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Um, in a free country, freedom of speech is probably about the most important value we have. And so that's why we cannot have laws banning hate speech. Uh, people like Brian Tamaki. He's a scumbag piece of shit, but he has the right to express his shitty views. And we also have the right to call him out on how shitty those views are. That's what freedom is about. Um, what about people with free speech? Who, um, are told to go kill themselves or, you know, um, yeah, if trans people [00:00:30] in particular, if people tell you to jump off a bridge, do you do it? No, of course not. It it is disgusting speech. It is disgusting speech, but that is part of living in a free country. And that is why you have the freedom to tell these people how disgusting they are. That was act Party representative Stephen Berry during the Rainbow Election Forum, held at Saint Andrews on the Terrace, Wellington, on the 22nd of August [00:01:00] 2017. A month earlier, on the 23rd of July, a sermon was preached by Pastor Robertson at the West City Bible Baptist Church. in Auckland. It was then uploaded onto the Internet and distributed via YouTube and Soundcloud. Here's a brief excerpt sourced from YouTube. My view on marriage is that the Bible never mentions it. So I'm not against them getting married as long as a bullet goes through their head the moment they kiss because that's what it talks about. You know, not [00:01:30] Homo marriage, but a Homo death. No, there There's no such thing as Mary, and it's not even be human. But that's what should happen. The police investigated the pastor and then dropped their investigation, stating to newshub that no criminal offence has been committed. After the Rainbow Election Forum in Wellington, I asked as many party representatives as I could find about their thoughts on hate speech and in particular, the Auckland pastor's recent sermon. Uh, so my name's Damien Light. [00:02:00] I'm a party president for United Future and our spokesman for Diversity. Um, when I saw that information come out, that was last week. Um, I it was of two minds. I was. First of all, I was thinking he's a horrible person. Don't want to give me a time. I'm just gonna, like, block you know, ignore that and just pretend that you know, that's horrible, who exist. But then I remember that that that's that's effectively condoning the actions, and it just endorsing it. Silence is is not enough. We need to actually speak out against these things. So I, um I've [00:02:30] been quite strong, um, saying that it's it's a horrendous thing. Um, he needs to be called out on it. Um, the good news is that he was investigated, but yeah, it's not a crime. Um, and so we've talked about, um, changing the Human Rights Act to make, um, discrimination and hate against people based on their gender or their how they self identify, um, as a crime. I hope we need to call it out. Specifically, um, I think it's always been kind of implied that that is discrimination. It's wrong. But we need to be quite specific about it. Um, I think we do need to be careful [00:03:00] about, um, censoring people. Um, there's a There's a if you censor, um, free speech, then you can end up in a kind of a kind of, um, Orwellian kind of a controlled sort of police state. I don't think that's what we're talking about. We're not heading there. We're not even near there. Um, we're talking about, um, quite specific, um, protections for people who, um, who, frankly, have been have been abused and discriminated against for so long. Um, we're talking about giving them some protections. Um, and the other thing is why I think it's important to talk about [00:03:30] it. Talk out against it is for other people who sit, and this is one of my passions, especially as a young person growing up. You see these comments being made and you see people supporting them. And if you don't see people speaking out against it, you think, oh, everybody else agrees with that? I'm alone in the world. Nobody. You know, I'm I'm different. I'm I'm not in a good way. I'm you know, I'm isolated. And so it's really important that, um, political parties and the government in particular speaks out against these issues. Um, and this hate that comes out so that we that people can see that it's not acceptable [00:04:00] and that people are standing up for them. Um, and I think the government needs to take a stronger stance on that, even just simply coming out and condemning it. Um, we talked a little bit before about, um, issues around the world as well. It's the same kind of thing if we don't come out and actively condemn it, Um, other people will see that that that that silence and they'll see that it's, um it's acceptance of it. And that's it simply isn't good enough. Um, so we need to do more for that, Um, particularly for our young people. I think coming, coming through, um, who see that as, um, an issue. And they see themselves being isolated. [00:04:30] So when you heard his statements, how did it affect you? Personally, I was really angry. I, um I saw her on Facebook, and I sat there with her. I was gonna respond to it. And I sat there for a couple of minutes, just sort of wanting to write and and all I could think of was, you know, uh, not equally bad, but some pretty horrendous sort of responses. Um what I thought of them or what? Or what? You know, um, but I realised that, uh, responding with hate with hate doesn't solve any problems. Um, and so, [00:05:00] yeah, I I decided to take a higher road and condemn what he'd said and why it was bad. Um, and why we need to speak out against it. Um, but yeah, personally, it really it really annoys me. Um, that he had done it, that he obviously did come out with it. And I originally thought I was annoyed cos it was a New Zealand Herald article. I was upset that they'd reported on it thinking they're giving this guy airtime, But again, it's that silence ignoring it's not gonna make it go away. So, um, I guess it gave people the opportunity to speak out against it. So, yeah, angry, though, would be my immediate [00:05:30] response. Yeah, really angry Nicola Willis from the national party. So obviously those comments by that pastor were disgusting. And what was good to see was that they were widely criticised by a broad range of New Zealanders. I don't think anyone defended him, and that's right and proper. Um, I think my, um, concern with these issues is that where people make those comments that we stand up and we condemn them for them. Do you think we need to actually hate speech legislation? [00:06:00] I wouldn't jump into that because any legislation like that runs the risk of oppressing people's right to free speech. And when we look at the change that has happened in our community over time, often that has happened because people have been able to speak freely. Uh, but I don't think that speech, the right to free speech means that you can be a complete idiot. Um, and be really nasty. Yeah. So whether or not legislation is required, there isn't something. I mean, it's just not something I would jump into So you would defend his right to be able [00:06:30] to say what he said. Um, I don't think he should have said what he said. I absolutely don't think he should have said what he said. Um, and I think it was offensive and intolerable, and I think that's the message he would have received loud and clear. So why do you think? I mean, the police came out saying that they couldn't prosecute him because he hadn't broken any law. I mean, do you have any thoughts on that? Well, um, I think that if I were him and I had received headlines across the country from from people telling me that what I had said was [00:07:00] disgusting. I would be reflecting right now and I would not be making those comments again. And I am glad that that's the way our New Zealand community works, that we turn on people who use such horrible speech. So I'm Stephen Berry on number five on the list for the ACT party. Um, I hate hate speech as much as anyone else, but I also believe in freedom of speech more, uh, more than I dislike hate speech. Um, the guy from West Auckland, what he said was absolutely disgusting. Um, I absolutely [00:07:30] unreservedly condemn it. Um, but it's probably as disgusting as you can get without actually inciting violence. And you know what value is free speech if we don't protect unpopular speech. See, II, I would question that he wasn't inciting violence because he did say, actually that that gay people should have bullets through their heads. So I mean, why isn't that inciting violence? Um, if he was actually getting people together and organising them to go and put bullets through people's heads, that would be a different thing if he was [00:08:00] leading a rally um, telling the people following him to put bullets through their heads That would be inciting violence. It is a very, very fine line. Um, and it's one that he danced to Mary Jig over, but it doesn't quite cross the threshold of incitement. But as I say, just because I believe passionately in freedom of speech, that is not an endorsement of the disgusting things that this person has said. And, um, the fact is that we have freedom of speech. Not that we can talk about the weather, but because we can say very controversial [00:08:30] things. So would you back in any way any kind of hate speech legislation? Uh, no, Absolutely not. And I mean, the thing is, um, me and you talking about this disgusting prick. There's also hate speech. So, you know, our idea shouldn't be suppressed anymore than his idea should be suppressed. Um, and the good thing about freedom of speech is that it shines the sunlight on the disgusting people in our country. Um, if we did [00:09:00] have restrictive hate speech laws, it'd probably be a bit quieter about them, and we wouldn't be able to single them out. So, um, yeah, freedom of speech will, uh, show more sunlight than any laws banning hate speech. But surely there's a difference between somebody that might be, say, in a position where they're talking to a large congregation, and and then you've got other, more vulnerable members of society who can't actually step up and and, like, you were saying in the in the in the forum here, you that can't step up and say, [00:09:30] Actually, I think you're a disgusting prick. They they don't have the where with all to to do that. Well, you know, not everybody can play rugby either. But we don't make the rules of rugby easier so that everybody can score a try. Um, someone earlier asked me about Well, what if someone's telling me to commit suicide? Um, but, you know, probably not a big surprise. People have told me to commit suicide, and you know what? I didn't do it, but then some people do, and some people can't, [00:10:00] um, respond like that. I understand that. And, um so I guess that's why politicians have a role in this society to stand up for those people. But we don't create a free society by passing laws which restrict freedom of speech. If you want to see a country where freedom of speech is restricted, Um, look at Venezuela, it's an absolute disaster. Um, Cuba, the whole of Eastern Europe before communism fell. And you know, it's a pretty long list and those [00:10:30] countries are miserable. Poor, terrible people were locked up in jail for saying the wrong sorts of speech. Freedom of speech is the most important value we have in a free society. Unfortunately, you're going to get some scumbags who say things like that. But if we take steps like hate speech laws to ban them from doing it well, we're just doing the same sort of fascist approach that those other countries I mentioned had So Jan Lo, Green Party MP and Rainbow Spokesperson Um so I've been [00:11:00] following that in the media along, I guess, with everyone else in the community being horrified by it, and but made a decision not to speak publicly about it, because this is the second time that he's done that and his congregation has grown since the first time, and I, I don't want to give him any more public attention in terms of that hatefulness because I think he's in a process of trying to recruit based on those [00:11:30] views. And I do think this is an example, though, that we do need to look at our hate speech legislation. And we also need to renew efforts of community building and establish links between diverse communities and engaging, um, some of the mainstream churches and some of that work with the more outlying churches. I was really surprised the police coming out saying that they couldn't prosecute. There was [00:12:00] no there's no criminal act. Yeah, And despite that being very, um, being felt by many of us, I think as as a threat of violence and an incitement to violence. But, um, I I think it is a call for us to look at our legislation. So So what do you think could be changed in the legislation? What? What would you look at? Yeah, see, I'm I'm not exactly sure. That's, you know, the politicians answer when I don't have the answer is like, [00:12:30] I think we need to review it and look to it to what we need to do to be able to, um, make sure that, you know, people aren't threatening violence against members of our community and that whether that's through the Human Rights Act or whether that's, you know, another place that we need to be looking at, that Yeah, I'm Philip Lynch with the Conservative Party. I'm not sure about hate speech laws as such, but I know we should absolutely abhor anything that denigrates [00:13:00] anybody else. For whatever reason, I mean, you can't build a country on hate. I mean, there have been plenty of examples of that through history, and they just fall over. You've got to build a country through love, and that means for everybody. We're all different. Uh, but that doesn't mean to say we're not special. Everybody is special, and everybody should be respected regardless of who they are or what they are. And I don't know that people might say you need a law, but should we need a law just to have people be decent to one another? But then what happens [00:13:30] when when you do get, say, like, the pastor in Auckland coming up with these these these quite, um, extreme views. Uh, I mean, what do you do if you don't have a law against that? Well, I don't know that the how many people are actually listening to him and and and doing anything other than ridiculing him and saying That's the craziest thing I've ever heard. I mean, you can go in there, you can lock him up, I guess, and say that this man is mentally deranged. But you know, I, I don't hear that. There's a chorus of approval for what he's doing, and I think that's the answer. I think most people, [00:14:00] the vast majority of people, are poor, that sort of business, And I don't think you need actually a law to to say what you're doing is wrong. Hi, I'm Gada from the migrant Refugee Rights campaign. Um, I think it's interesting how if you defame an individual, particularly a wealthy individual, they'll take you to court and sue the pants off you. But you can defame and denigrate vulnerable groups. Look, I think freedom of speech is very important, and I support people's right to be wrong about certain things, you know, even [00:14:30] if they are homophobic or racist. But when you you know, when you when you're a particular kind of person, you know who is advocating you know, killing minorities or whatever these people aren't. They're not buying into freedom of speech. You know, if you look at the way you know, fascists and Nazis have come to power, they don't They don't go around debating people. They go around shooting people in the head. Look, I don't I don't believe that laws are effective in smashing [00:15:00] fascism and hate. I think communities are. But, you know, hate speech is not hate. Speech legislation is not the worst thing in the world. According to me, I think there is just one other comment. I think there are already laws about inciting people to violence, and you can be charged with those sort of laws. And I think that's where it where it lies. I mean, if people are saying to someone you should go out and shoot that person in the head because you don't like the way they are, Um, that's diabolical stuff. You know? That's a fascist response to people just living their own lives. [00:15:30] Yeah, I think it's just really it's really important to bear in mind, sort of like this trend of sort of right wing fanaticism that's rearing its ugly head around the world in Trump's America and in Europe. So we should take this kind of thing quite seriously and sure, I hope that this person is Magal. I'm sure he is. But you know, as I said, you know these people don't win by spreading good ideas. They win by [00:16:00] doing violent things.
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