A wise old policeman once told me that “locks are for keeping honest people out of your house”. Anyone who knows anything about the craft of burglary would chuckle appreciatively at that little gem of police wisdom. Thieves who know what they are doing laugh at locks, and alarm systems, and CCTV. Any safeguard created by human ingenuity can be circumvented by the same. Some people, like sophisticated burglars – and ‘lone wolf’ terrorists – we can only apprehend and punish. They cannot be stopped.
If the “hate speech” laws proposed by this government are enacted without major amendment they are likely to prove as effective at putting an end to hateful utterances as locks are at keeping out burglars. Honest, decent people – the least likely to engage in hateful communication of any kind – will exercise even more circumspection when it comes to talking about sensitive issues. (To the point where they may decline to engage in such discussions altogether.) As with burglars and locks, however, bigoted people will soon find a way to circumvent “hate speech” restrictions. Not only are legislative efforts intended to change the thinking and limit the expression of bigoted individuals likely to fail, they may end up making them worse.
Nowhere is this more likely to happen than in the world of politics. As the promoters of “hate speech” legislation themselves concede, bigotry has a constituency – a large constituency. After all, one can hardly insist that racism is “systemic”: hard-wired into the “colonialist” ethos and institutions of our “settler state”; and then contend that the constituency of bigots is tiny. But, if bigotry is big, then it is inconceivable that politicians and political parties will not make a serious attempt to recruit these all-too-numerous voters to their cause. In terms of our original metaphor, they will look for a way of picking the locks.
The most obvious way of circumventing “hate speech” laws is communicating with one’s bigoted audience by means of “dog whistles”. This technique has a long and disreputable pedigree. From the moment African-Americans renewed their struggle for civil rights in the 1950s and 60s, their oppressors in the American “Deep South” resisted their legal and political efforts by citing the importance of “states’ rights”. Nobody was in any doubt about what these politicians were really saying. Their locution was simply a less honest version of Governor George Wallace’s infamous pledge: “Segregation today … segregation tomorrow … segregation forever!”
What could the civil rights activists do? Clearly, it was impossible to arraign a political leader for upholding the rights and privileges afforded to the individual states under the American Constitution – not without attempting to outlaw all references to the citizen’s constitutional rights!
Those favouring “hate speech” laws in Aotearoa-New Zealand face a similar dilemma. Conservative politicians can affirm a host of not always reputable ideas by declaring their firm belief in “one law for all”, or by citing the need to uphold the values and institutions of “liberal democracy”. Those who hear these expressions know they are listening to coded messages, but what are the fighters against “systemic racism” to do? Declare any person making reference to equality before the law, or to the principle of one person, one vote, one value, a colonialist bigot and oppressor? Would such a declaration be likely to shrink, or expand, the constituency of bigots?
Political “dog-whistling” is a very effective lock-pick, but by no means is it the most daunting. That description surely belongs to the deliberate creation of a media network dedicated to advancing the ideas and policies of what the Left would characterise immediately, and condemn, as the “Far Right”. Such a network – think Fox News – would present a huge challenge to a Centre-Left government. With a phalanx of lawyers dedicated to keeping the network within the letter, if not the spirit, of any “hate speech” laws, the mounting of a successful challenge to its indisputably controversial content would not be easy. Besides, the “optics” of any attempt to shut down an entire network would only reinforce the arguments of its backers that Aotearoa-New Zealand was heading down the same anti-democratic path as Xi Jinping’s China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. A claim hardly likely to shrink the constituency of bigots!
The other reason for not installing purely legal locks against a home invasion by bigotry may, once again, be discerned in the recent history of the United States. One of the most dangerous outcomes of the civil rights movement’s landmark Supreme Court victories against the “Jim Crow” laws of the former Confederacy, was the grim lesson conservative Americans drew from their defeats. If it was possible to make an end-run around state legislatures via the federal courts, then the obvious remedy was to ensure that the federal judiciary (up to and including the Supreme Court) was stacked with the “right” sort of judges. It has taken the American Right nearly 70 years to make this happen, but happen it has, with incalculable consequences for the future of the American republic.
It is one of the perennial weaknesses of the Left that it is prone to underestimating both the size of the Right’s political constituency, and its ability to organise it into a winning electoral coalition. The most subtle exemplar of this phenomenon is John Key, who successfully wooed the moderate voters required to give National an emphatic victory in 2008, without at the same time alienating the deeply conservative voters so effectively marshalled by Don Brash in 2005. Between 2002 and 2008, the Brash/Key combination lifted National’s Party Vote from 21% to 45%. Conservative rule was bedded-in for the next 9 years.
Last week, an admittedly unscientific poll, conducted by Newshub, revealed that 87% of its approximately 9,000 respondents were opposed to this government’s “hate speech” proposals. Inevitably, this “straw in the wind” indication will be augmented by data derived from professionally conducted polling. If this confirms the overwhelming hostility recorded by Newshub, then the conclusion to be drawn is that the constituency for bigotry in Aotearoa-New Zealand is every bit as big as the fighters against “systemic racism” have feared.
The events of the past week strongly suggest that any thoughts about Jacinda Ardern’s government having won the hearts and minds of New Zealanders to its radical agenda should be set aside. The confusion and defensiveness of both the Prime Minister and her Minister of Justice, Kris Faafoi, clearly betrayed an acute awareness of just how far out along the limb of public tolerance their government has shuffled.
If they’re wise, they’ll shuffle back along that branch as quickly as they can. Because the only lock big enough to keep so many Kiwis’ hands off the levers of political and legislative power would have to be installed by a regime that no longer concerned itself with equality before the law; one person, one vote, one value; or any of the other principles of liberal democracy. Such a regime could be sustained in power only through the threat and/or application of deadly force. Not a prospect which either the constituency of bigots, or a decisive majority of honest, decent New Zealanders, will accept without a fight.
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
67 Comments
Ominous article CT, and very thought provoking. I smiled when you acknowledge that one person calling for absolute equality, gets derided for being racist, when in truth I believe that Don Brash was actually suggesting that Maori needed no crutch to hold them up.
But the tone of your article is very good and without saying it directly defining 'hate speech' becomes very subjective very quickly, and outlawing it can ultimately be seen as an attempt to snatch power.
The 87% opposed to the Ardern govts hate speech laws are according to Trotter exhibiting 'overwhelming hostility' and form a big constituency for bigotry against 'systemic racism'. He doesn't apparently pause to consider that it could be as simple as this 'hostile' mob observing Faafois shambling ill prepared presentation on the legislation and also Ardern's obvious confusion and ignorance of what it entails and were spooked.
lol you don't get to be a leading apologist by not stepping up when someone threatens a new shinny weapon. If the majority don't agree with you then they are a bunch of bigots that belong to an organised, right leaning constituency. Yeah, that doesn't sound right to me ether.
CT writes well on occasions and on others just lets his inner-dialogue come to the fore, therefore he is occasionally interesting.
This article is disgusting; I have voted Mana and/or Green my whole life, marched for the Urewera raids, marched against hate, marched against the GCSB laws, supported the Maori Treaty, noting it does not go far enough, and here, now, to be called a right wing bigot by an ignorant statistically inept interest.co.nz. writer, how rich! If 87% of NZ are bigots then we would be living in something worse than Nazi Germany, if 87% of NZ are bigots then there is nothing left to fight for. This is one of the dumbest pieces of writing I have ever read from a major outlet.
Growing unease for sure at the sweeping changes Ardern is attempting to impose on NZ societal attitudes but in which direction do disaffected voters look? Her government is effective at making legislative alterations but is chronically inept at executing deployment of operational changes. But in what other party can voters find the competence so obviously missing from her cabinet ? National is a shambles, Seymour is promising but a new kid on the block. The centrists who drifted a few degrees left will stay put unless Ardern's hubris evolves from just irritating to unbearable.
Labour do not want more than 40% next time. That way they bring the Greens into cabinet and under the guise of “coalition necessity” embark on even greater policy direction to the left. For instance, many contributors here express concern at the immense increase in housing value. People now have family homes set at values unthinkable even five years ago. Yet while that only sits as it is relative to that market and provides them no actual income, it does though present an ever increasing catchment for the Green’s wealth tax. To put it simply, we have provided you all great wealth in your property and now we will have some of that back thank you very much for coming to the party.
And here was I believing I had advanced you some way down the good road of cynicism. But be that is at may, your above concern as to the present left socialist agenda, will pale into insignificance once a Labour/Greens full coalition gets the wind in its sails. As the song goes “ she looked at me with big brown eyes and said you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Shame on you for promoting cynicism, sir. Shame I say. At its core is the ugly impulse of unbelief in the dear leaders infallibility. You are an unreconstructed reactionary, obviously missed during the great Helen Clark 'haters and wreckers' purges. We'll get you this time round though and you shall succumb to the will of the party. 'Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing' (Orwell, 1984).
I agree when you look at the poor governance and performance against targets. Two things make me doubt that Labour will lose in 23 with or without the Greens.
1) JA still has the star power, it is very hard to defend against as it is a cult of personality.
2) Who else will people vote for? I could vote for Colins and Simon but the rest of her crew are weak and I would assume that Colin's educated and more fact based dialogue is going to rub a lot of our population up the wrong way. Not enough Aroha.
When considering the impact of hate speech laws court judgements are just the tabloid shop window. They get the self righteous wokester mafia clucking their approval but the far more sinister impact on wider society is the hidden self censoring effect that drives personal opinion underground. Conversation becomes stilted, the depth and quality of social debate shrivels. The intergenerational challenges that traditionally changed the attitudes of elders cannot be advanced against the self preservation generated vacuum that bigots are forced to develop as their public persona.
Just before the chinese gifted covid to us I spent some time in a western society where the population has been subject to speech modification regimes for a while. The dampening effect on dinner and other social conversations was noticeable, hypersensitive caution ruled when exploring even slightly politically controversial themes. It wasn't just a natural politeness. The discomfort was obvious when the envelope was pushed even slightly.
You're not saying that there is a split within the Labour party, are you? The latte middle-class wokes v the left or, what is left of the left? Jacinda's been drinking too much 'lemonade' whilst the sneaky lefties have set her up and she's taken the bait. The 'Dog Tucker' policies and having to explain them but failing to do so.
You could be onto something Chris? But, keep an eye on those bloody sneaky mowrees ay. They'll steal the whole country if you don't keep an eye on them.
24 hrs in politics .... The latest Roy Morgan Poll;
Labour down 6.5% to 38.5%
Green up 1.5% to 12.5%
National up 1% to 29.5%
ACT up 2.5% to 11.5%
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8749-nz-national-voting-intention-ju…
its the trend that matters.
As can be seen in the US, any hate speech directed against white people is considered perfectly acceptable. You can even incite violence, and its not considered hate speech. But dare to criticise a person of colour and its immediately claimed to be hate speech. People can see and read how this is working out in the US, and have decided that they don't want this crap in New Zealand
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation-world/ct-aud-nw-nyt-yale-psych…
I am not sure where all this is leading but it seems ominous. Islam, christianity, white power, black power or whatever ideology you choose no one should be beyond reproach. All of humanity is subject to scrutiny. Criticism is integral to progression. If you state an opinion there is always the right of reply by the affected.
What problem(s) do Labour think they can solve with this legislation? And why is this their first action?
Do parents get better long term results with their kids when they constantly say 'no' 'don't do that'. 'You shall not be friends with them.' You can look at the forbidden fruit, but do not touch. Or is it better to give guidance with reasons and have faith that they'll on balance make 'better' life choices?
Re unity v separatism. It always comes across as a very weak argument to me. When there is support for Te reo and Maori customs then it's called out by some as somehow being separatism. But speak English and follow euro-centric custom and that is unity?
Bit hard to avoid in schools with the way the curriculum is developing.
I'd say Pasifika people would be a bit miffed at the comparative absence of their own culture in schools.
Listened to the 6 pm news lately? I've switched off as they're largely party political broadcasts for the Labour Party.
I haven't watched the 6pm news for probably over a decade now. I found I was happier once I started to ignore the doom and gloom only stories that are offered up to us. You might ask why I come to this site and comment? Well it's a good source of information from both the articles and the comments/debate that follow. The debate and differing (to my) points of view are challenging and stimulating and usually well put forward. Would the world be a better or worse place once the thought police start dictating even more what content can be on this site?
I'll reiterate the just don't engage if it doesn't interest you bit regarding school. I know there was plenty of subject matter at school that I didn't engage with (some of it I probably should have).
Once can't always not engage without consequence. For example, listening to RNZ has become unbearable. They throw in Te Reo sentences with such frequency that the broadcast become completely disjoint. While I have no issue with supporting Te Reo and respect the 15% of the population, I will learn Te Reo in the classes I am taking. RNZ is not here to teach us a language, they are here to provide news and commentary. (Their f*c&ng virtue signalling has reached new heights.)
At present Te Reo dropped in chunks into a mainly English discourse is the equivalent of the way Victorian writers used French or Latin to intimidate low class readers who had not received the benefit of a public school education. Of course it doesn't work - my (2nd) wife and one of my daughters pick up languages like I pick up colds in winter whereas after seven years of French and then marrying a French woman and even having a French son I find French is still double Dutch to me - I do not understand spoken Te Reo and never will - wish I could but I can't. So like others and rather sadly I'm slowly moving to foreign sources of news. Our Radio broadcasters are rejecting me.
It is pleasant hearing my pre-school granddaughter counting in Te Reo but I doubt it will make much difference to her life.
I get most of my news from Australian sources for the same reason. Not only are they written 100% in English, its also refreshing to not have to be constantly told that everything is the fault of racist white people and colonisation. The next step is probably actual physical white flight to Australia in order to escape it.
Try to think of it as retaining the marketability and IP for a unique indigenous language and culture. Any languages or cultures that are not used openly or practiced die out and can no longer evolve. The ability to revive anything not in the popular discourse is often gone for good. Think of it in those terms on an investment website and the benefits can hopefully shine through (if the social ones do not already).
"If this confirms the overwhelming hostility recorded by Newshub, then the conclusion to be drawn is that the constituency for bigotry in Aotearoa-New Zealand is every bit as big as the fighters against “systemic racism” have feared."
You're better than that Chris. It is much more likely that the conclusion to be drawn is that the constituency for DEMOCRACY in Aotearoa-New Zealand is every bit as big as the fighters FOR “systemic racism” have feared. A warning you have been giving for months in your columns & well justified by Rawiri Waititi' latest expressiond.
Yes, putting those in in favour of a democratic state in the "bigot / deplorables" basket is extraordinary.
Ardern will have been alarmed by the intense opposition from both the left and the right (and 87% opposed in a straw poll with nearly 10,000 respondents would alarm any politician!).
My bet is that she will back off:
https://democracyproject.nz/2021/07/04/graham-adams-is-ardern-preparing…
I was checking out a few other sites this morning - one of them Reddit as still checking on my GME. One of the comments was from a Kiwi and he/she made a funny comment about the 4th of July. There were lots of funny responses (all light-hearted). The final comment came from the OP, who said that if he/she had said the same thing in New Zealand, that they would probably be carted off to jail because of the new laws. Sad, but true.
It's pretty clear that we all need to respect other people's feelings, however, at some point the feelings of the majority must outweigh the feelings of the few. Two examples - the NZ transgender weightlifter. She has every right to compete, however, her fellow competitors have every right to expect a level playing field. This weekend (think it was in the US) a trans gender person went to a day spa and exposed themselves to women/girls. That person had every right to attend a spa, however, the spa's customers had a right to an enjoyable visit to a spa. I try to be non-judgmental and have a 'live and let live' philosophy, until MY rights are affected.
If I will be carted off to jail for hate speech very shortly, let me have my say here first. As a rugby loving Canterbury supporter, I am amazed at the number of people I come across who also hate the fact that they can no longer take their foam rubber swords to the rugby, that they can't watch the Crusaders on horses go past, etc. I understand that we all went woke, but for goodness sake, our National team is called the All Blacks, the Waikato team are the Chiefs. I know it's not just me as I attend a number of sports clubs, etc and my thoughts are definitely the majority, but we now whisper about it. The sooner the woke brigade leave the better. Guess I better wait outside for the Police to call.
Edward. I too enjoyed the splendid horses and medieval pantomime but suggest you are not placing enough weight on the cultural baggage that comes with the crusader name in the minds of the worlds 1.8bn muslims. In secular (setting aside the current fad of introducing animistic belief references in diverse areas of government such as foreign policy statements and RBNZ core values) NZ, taking offence at associations with ancient religious conflicts seems quaintly anachronistic. But the reality is that we have 50K muslim NZ citizens now, many of whom will likely consider the imagery offensive. The NZ of old, an isolated time warp, is no more.
I fear that as with so many laws passed reactively, this will be so drafted as to contain numerous grey areas which could then be 'tightened' by successive governments.
Those who incite actual violence can already be prosecuted. Free speech is only meaningful if it means just that. For example, I find the holocaust denier David Irving's views abhorrent, but I believe he should be allowed to speak at public meetings. The 'facts' he proclaims are all disprovable. We are on an increasingly slippery slope; in climate change terms, we are approaching a tipping point and will one day look back to see what we have lost.
'Hate' like 'Love' is too hard to define. Intentionally looking for violent confrontation is much easier. When I was young a Glasgow Rangers -v- Celtic match meant carrying either the Irish or the UK union jack flag near the stadium was illegal. The police arrested you and the magistrates fined you on the reasonable grounds that you were not looking to express patriotism but you were looking to start a fight. So do we need a new law or just a serious implementation of the current law?
BTW does the current proposed legislation include supporters of sports teams a protected minority?
I agree with you on David Irvings repulsive views. He should have been allowed to speak. Helen Clark hid behind immigration technicalities rather than honestly fronting the public with her real reasons for denying Irving permission to be here. ie that she held the same distaste for his views as do most people.
Wow .... The only conclusion from 87% opposition to Hate-Speech laws is that they are all bigots ?
This is incredibly insulting , and just one step away from 1984's ' Thought Crime' concept.
Where have we come to when :
Being a Bigot is to become a crime
Being sexist is to become a crime
Having an opinion that may bring ANYONE some 'hurty-feelings' is to become a crime.
And dont think that it's far to go the next step which may be ' Having a different political opinion may become a crime.
We are down the Marxist route on this , and it must be opposed with every democratic bone in our bodies , lest we wake-up in totalitaria.
Political opinion is not a 'next step'. It's already there. After including politics in a list of things that would not fall within the definition of hate speech and then later being forced to admit she had got it badly wrong, Ardern also backtracked on politics. You will definitely be eligible for the heavy hand of the law descending if you transgress the rules when making political statements.
Trouble is the discrimination not the speech. The speech was a open invitation to take them to the human rights and employment courts; driving it underground makes the standard of proof harder for those discriminated against. Very easy to take a case if you have been denied housing due to a no Indians, no cripples or no unmarried women with children message or been told you are too old for a job. Much harder when told other applicants were chosen without reason and then see the job or place re-advertised soon after. I had a property manager once ask me for a reference for an engineer, and they were most concerned about whether he would ever cook in the place. That confused me at first; shouldn't all people cook in their homes, why ask or be concerned... it took a while but the leading questions made me realise they wanted to find a way to discriminate because he had a Sri Lankan name (but was of UK origin). It was disturbing that. A good chef always has a cleaner kitchen and sharp knives as my partner would say. Plus UK cuisine always tended to follow NZ anyway... With a pie being a delicacy. But surely discriminating against a potential tenant by a name or ethnicity? With the basis of their logic to discourage people who are cooking in a home? Weird. I would like to see what the cooking skills of most property managers would be, I could guarantee most would not be up to decent quality.
It is my belief that when you attempt to silence people for their views, you do not make them change their minds. You just make them angry, which is more likely to entrench their position for now they feel persecuted. Normal people are also getting sick of being branded a racist simply for wanting to protest against race based Govt policies - example, as a white person I object to being denied healthcare on the basis that I am not Maori or Pacific Islander. I think healthcare should be prioritised based on actual health status, not the colour of your skin. But saying so now makes me a "racist" and as such likely to be targeted under the Hate Speech laws. We can see what is happening in the US as the deliberate persecution of white people gains pace, and understandably we don't want NZ going down the same path. That doesnt make 87% of the population bigots.
The "long march through the institutions" continues:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/446240/academic-defends-quality-of-…
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/446190/maori-and-pasifika-research-…
I think this is the authors original version https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2021/07/i-understand-why-you-want-to-…
You know it's getting bad when even the hard core labour supporters are calling time out.
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