Reforming NZ’s hate speech laws

Following up on the Cabinet Paper, the government has released a discussion document (PDF) to prompt feedback about their proposed changes to New Zealand’s little-used hate speech laws.

Moving the criminal offence from the Human Rights Act to the Crimes Act, the proposals raise the threshold for being triggered but also increase the coverage to include more categories including religion, disability, and gender.

We recommend the following articles as doing a good job of explaining the proposed law changes:

• Hate speech laws translated from legalese by Russell Palmer
• The Government’s Proposed Decriminalisation of Racist Hate Speech by Graeme Edgeler
• Hating on hate speech laws by Steven Price
• The chilling effect of hate speech by Marc Daalder
• Everyone’s confused about the new hate speech law by George Driver
• When we’re afraid to speak, democracy is threatened by Guled Mire.
• Hate speech laws explained by Keith Lynch.