Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
Work smarter with a Pro licence Learn More
Parliament

Gordon Campbell | Parliament TV | Parliament Today | Video | Questions Of the Day | Search

 

Harmful communications law a threat to free speech

Sir Ray Avery’s complaint against Newsroom under the Harmful Digital Communications Act is exactly the kind of unintended consequence ACT predicted when National proposed the law, says Party Leader David Seymour.

Avery has complained to Netsafe that a series of articles by Newsroom have caused him serious emotional distress.

"The National Government’s HDCA was a classic case of bad lawmaking. We had a high-profile event - the Roastbusters case - and then a populist, knee-jerk reaction from the politicians.

"The legislation had good intentions – to protect people from online bullying. But only results matter. Bad legislation with good intentions is still bad legislation.

"In 2015, I predicted that the ten vague ‘be nice’ communications principles would be inadvertently broken by tweets, online news articles, blogs, emails, Facebook posts, or comments on websites.

"The principles would be used to bully the media into taking down legitimate material, especially when they were threatened with the time and process of the district court process.

"In short, they would be used as a weapon to curtail free speech.

"The Avery case shows those predictions were accurate.

"Only ACT and four Green Party MPs had the guts to stand up for freedom of expression and vote against the bill.

"The National Government’s populist, knee-jerk law will do very little to protect young people from online bullying but is having unintended consequences and doing damage to our basic rights and freedoms."

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading

Are you getting our free newsletter?

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.

© Scoop Media

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading
 
 
 
Parliament Headlines | Politics Headlines | Regional Headlines

 
 
 
 
 
 

LATEST HEADLINES

  • PARLIAMENT
  • POLITICS
  • REGIONAL
 
 

InfoPages News Channels


 
 
 
 

Join Our Free Newsletter

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.