Claudio Grass: Freedom of Speech Dying a Slow Death in Europe

For decades, Western democracies operated under a comfortable consensus: censorship was a blunt instrument reserved for authoritarian regimes, while the “free world” relied on open debate, robust dissent, and constitutional safeguards. This sentiment allowed Western leaders to feel superior over the rest of the world, to lecture other countries on democratic principles and, in some cases, to invade and bomb them too, to spread these ideas by force. In recent years, however, that narrative has collapsed under the weight of its own hypocrisy.

Roger Partridge: Harmed by harm - How a word is swallowing freedom

Last month, ten organisations representing New Zealand’s ethnic, faith and multicultural communities delivered what they called an election message to the political parties: commit to new hate speech laws before New Zealanders vote. The Green Party committed to implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks, including extending the incitement provisions and the prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Human Rights Act to cover religion. Labour said it was considering “legislative settings” and would announce its position “in due course.” ACT, the smaller party in the governing coalition, said the existing law was adequate. National, the senior party in that coalition, said it did not support legislating against hate speech, pointing instead to its Peace and Harmony Accord with community leaders.

Olivia Pierson: RCR - Free Speech is not a Suicide Pact

As a New Zealand writer who has defended freedom of speech for many years, I have always treated it as an essential cornerstone of a free society. I have never regarded it as a context-less absolute that forces private broadcasters to give regular, unchallenged platforms to ideas that attack the very civilisation free speech depends on.

David Farrar: The hatred of the left for those with non-left views

The FSU released:

This Wednesday at the Ellen Melville Centre, Rob Campbell CNZM, Chancellor of the Auckland University of Technology, sits down with Free Speech Union board member Ani O’Brien to discuss whether New Zealanders holding public appointments are still permitted political opinions. Campbell lost two chairmanships over a LinkedIn post. The subject of the evening is who gets told to stay quiet.

So this public forum (one of a series being done around NZ by the FSU using Ani) is on a very interesting topic. Rob Campbell was removed as Chair of HealthNZ due to his columns attacking the then National opposition. So this discussion is actually giving a voice to a long-term left activist (Campbell) by having a discussion about whether those with public appointments should be allowed to publish their political opinions.

Ani O'Brien: No to Blasphemy Laws - people have rights, religions do not

The long campaign to criminalise criticism of Islam continues to demand blasphemy laws

The Law Commission Hara ngākau kino | Review of hate crime law has surprised me. In an area crowded with panic, symbolism, and bad drafting, it has refused to solve the wrong problem. In Hara ngākau kino, it concluded that New Zealand should keep the current sentencing model, under which hostile motivation aggravates an existing offence, rather than create standalone hate-crime offences. It recommended practical reforms instead, including a hate-crime flag at charging stage, formal recording in court records, express judicial statements when hostility is proved, broader coverage for associated victims and bystanders, the addition of sex to the statutory list, better guidance and training, and annual publication of police and court data.

Rodney Hide: Modern Politics has become a Parallel Universe

New Zealanders are a practical bunch. We like straight talk, fair play, and fixing problems with a bit of number 8 wire and common sense. So why does so much contemporary political talk leave us scratching our heads, muttering into our beers, and shouting at the television? Two flashpoints capture the bewilderment: the furious resistance to simply defining biological sex in law, and the relentless focus on race, reparations, “partnership,” and “stolen land”. The confusion stems from a deeper shift. Beneath the slogans lies a powerful, secularised salvation story that has quietly displaced traditional ways of thinking.

David Farrar: Make sure this is in the next coalition agreement

ACT announced:

“New Zealanders shouldn’t have to choose between their career and their right to free speech,” says ACT Public Service spokesperson Todd Stephenson.

“Today ACT is announcing a 2026 election policy to stop professional regulators acting as ideological enforcers. ACT will, if returned to Government, introduce legislation to this end. …

Melanie Phillips: War against Israel targets the British Museum

Historical truths backed up by ancient artefacts are pitted against a lethal echo chamber

Fury has exploded among prominent British Jews and others over the decision by the British Museum in London to postpone a lecture that was scheduled to be given this week.

John Klar: Elon Musk Battles for Free Speech for Artificial Intelligence

Free speech champion Elon Musk is once again leading an effort to protect commercial speech from government control. His company, xAI, filed suit on April 9 against the state of Colorado, seeking to block the enforcement of a Democrat bill that regulates the content of artificial intelligence applications to prevent unlawful discrimination. xAI asserts that the anti-discrimination statute cripples business development and is discriminatory in itself.

David Harvey: In Defence of Free Speech

Free speech has returned to the centre of public life with an energy that surprises even those who thought the argument was finished. Weren’t Milton and Locke supposed to have done the heavy lifting? Didn’t John Stuart Mill leave us an intellectual architecture sturdy enough to outlast fashion, panic and political opportunism?

Ani O'Brien: The Nursing & Medical Councils make political views compulsory

Inside the ideological capture of New Zealand’s health sector

If you are a nurse in New Zealand in 2026, the Nursing Council has decided that your clinical competence is no longer enough. It wants to control your character, politics, beliefs, and how you behave when you are off the clock. In its draft Code of Conduct, the Council states that because nurses must have the trust of the public to undertake their professional role, “they must also have an appropriate standard of behaviour in their personal lives.”

David Farrar: UK has pro free speech lefties

Nice to see some on the left in the UK getting behind the need for better free speech laws. Stella Tsantedidou writes:

Matua Kahurangi: Free Speech, privacy and intimidation

Why this case should concern everyone

You may remember that a few months ago I wrote about one of my subscribers, a long-serving nurse who found herself facing professional consequences simply for expressing personal views online that did not align with her employer. I will not name her here and have deliberately redacted her identity. If she wishes to speak in the comments, that will be her decision. What has unfolded since should concern anyone working in the public sector.

Ani O'Brien: Academic calls woman he disagrees with “Pedophile-Adjacent” & disgraces university

Response to Massey University's Professor Mohan Dutta

In early February 2026 the Free Speech Union (FSU) invited renowned Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker to speak in Auckland about his latest book. Contrary to what Massey University’s Professor Mohan Dutta alleges, I had no role in organising the event, although I did attend it. I am one of eleven volunteer council members, three women and eight men, and my involvement with the FSU is no different from the other ten. I also appear on the podcast, write occasional newsletters, and attend events meeting with supporters. Yet in a blog post titled “The Free Speech Facade: Inviting Steven Pinker and the Hypocritical War on ‘Woke’ as Strategy for Protecting Powerful White Men,” Dutta focused obsessively on me. He described me as emblematic of a “war on woke,” suggested that my presence “mobilises harm,” and insinuated that I have helped shield “white supremacist, racist, and pedophile‑adjacent men”. Given his much-professed advocacy for marginalised communities, his fixation on the only lesbian woman on the council is interesting, and, I think, just one example of a great deal of hypocrisy.

Julian Adorney: Free Speech Is Under Attack Across the World

For the past few years, the world has been falling into what Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)’s Matthew Harwood calls a “free speech recession.”

It’s tempting for those of us who grew up in a robust culture of free speech to think that the problem is just limited to authoritarian regimes like China and Iran and Russia. But unfortunately the problem runs much deeper. Many developed countries, including countries that pride themselves on their democracy and international respectability, are deciding that they ought to have the power to imprison citizens who say anything that these countries’ leaders disagree with.

Corey Smith: How American Values on Free Speech Became the Gold Standard

The legal giants who paved the way.

Thanks to the Constitution and dozens of Supreme Court cases, we live in a country where you can say almost anything you want – within reason. American free speech means you can tell a crowd of globalists that only stupid people buy windmills or protest peacefully against government actions while shouting four-letter words at federal agents. But, like many things in life, circumstances matter. “The question in every case,” said Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. when delivering the court’s opinion in Schenck v. United States (1919), “is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantiative evils that congress has a right to prevent.” Other cases would follow and challenge this theory.

David Farrar: Blocking a procession is not free speech

The Free Speech Union released:

The confrontation between Destiny Church supporters and a lawful Sikh Nagar Kirtan parade in South Auckland raises questions about where legitimate protest ends and intimidation begins, says Jillaine Heather, Chief Executive of the Free Speech Union.

Gary Moller: Digital ID and Its Impact on Free Speech and the Future of Our Children

Today, we are wrapping our children up in digital cotton wool! What are the implications?

Freedom and privacy are cornerstones of any democratic society. In New Zealand, recent discussions led by the Taxpayers Union and the Free Speech Union have brought urgent attention to two critical issues: the rise of digital ID systems and the increasing control over children's exposure to the digital world. Both developments raise serious questions about the direction our country is heading and the kind of future we want for our children.

David Harvey: The Elephant in the Room

The podcast “The Elephant” is an online video series that tackles the conversations New Zealanders often avoid.

It dives into big, uncomfortable questions, looking beyond the echo chambers in search of a fearless and honest debate. In episode 10, hosts recently released, Miriama Kamo and Mark Crysell ask ‘When does free speech become hate speech?’

The promotional material for the programme states:

Kevin: Another One Who Doesn’t Get Freedom of Speech

Anne Salmond.

Newsroom’s series of articles on the Free Speech Union has been illuminating.

Perhaps the most entertaining was David Williams’ account of their AGM in Christchurch, which featured the Wizard of Christchurch, Brian Tamaki and ‘prominent conspiracy influencer’ Chantelle Baker as well as Jordan Williams from the Taxpayers’ Union and Eric Crampton from the New Zealand Initiative.

Note the subtle put down of using the word entertaining.