Free speech

The Court of Appeal has ruled that a satirist who lampooned John Key at the last election did not break the law and should not have been silenced. If these senior judges had ruled any other way, of course, the law would be plainly mad and a dire threat to freedom of speech and democracy itself. Darren Watson’s song Planet Key was a scorching attack on John Key and all he stood for: ‘‘All I wanted when I was growing up / Was to be the boss of you all / Never believed in nothing / Never took a stand…’’ The Electoral Commission ruled that the song was either an ‘‘election advertisement’’ or an ‘‘election programme’’ and therefore had to be banned. The law in question arose from the notorious advertisements placed by the Brethren Church in the 2005 election. These anonymous ads showed that those with money could have real clout in an election campaign. Parliament, rightly, tried to prevent this happening again. But how to frame a law which caught the Brethren but didn’t squash a wandering satirist? The judges, to their great credit, ruled that the song was neither an election ad nor an election programme and so escaped the law. So decency and democracy prevailed. Unfortunately, the judges also warned that the law might still threaten the free speech of ordinary folks who weren’t either politicians or party hacks. The law, they plainly and rightly suggested, needs urgent reform.