Political protesters peeved
Peeved politics protesters promoting free speech greeted anyone hoping to see Don Brash speak at Massey University, where it now may be harder to attract political speakers.
A peaceful protest was held at Massey yesterday in response to the decision by vice-chancellor Jan Thomas to prevent former National Party leader Brash from speaking on the Manawatu¯ campus. The talk was cancelled because of security concerns over threats and because Thomas said she opposed hate speech.
Massey University Politics Society spokesman Michael Curtis was among the protesting students disappointed at the decision and he believes it could affect future political speakers coming to Massey.
National Party leader Simon Bridges is due to speak at the university tomorrow.
‘‘If there’s fear of being shut down ... why would you want to come to a university? The vicechancellor has at least presented the image that Massey is not friendly to particular types of ‘speak’ here, which particularly defeats the purpose of a university,’’ Curtis said.
According to Brash’s speech notes, he was going to talk about his career in politics and economics, without a mention of lobby group Hobson’s Pledge.
‘‘For her to have fear of open debate and actually talking about things, even if controversial or even if they strongly disagree with them, these are topics that need to be discussed,’’ Curtis said.
There were people in the politics society from both sides of the political spectrum and while they might not all agree with Brash, they wanted Brash to speak, Curtis said.
Politics society president Christian Houghton said the ban had affected Thomas’ reputation.
Palmerston North’s ACT coordinator Steve Wrathall said: ‘‘Free speech underpins all other types of freedoms. If you don’t have freedom to speak, none of the other freedoms can operate.’’
He said hate speech was a term developed to shut down opinions people didn’t like.
Karl Pearce, who wrote the letter asking for Brash’s visit to be cancelled, was the only one at the protest happy with the ban.