Yvonne Van Dongen: Against The Current

Ethos Alliance and the Culture Wars

Two years ago a new law-focused charity with a human rights focus was launched in Auckland. Ethos Alliance is dedicated to promoting and protecting fundamental human rights focusing on freedom of conscience, religion, and belief.

While the organisation has a Christian base, its CEO Alex Penk says in their short operating history, Ethos has already had clients who are Muslim, Jewish, agnostic and atheist, alongside Christian.

Alex Penk: In defence of our right to say what we believe

Everyone has some controversial beliefs.

But how comfortable are we telling people about them? For many of us, the answer is: not very.

We commissioned new research asking New Zealanders whether they thought society should have more tolerance for people expressing differing beliefs even if they are unpopular or about sensitive issues like sex and gender identity, the Treaty of Waitangi, hate speech, or religion. The majority — 59% — agreed that we need to be more tolerant than we are; just 11% disagreed.

Alex Penk: Has politics become all tip and no iceberg?

New Zealand politics has its fair share of immortal lines, like this one: “I can smell the uranium on your breath.” That’s David Lange, Prime Minister in 1985, debating our nuclear-free policy. Twenty years later, Don Brash apparently said the no-nukes policy would be “gone by lunchtime” if he was Prime Minister.

Great one-liners like these have always been part of politics because it’s always been about style and substance. Great comms can inspire us, help us to make necessary changes, or unite us when there’s a crisis. But what happens when it’s about image first and substance last – when politics becomes comms – when it’s more about the message, and less about the result?

Alex Penk: Beware of the Blob

What do Climate Karanga, Podiatry NZ, and the Free Store Wellington have in common? Probably not much, except that they’re all committed to co-governance.

They’re among dozens of NGOs who signed an open letter urging the government to carry on and implement the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights. The media picked this up and amplified it, echoing their concern that this work might be paused.

This represents the arrival of the Blob—a gelatinous agglomeration of elite opinion that suffocates and skews public debate.

Alex Penk: To understand hate speech, we have to understand free speech

We need to start by acknowledging not just that hate speech is bad, but that free speech is good.

The Government is pushing ahead with new hate speech laws. It’s introduced a bill to make it illegal to “excite hostility” against religious believers or bring them into “contempt” with “threatening, abusive or insulting” words, and the Law Commission will be asked to look at more extensive changes.

Most of the debate will be about the problems with hate speech laws, like the way they can make people afraid to speak freely about important but sensitive issues. So to really understand what’s at stake we have to understand why free speech matters in the first place.