Professor Robert MacCulloch: Are partners in Auckland's law firms and NZ Big Business the true enemies of free speech in this country?

For all the volumes of articles written by rightist commentators about how folks like former PM Jacinda Ardern tried to shut down personal freedoms and liberties by lockdowns and tightening laws on hate speech - and how NZ's Universities had been taken over by groups inhibiting the freedom of speech of academics - where has one of the most direct full frontal attacks on free speech come from? From Auckland's Big Law Firms and Big Businesses that use those firms to protect their interests.

It's been reported Chapman Tripp wrote a letter to the University of Auckland requesting it remove an article by my colleague, Emeritus Prof. Tim Hazeldine, threatening a defamation lawsuit for calling out the Supermarket Duopoly. It was called, "Foodstuffs Wants to Merge its Co-ops, but Consumers Need the Opposite". Business Desk reports, "Foodstuffs North Island has made legal moves to silence an academic critical of its proposed merger". I've already discussed - and been warned - that Big Interests will come after the likes of this Blog when they're exposed. But it ended up happening not to me, but to the (by contrast) gentle and mild mannered Hazeldine. He writes opinions about subjects he knows lots about and earnestly believes to be true.

So shame on Kiwi Blog; Free Speech Union; Bassett Brash & Hide and NZ Initiative; shame on you for critiquing Universities for being hot beds of left-wing activism trying to close down free speech but not calling out Big Business using Big Resources and Big Money to weaponize Big Law Firms (that happily take the fee-income) to threaten one of NZ's leading economists for writing what his opinion. It's a sad day for NZ's big companies, CEO's, and our high net-wealth club, when those who pretend to stand for free-markets threaten the writings of a man defending competition & promoting ways of lowering the cost of living & alleviating poverty. Where was the Free Speech Union, Bassett Brash & Hide, the Initiative? Where were the folks on the NBR Rich List, many of whom donate money to the above free speech outfits & carry on about their right to speak freely & right to offend people? Where are they when the freedom of a guy like Hazeldine to call out Big Business is threatened? Why are they closing ranks and saying nothing?

Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.