A Law Meant to Protect Kids Is Silencing Adults – One MP Has Had Enough

Every so often, Parliament does something sensible about free speech - such as passing legislation in November protecting academic freedom at universities - and this week brings another promising development.

National MP Melissa Lee has introduced a Member’s Bill to reform the Harmful Digital Communications Act (HDCA) - a law that was meant to stop serious online bullying - but has quietly become one of the most effective speech-chilling tools in the country.

Portia Mao’s ordeal – the Kiwi-Chinese journalist who was gagged after exposing Chinese Communist Party interference – is exactly what prompted Melissa Lee to put this HDCA amendment bill on the table.

We’ve worked closely with Melissa Lee on its development, drawing directly on years of cases where the HDCA has been used not to protect the vulnerable, but to punish lawful speech. 

And yes, that distinction matters.

The HDCA: From Child Protection to Adult Gag Law

When the HDCA passed in 2015, the concern, for many, was real. Social media meant kids couldn’t escape bullying when the school bell rang. Parliament proposed a way to deal with genuinely harmful behaviour online, particularly for young and vulnerable people.

What it didn’t intend was a system where adults could haul other adults into court because they didn’t like what was said about them.

Yet that’s exactly what’s happened.

We’ve seen the HDCA used as a kind of backdoor hate speech law - cheap to initiate, intimidating to fight, and devastating even when cases fall apart. In several cases we’ve supported, the goal was never justice. It was silence.

And often, it worked.

What Melissa Lee’s Bill Actually Does

This reform isn’t radical. It’s corrective, %recipient.first%. 

The Bill introduces three basic safeguards that should have existed from the start:

• Political commentary is explicitly given higher protection

• Public interest and lawful purpose defences are written into the law.

• Courts can no longer make final orders without giving defendants the right to be heard.

In other words, it restores the balance Parliament originally promised - protecting people from genuine harm without turning speech law into a blunt weapon.

As Melissa Lee put it, free speech is fundamental in a democracy. Laws meant to protect the vulnerable shouldn’t be twisted to gag journalists or silence critics.

When “The Process” Becomes the Punishment

We’ve consistently advocated for HDCA repeal or reform; we see too many cases of abuse, weaponisation or the chilling silencing effect on lawful speech. 

Consider Rex Landy: a 60-year-old kuia and Māori women’s-rights advocate who was arrested after making satirical, salty, offensive but lawful commentary, facing the real prospect of three months’ jail and a $50,000 fine.

In another great result we should celebrate, yesterday at Rex’s trial, one charge was dismissed and the other resolved by diversion. But that doesn’t undo months of stress, legal costs, and the fear of jail. The punishment came long before the outcome.
 

Also throw in the woman who raised concerns about Jevon McSkimming’s conduct – effectively silenced and still facing HDCA action – and the pattern is clear: the process, not the verdict, is being used to punish speech.  

These cases are not bugs in the system. They are the system, once speech restrictions are easy to invoke and hard to challenge.

This Isn’t Left vs Right — It’s Democracy vs Drift

Every party in Parliament relies on free political debate. Every MP benefits from laws that prevent bad actors from abusing the courts to shut people up.

And every New Zealander is vulnerable when speech laws expand quietly, case by case, until nobody wants to speak at all.

This Bill won’t stop the HDCA being used where it should be. But it will make it less likely to be abused in situations where it never should have been and it provides the starting point for further targeted reform.

What Happens Next

As we know, Member's Bills rely on the luck of the ballot draw to even get debated - but regardless of where this one lands - the fight for reform continues.

We've been laying the groundwork for months: meeting with the Minister of Justice earlier this year to press our concerns, and our legal team is now finishing a comprehensive 10-year review of every publicly available HDCA case. That research is building an evidence base that's hard to ignore.

With your support, we'll keep the pressure on - through advocacy, media, and strategic engagement with decision-makers who can make change happen.

For now, this Bill is a win worth acknowledging: a flawed law being called out by an MP willing to do something about it.

Let's celebrate that an elected member of Parliament is stepping up to strengthen free speech protections in New Zealand.

Jillaine Heather | Chief Executive