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Police Must Stop Unlawful Training
Commissioner Coster,
RE: Unlawful Hate Speech Training for NZ Police
NZ Police officers are currently receiving compulsory training designed to help them detect ‘hate speech’ and ‘hate crimes.’
Examples of such ‘offences’ in the training material include the statements, ‘There are only two genders’, ‘Kiwi Not Iwi’ and perhaps the most perplexing of all, ‘Free Speech’.
Hate crime laws do not exist in NZ. 'Hate speech' is very narrowly defined in the Human Rights Act. However, the examples presented to officers in this case are not only highly prejudicial, but should be self-evidently legal.
‘Free of expression’ is a right enshrined in our Bill of Rights Act. ‘Kiwi Not Iwi’ formed the campaign slogan of the National Party in 2005. To invert this fundamental right by presenting it as criminal is outrageous and suggests a deliberate politicisation of NZ Police under your leadership. Senior officers have contacted us alarmed by these unjustified moves within their ranks.
If this training is implemented as per the module’s own instructions to ‘Recognise, Record, and Respond’, law enforcement in this instance would be enforcing laws which do not exist!
NZ Police exercise authority according to the doctrine of ‘policing by consent.’ Such extra-judicial activism defies this fundamental public mandate by showing a callous disregard for the Sovereignty of Parliament as sole author of NZ law.
12,376 signaturesWe call on you to cease this training immediately.
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'Misgendering' isn't a crime!
Posted on Campaigns by Jonathan Ayling · July 24, 2024 1:17 PMMinister Goldsmith,
Despite a clear directive from your office to the Law Commission to not include questions about 'hate speech’ in their review of the Human Rights Act, that’s exactly what they’ve done.
Call it what you like or avoid putting it in sections 61 or 131 of the HRA; if the Law Commission is considering whether ‘deadnaming’, ‘misgendering’, and ‘outing’ should fall afoul of the law, they’re looking at censoring legitimate speech.
Your Government has consistently opposed the development of new hate speech laws and stood for the use of more speech as the best way to beat bad ideas.
Why has the Law Commission so openly ignored a specific directive from your office?
The Law Commission looks primed to propose anti-speech laws. If that occurs, Kiwis will reject that proposal, and hold the Government accountable, just like they have before.
5,608 signatureWe call on you to reject all advice to include any amendments to the Human Rights Act that would undermine the fundamentals human rights of every Kiwi: the right to believe according to their conscience and to express those beliefs.