This week, the Government revealed its proposed hate speech laws were being postponed and referred to the Law Commission as part of cuts to its work programme. 

Advocates say the move has set Aotearoa’s fight against hate speech back to square one.  

Aliya Danzeisen, national coordinator of the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand, says this week’s announcement was disappointing.

“It’s been so long,” she says.

“We were advocating [for hate speech laws] for years prior to the Christchurch attack and it’s been nearly four years since the attack, and the Government still isn’t around this issue of hate.

“I think anyone with a decade of advocacy would feel very frustrated that we’ve basically been moved back to where we were prior to the attack.”

The Government’s initial hate speech law proposals proved controversial, with some saying they were a threat to free speech, and others saying it would be quite difficult to prove somebody intended to incite hatred.

After “strong” public feedback, the Government watered those proposed laws down late last year, when Justice Minister Kiri Allan said they would only change to include religious groups and not other groups like women, the queer community, and disabled people.

Now, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says those laws will be referred to the Law Commission to consider, while the Government instead focuses on economic issues like the cost of living.

“Anyone who’s read the Royal Commission report following [the Christchurch attacks] would have to acknowledge that there are some very legitimate issues that have been raised but I don’t want to have them mired in a debate which is going nowhere, which frankly is where the debate has been going,” he said in a press conference this week.

‘It’s not a slam dunk’

Danzeisen says it’s frustrating to have the proposed laws going to the Law Commission when the Government had already engaged a Royal Commission.

“They had a top Supreme Court Justice and the top public official look at everything and all the issues [around the Christchurch attacks] and they came out and said hate legislation was … absolutely necessary,” she says.

But Danzeisen believes the Government has pushed the work back because it’s not an easy win.

“They’re looking for some slam dunks that are going to be easy to deliver on,” she says.

“But sometimes you actually have to do the hard work and sometimes you have to do the most courageous and right thing to do, even though it’s difficult.”

Aliya Danzeisen, national coordinator of the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand

Danzeisen says the legislation would not have cost anything more than it already had and it would not have taken justice away from what the Government needs to do

She says the hate speech laws sit on the lives of 51 people in Christchurch who lost theirs in 2019.

“The implementation of hate legislation is extremely important to our community and to other vulnerable communities in this nation,” Danzeisen says.

She says Aotearoa has a situation where the majority are not suffering the same consequences as other communities - but she says hate takes its toll on everyone.

“Are we going to keep letting hate take that toll on us? Or are we going to stop it and say ‘no more’ and get in front of it?”

‘Ignoring hate doesn’t work’

Danzeisen says while the proposed hate speech laws are not expansive enough to stop all types of dangerous hate speech, the laws are an important first step.

“[Jacinda Ardern] said hate is a virus and that if you don’t get in front of it, it’s going to spread,” Danzeisen says.

“And she said that in March 2019 and we have seen it spreading and we have seen it causing harm and it continues to cause harm to many, many communities. It will cause emotional and financial and potentially physical harm if they don't do more.”

Danzeisen wants the Government to treat the issue of hate speech with urgency, much like it did with firearms following the Christchurch attacks.

“And that could be a legacy of getting in front of this hate … instead of letting people be harmed,” she says.

“I just think that people need to try and walk in the shoes of the vulnerable community and ask themselves if they were standing in the same spot that we are and what would they do and what would they feel, and they will understand that there is a need for this legislation to go forward.”

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