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Free Speech Almost Gone!

3 December 2019

At the Labour Party conference, Andrew Little finally admitted what many have suspected for months.

That the current government seeks to expand state control over speech in our nation.

Over the weekend, Andrew Little declared that, "We need to signal in our law what is acceptable and what is not acceptable," and that the Human Rights Act would indeed be changed.

While a few NZ media outlets inaccurately purport that the Human Rights Act is to be changed due to the March 15 massacre, it was New Conservative who revealed the following quote from Mr Little, spoken in front of the UN Human Rights council 14 months earlier:

"The government has a plan to review its Human Rights Act with the specific intention to amend the current discrimination provisions…"
Andrew Little, 21 January 2018

"Freedom of speech is the foundation for all other freedoms," says Deputy Leader Elliot Ikilei, "and to have this increasingly dangerous government proclaim further state control over what we can say moves us further towards an Orwellian dystopia."

Using Ministry of Justice levers as filters for public discourse, and engaging international powers to control online speech, are examples of the activities that this government has engaged in towards increasing state expansion.

"The trajectory of our nation's path is ominous," concludes Ikilei, "and we call for all New Zealanders to unite in rejecting this thinly veiled attempt to further fracture the freedom that our fathers paid for, in blood, 80 years ago."

ENDS

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