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I’ve been asked to post the following ad. If you are pillar of the community type, and interested in both free speech and media accountability, this could be for you.
NEW ZEALAND MEDIA COUNCIL
Public Member Appointment
Do you have a passion for News and Current Affairs?
Do you have an interest in Media Standards?

This isn’t about media law. It is much more important.
Lawyers for Climate Action NZ is seeking judicial review of the Climate Change Commission’s recommendations. It argues that the recommended cuts are not enough to contribute to keeping warming to 1.5 degrees as we’ve pledged to do in the Paris Accord. It also alleges that

A question occurs to me that seems worth throwing into the debate.
An ambiguity
I think there’s an ambiguity in the proposed law. We don’t know the exact wording of the offence. It seems the government doesn’t have one. It’s not in the Cabinet paper or the discussion paper anyway. That makes it hard to

Graeme Edgeler has a terrific post making the case for hate speech laws. He is at best ambivalent about hate speech laws, and says he will also be putting up a post making the case against them.
This is where the debate should be. It’s dispiriting how far away from this the debate is.

Something is going wrong here.
On NewsTalk ZB’s overnight talkback show, host Bruce Russell endorsed Trump’s claim that there was electoral fraud in Georgia, playing clips from people who said things like “there was fraud in Georgia’s election, we can prove it with data”. Russell concluded: “I think it speaks for itself, receiving 75 percent

What is it with the media and hate speech laws? They loathe them. And in their anxiousness to ridicule and discredit them, and excite contempt against them, they seem happy to distort the debate. Do hate speech laws need hate speech protection?
Newshub’s recent coverage
Look at Newshub’s coverage in the past 24 hours. They

“De-platforming”. It’s the free-speech zealot’s issue-du-jour. I’m looking at you, Damien Grant.
It seems so exactly what cancel culture is. Don’t like the speech? Ban it.
Except it’s not really a ban, is it? There is nothing to stop those poor begagged individuals from putting out press releases and YouTube videos, railing on social

I see Matthew Hooton has noted that I have acted for Nicky Hager and accused me of hypocrisy for suggesting that National broke the law with its budget leaks.
He seems to think his logic is obvious. I guess it’s that Hager published confidential material leaked from the government (see especially: Other People’s Wars and

I’ve just been listening to Simon Bridges’ press conference at Parliament about the budget leak. His main point was to deny that the leaked budget material was a result of a hack. But he made the broader claim that the Nats’ behaviour throughout was “entirely appropriate”. He said there had been “nothing illegal or anything

I’m sorry to see Guyon depart the presenter’s chair on RNZ’s Morning Report. I think he’s one of the best interviewers RNZ has ever had. He is well-informed, thoughtful and persistent. He consistently asks good questions and presses for answers. He is fearlessly independent. And I salute his use of te reo Maaori, which always