No, you must cease and desist, or we will take your company down.
THIS IS BLASPHEMY AGAINST TE AO MAORI FUNDAMENTALISM, the state religion of Aotearoa!
– Chants the NZ Broadcasting Standards Authority.
“Tikanga is mumbo-jumbo.”
That simple statement — a personal opinion about a belief system — is now being treated as religious blasphemy and an expression of racism in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA), which was created to regulate television and radio broadcasting, has announced that it wants to investigate broadcaster Sean Plunkett over remarks made online — even though his programme, The Platform, operates entirely on the internet and therefore falls outside the BSA’s statutory jurisdiction.
So what is the alleged offence? Not defamation — but racism, racism and religious sacrilege.
The implication is that tikanga Māori (often described as “the correct way of doing things”) is now considered sacred, beyond public criticism. To describe it as superstition or mumbo-jumbo is apparently to insult something holy.
FROM FREE SPEECH TO BLASPHEMY LAW
New Zealand repealed its blasphemy law in 2019. Section 123 of the Crimes Act 1961 — “blasphemous libel” — was formally removed by Parliament.
Yet here we are, six years later, watching an unelected regulatory body attempt to re-create the same offence through the back door.
Under the BSA’s Discrimination and Denigration code, it is a breach to encourage hostility toward a group based on their religious beliefs.
But that clause is now being stretched to cover criticism of Mātauranga Māori, tikanga, and Te Ao Māori spirituality — systems that are explicitly spiritual and theological, not merely cultural.
In effect, the BSA is positioning itself as a guardian of sacred doctrine.
It no longer protects viewers from offensive broadcasting; it protects a state-endorsed faith from blasphemy.
A NEW STATE RELIGION
Across at least 50 statutes, government agencies are embedding Te Ao Māori spirituality into public policy, education, and law. Concepts such as wairua, mana, mauri, and tapu are invoked as guiding principles — not metaphorically, but spiritually.
What was once a neolithic belief system is now becoming a civil religion, administered through public-service codes, school curricula, and official ceremonies.
If the BSA succeeds in treating criticism of those ideas as hate speech or denigration, then New Zealand will have effectively re-introduced blasphemy law — only this time in service of Te Ao Māori fundamentalism rather than Christianity.
FREEDOM MEANS THE RIGHT TO DISAGREE
Freedom of religion includes the freedom not to believe.
Freedom of expression includes the freedom to criticise belief.
And equality before the law means that no faith — old or new — is above scrutiny.
Calling tikanga “mumbo-jumbo” may offend believers, but offence is not a crime.
The attempt to treat it as one is far more dangerous to democracy than any remark ever made by a broadcaster.
NEW ZEALAND’S REAL FREE-SPEECH EXCEPTIONS
LEGAL LIMITS
1️⃣ Hate-Speech & Incitement Laws – Human Rights Act 1993 (s61 & s131): illegal to incite hostility or contempt toward groups by race or ethnicity (Government has floated expanding this to religion, gender, and more).
2️⃣ Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 – criminalises online posts causing serious emotional distress.
3️⃣ Defamation Law – civil suits for damaging someone’s reputation.
4️⃣ Contempt of Court / Suppression Orders – speech that prejudices a trial or breaches suppression can lead to prosecution.
5️⃣ Privacy and Confidentiality Rules – publishing private data or leaked documents can breach the Privacy Act 2020.
6️⃣ Employment Codes of Conduct – speech ‘bringing an employer into disrepute’ can mean job loss, especially in public service or education.
7️⃣ Broadcasting & Advertising Standards – the BSA and ASA restrict material deemed offensive or denigrating to a group.
CULTURAL & SOCIAL TABOOS
8️⃣ ‘Cultural Blasphemy’ – criticising Te Ao Māori spirituality or political sacredness risks being labelled racist or hateful.
9️⃣ Academic & Institutional Codes – universities and ministries enforce ‘Tiriti obligations’ that chill dissent.
🔟 Social-Media Moderation / De-platforming – posts critical of state-endorsed culture or ‘disinformation’ are routinely removed.
Free Speech in NZ: Legally limited; Socially punished; Politically discouraged.
You may have the right to speak – but not the right to be heard.
CONCLUSION
If the Broadcasting Standards Authority wishes to act as New Zealand’s new Inquisition, it must first obtain a ruling by the High Court of New Zealand or from Parliament and the people.
Until then, its moral policing has no lawful authority and no place in a free country.
Judy Gill BSc, DipTchg, is a parent, former teacher, and a staunch advocate for secular education.
7 comments:
The fundamental issue is that laws require specific words and specific meanings. That's why legal writings cannot include sentences such as 'This means that this requires citizens to support this '. Vague phrasings about ways of doing cannot be incorporated into legal sentences that require exactitude. Obviously those who fail to provide exactitude want elastic meanings that special interests can stretch to benefit their groups.
Given what the BSA considers Plunkett's 'hate speech', then rants against colonialism should also be seen in the same way. Add the clownish capering in parliament and the inflammatory language used by part-maoris in that place of debate and by any definition we have hate speech, expressed in neolithic mumbo jumbo terms.
Mumbo Jumbo refers to meaningless or confusing language that pretends to make sense.
In the case of Tikanga it like a lot of things differs from Iwi to Iwi and thus some would find it hard to understand how to make sense of one tribe's Tikanga with another.
The word has African roots with English explorers finding the original wording difficult to pronouce and hence Mumbo Jumbo came to life in that confusion.
Maori from 1840 transported through time would be unable to understand todays modern maori language. Did the worrd mangamangaiatua exist pre european contact to describe abracadabra, mumbo-jumbo, hocus-pocus, meaningless form of words used as a charm?
Calling a belief system you either do not prescribe to, cannot understand or find irrelevant to your identity Mumbo Jumbo is not racist as it is now just a common coin of phrase.
Some folk are way too precious and others like the BSA are buried far too deep in the identity ethno-cultural wokism that NZ is awash with.
No culture is special and beyound comment or throw away catch phrases, but it seems in the NZ Public service there exist one that is....
I agree with Anon 713 above that "laws require specific words and specific meanings".
>"Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 – criminalises online posts causing serious emotional distress."
So why defines/delineates "serious emotional distress"? The supposed 'victim'?
There is effectively no defence against a charge of "causing serious emotional distress".
For the future it is important that Shaun establishes whether or not the BSA has jurisdiction over The Platform and the like. Currently The Platform is marvellously objective and relevant. As for the words in question my Concise Collins gives, among others , the definition "meaningless or unnecessarily complex language" and "an object of superstitious awe and reverence". As very little of tikanga is documented and proponents never explain in authoritative positive clear terms, then it is largely "meaningless". And the topic has certainly been elevated to be an object of superstitious awe and reverence. (Despite the very very many horrific aspects of original traditional tikanga).
I wonder if the BSA monitors the RNZ maori programme Thurday evenings. I suspect most colonists disposed to make complaints find the programme too much for their blood pressure, as I do.
The Maori word for mumbo jumbo IS tikanga. QED.
Richard Fanselow complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority over a broadcaster’s casual remark about tikanga Māori. Meanwhile, the new Race Relations Commissioner, Dr. Melissa Derby, remains conspicuously silent on Takuta Ferris’ openly racist comments during the Māori seat by-election. The irony is exquisite: a sensitive man uses government bureaucracy to police minor speech, while the official watchdog stays comfortably silent on actual racial discrimination. If irony were a crime, Fanselow would be in a maximum-security cell.
Fanselow’s complaint is a masterclass in what one might politely call “fanciful prose gymnastics.” He takes Sean Plunket’s offhand description of tikanga as “mumbo jumbo” and contorts it into a declaration of racism. Every sarcastic inflection, every drawn-out syllable of Māori words, becomes evidence of prejudice.
In Fanselow’s twisted dictionary and thesaurus, any cultural criticism — however mild, policy-relevant, or humorous — is suspect. It’s a linguistic black hole where thought crime is measured by the breadth of one’s imagination.
The BSA, astonishingly, has accepted the premise. Its draft decision treats the remark as a “broadcast” under the 1989 Broadcasting Act and signals that it will adjudicate the complaint accordingly.
By asserting jurisdiction over The Platform, the BSA is doing what Parliament never authorised: inventing novel interpretations of the law to which it owes its existence.
Stacey Wood, chief executive of the BSA, insists this is all within the Act and not censorship. Technically correct, but misleading.
The Act may not literally forbid online adjudication, yet stretching decades-old language to police digital speech about cultural issues is legislative work masquerading as regulatory oversight. And calling critics “hysterical” hardly lends credibility; it suggests irritation, not reasoned legal confidence. The Authority appears more interested in demonstrating bureaucratic muscle than in restrained application of the law.
Broadcasting Minister Paul Goldsmith has offered the usual hand-washing line: he cannot “comment on operational matters or individual cases,” though his officials will monitor potential media regulation impacts. That’s faint praise for what is essentially a constitutional question. When an unelected regulator stretches statutory language to dictate what can or cannot be said about culture, it is no longer operational — it is a threat to free speech. Goldsmith’s silence, whether cautious or timid, leaves the Authority free to set a dangerous precedent.
The implications are chilling. If the BSA can claim jurisdiction over online-only platforms and adopt Fanselow’s expansive definition of racism, then any digital commentator, podcaster, or citizen with a microphone or webcam in New Zealand could suddenly be considered a potential offender. Minor critiques of policy or culture might now carry regulatory consequences. Freedom of expression becomes conditional on bureaucratic interpretation.
All the while, the real machinery designed to address racial discrimination — the Race Relations Commissioner — is nowhere to be seen. Even Willie Jackson agrees Ferris’ tirade is racist.
Derby’s silence on Ferris’s blatant comments underscores the absurdity: the system prioritises policing cultural critique over confronting actual racial abuse. It’s a bureaucratic version of misplaced heroism: minor infractions are magnified, systemic problems are ignored.
Fanciful Fanselow has already achieved the notoriety he sought. The BSA’s complicity has given him an institutional megaphone for his ideological gymnastics, elevating a private academic’s wordplay into official government action. The public, meanwhile, is left to wonder: in a country that prides itself on free speech, how long before any casual remark about culture or policy triggers a regulatory inquisition?
If there is a lesson here, it is blunt: the BSA is testing limits it does not own, a citizen can manufacture a grievance and turn it into law by proxy.
—PB
Post a Comment