zealand.
Yeah, because the law has always taken that kind of principled approach right, taking context into account to determine where that freedom of expression turns into hate speech. But how difficult is it to differentiate criticism from incitement?
Yeah?
Look, I will say at the outset Chelsea that this requires probably more serious legal analysis than what I'm capable of. But what communities have told me, and I think what communities certainly understand, is that there is a difference between criticizing an ideology, for example, or a school of thought or an idea, and of course calling for harm to people. And I think we probably need to get better about
understanding that differentiation in our minds. That sometimes it isn't pleasant when we hear something that's very close to our hearts being criticized. But we've got to come to a place as a nation where we are okay with peaceful disagreement on issues and where we don't see those who disagree with us immediately as enemies. The social media online environment doesn't help here. It pits people, I think in
very absolute terms. You know, we probably say things to one another online that we wouldn't say to each other face to face, I would hope, and it puts it sort of puts people almost in these irreconcilable US versus them type teams, and I don't think that's helpful. Most recent Essays report shows that the dangers of online extremism and the polarization that some of those narratives.
Are contributing to in our country.
So yeah, ultimately, I think we need to certainly differentiate between criticism of a group and people versus criticism of an idea, and sometimes those things can feel blarry.
We must channel our anger into meaningful action to ensure an atrocity such as this can never happen again. And that responsibility starts with me as Australia's thirty first Prime Minister. It also belongs to each of us here in this chamber as parliamentarians, and it's a task for all of us as Australians told social cohesion to reject division and prejudice.
In terms of online radicalization. Would you see that at the moment as our greatest threat?
It's certainly up there, that's for sure.
The Essays report showed that sort of grievance narratives and violent extremism is becoming more prevalent in New Zealand. I want to make the point that no one group or ideology stands out there are arrange young people in particular are targeted online or are seen as being more susceptible to these sort of narratives and extremist ideas. And vulnerable people are as well, people who are perhaps isolated or who have experienced particular traumas in their life.
I think we need to be.
More realistic get better at addressing some of these issues because what the data also show and the NZD Space report is that New Zealand the greatest risk in terms of any terrorist attack in New Zealand is from a loan individual acting as I said, alone and with an access to an easy kind of weapon like a car for example, which is quite frightening when we think about how easy those things are for people to get.
Their hands on.
Of course, algorithms as well, social media algorithms, we all know how they operate. They start feeding into the mix and the whole thing kind of snowballs. Looking across at the Tasman and what they're debating now in terms of the hate speech laws you've mentioned. A massive lesson that we can learn from them, obviously is seeing how complex an issue like this is.
But what else do you think that.
We should pay close attention to when they're talking about this.
Look how Human Rights Commission, via our Chief Commissioner and via their president I think his titles of the Australian Human Rights Commission have been in touch on this issue. The Australian Commission reached out to us, and this has particular relevance to myral on the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Chrash hitch Mosk attacks, because I believe they will go ahead and set up the Royal Commission of
Inquiry into the horrific Bondai terror attack. And so we're in close communication I suppose with our Australian counterparts, which is good. It's important for us to learn from one another on this during the course of those communications, and what I've seen from them is their submission on these on the proposed hate speech laws, which of course have now been pulled I understand due to some fairly serious opposition from a range of parties for a range of reasons.
And one of the things that the Commission Australian Commission raised was looking at the threshold around incitement and exactly
where that sits. If current laws were actually being applied in the way that they might be able to be applied, then obviously again sits outside my wheelhouse in terms of the serious legal analysis that that requires, because the Australian President did also note the tendency I guess for unintended consequences to come from some of these laws, the need for laws to be applied evenly and consistently, and of course the complexities around like you've mentioned, context mattering in
various instances, so it's not necessarily that something it's a black or white kind of is zero su game type approach. So I think that we can learn a lot from each other. We are certainly in constant communication at the moment on this particular issue. We have seen in recent times in both New Zealand and Australia increasing anti semitism
and Islamophobia, and my role is Race Relations Commissioner. I've met with they have in Islamophobia envoy and yet to meet coming up with their anti Semitism envoy.
Of talking to one another a lot, so we're not having to.
Reinvent the wheel, hoping we can learn from each other, but also recognizing that Australia has faced particularly extreme instances of anti Semitism and Islamophobia recently.
I don't want to.
Ever put out there a narrative that New Zealand is
polarized and there is no hope. There is so many incredible things that are happening in our communities in New Zealand, and I think the recent harmony accord between Jewish and Muslim communities in New Zealand is an example of the willingness of a range of groups in New Zealand to really work together to address these issues and hopefully to prevent some of the more extremist rhetoric and behavior and so on that we're seeing in a lot of overseas countries coming to our shows here.
Reforms to hate speech and hate crime's laws were among some of the recommendations from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the March.
Fifteen terror attack. What if anything has changed then.
Look, my understanding is that nothing has changed since then. I think if in terms of the environment, we're perhaps operating in a more polarized in some cases environment, But again I don't want that to be the only narrative that people hear about this country. You know, there are so many incredible community groups and individuals out there who are.
Doing wonderful work to you know, to come together on.
This particular issue and a range of others, of course, And I think the irrespective and whether the legislative change comes in terms of our hate speech laws, and that's obviously a decision for politicians and so on. I don't think that that means we don't address in some way
hate speech or harmful rhetoric that targets communities. And I recognize the subjective nature of those terms, you know, through things like education, through things like providing opportunities for us to come together as a nation human rights in terms of the one of the fundamental ideas is the the inherent dignity of every human being. Imagine what kind of
how that calls on us to treat one another. If we hear ideas like that more, and hear messages like that more, How does it call on us to behave ourselves if we think about the inherent dignity within ourselves. So, in my role as commissioners, I'm doing my best to get those sorts.
Of messages out there, and certainly.
Have plans for things like Race Relations Day as well, to provide a platform for us to come together as a nation where a nation now of over two hundred ethnic communities, one hundred and seventy languages, we want to live in a united New Zealand and to prevent some of these things that are occurring offshore from harmon communities
anymore in New Zealand than they already have. Whether there's legislative change or not, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be addressing some of these issues in other ways, and that's what I'm attempting to do in my role, that's for sure.
Oh absolutely, And of course any kind of rhetoric about the how multicultural we are as the country and how that makes us better is a good thing. But I can't imagine that a Nazi sympathizer would you take part in a Race Relations Day for example?
What do we do with those outer fringe groups?
Great question?
And I think at the moment, as I see issues, they are currently playing out in the extremes.
So if we take a really big issue like immigration, for example, it's a.
Hot topic overseas, there are people who are raising this as a topic in New Zealand. I see, for example, the role of the Human Rights Commission and certainly perhaps me in particular as Race Relations Commissioner, to provide opportunities and a platform to facilitate strengthening middle ground on these issues.
We need to provide people with a space to address genuine concerns, not extreme racist rhetoric that's quite simply vile, but genuine concerns about the kind of country that we're living in and the sorts of ways that we can ensure that harmonious relations and social cohesion is protected without of course making us all this same as one another.
That's not how we want to be either. We want to be living in a country where we can be our unique selves but still get along with our neighbors and be prepared to sit down and have a cup
of tea with one another. That's the role that I see the Human Rights Commission playing, And I think that, yeah, we probably can't persuade people on the extremes of either end of any debate, but how do we strengthen the middle ground and provide those opportunities so that people don't see, well, the only people who are raising these issues are on the extremes, and that to me just creates further division and polarization.
Right, and then that would mean that those people in the middle ground won't slowly float either way either like we see, and that's that online radicalization, right.
Absolutely, we want to provide some opportunities for people to have really constructive conversations where the message isn't that we have to agree with it agree with one another, but where we don't see those who disagree with us immediately as Y and I think that's a really really important message for us to get out there, to combat any polarization that already exists, and of course to stop.
Making it in order to hopefully prevent making it even worse.
The best working definition of what hate speeches is the one that the Germany has adopted in other European and think of it like group defamation. So we're all part of groups where Christian or Jewish or Muslim, or we're gay or trans and if someone says something which libels that group as a group and tries to say, aha, you don't belong here in society. You have less inherent dignity as a group than other people. But that hates me.
And in terms of those out I mean, I know that the police and sas do an amazing job of keeping track of people with extremist views, but it does feel like when we talk about big change, we think of it as very reactionary. So I'm thinking nine to eleven, airports change, airport security changed, forever. You're thinking Christchurch Mosk attacks.
We've got the gun By back Port, Arthur massacre, gun By back in Australia and now the Bondi attack potentially leading to hate speech laws and hate crime laws in Australia.
Do you think we should be.
Less reactionary when it comes to, you know, those big law reforms and those big changes.
Yes to no.
I think it probably depends on a case by case situation.
I think if there's a.
Real gap that we can plug, if you like, in response to those horrific attacks you've mentioned and lock I've as I mentioned, I've been in the role of Race Relations Commissioner for a year, but I'm working closely with christ Church Muslim communities, indeed Muslim communities up and down the country. But including that, so I see nearly seven years on the ongoing impacts of the christ church, terra
attacks on a community. So if there is anything that we can do to prevent those sorts of things happening again,
we've got to do it. Of Course, by the same token, we want to make sure that the things that we are putting in place are as well thought through as possible, are addressing the actual issue at hand, and don't have unintended consequences, and of course protect in the case of hate speech laws and freedom of expression other rights in the mix that we also want to make sure we are recognizing and looking after.
Yeah, one thing that I did notice with the Australian laws, and sorry to keep bringing this up, but you know, it is kind of a blueprint of things, like you know, Anthony Aubernezy kind of put out a blueprint of everything that was possible and we're slowly seeing that get taken away. But one of the reactions to the initial draft law was that, you know, making it illegal to be a part of a hate group, and that saw the disbandment
of the National Nazi Network or something. I mean, I'm not going to say their full name on the podcast, but they basically sent out a newsletter saying we're going to disband by this Sunday.
Now.
In one respect, yeay, But in another, those groups are always going to continue to be there, whether you see them or whether you don't. So is something like that better to be seen rather than tucked away in the shadows because they're gonna they're gonna pop up somewhere else, right, Yeah.
There's an argument that by banning things, you don't remove it necessarily, you simply push it underground. And look, if I can tell a quick story, I come from a storytelling background. But if I can tell a quick story about time spent in the US. I was researching the horrific Emettel case and from the civil rights movement back in the fifties, I spent time at a particular community there with a man who was African American and who
worked in one of the museums. He and I were walking around a very small part of Mississippi, and he said, I now don't know where the sort of houses to avoid are because the district that he was living in had recently banned the flying of the Confederate flag. He knew when they hung those things in the windows. Let me not go down that street. I'll go down the
street instead. But suddenly he didn't know that, and it stuck with me because, on the surface, like you've said, we think, great, these things should be banned.
They are often used as symbols of hate.
But of course I don't think that by banning it people necessarily changed their view. They simply for someone like him, he simply didn't know how to keep himself safe or as safe as he would like to have any more. That's one example. Of course, there is the other example to say, well, why should we tolerate, you know, groups like your Nazi Australian group, And yeah, I think that
it's probably a case by case basis. Perhaps in some instances banning something does send a signal and can change attitudes in society, but look again, whether that happens or not is a decision for others to make. We also, like I say, want to be careful of a slippery slope off Suddenly we're legislating who we can and can't associate with.
I think as well, it's.
Important to point out that from a human rights perspective, at the end of the Second World War, the human rights doctrine, if you like, came about to prevent governments doing harm. So we also want to keep that in mind too. And that's not to say that legislative change is harm. I'm just putting that out there as a consideration, which I think is probably why the Australian example has shown us how complex these issues are and how difficult they can be, and how we can't see them in
these binary yes or no terms. But we need to be able to sit down and look at all of the factors in the mix so we get things right.
So we do protect.
Communities, but so we also protect pretty fundamental freedoms that we all enjoy in countries like New Zealand and Australia.
Thanks for joining us, Melissa, my pleasure. That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzidherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is hosted and produced by me Chelsea Daniels. Caine Dickie is our studio operator, Richard Martin, our producer and editor, and our executive producer.
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