Hate speech laws can’t be left on back burner
I’m accustomed to hate mail. This isn’t the sort of admission that a columnist should have to make, but after more than 10 years in the media it seems almost banal. Whenever I write about matters Ma¯ ori, an email or emails arrive in my inbox questioning my Anglo-Saxon names – maybe I’d come across as more ‘‘Ma¯ ori’’ if I changed my name to ‘‘Mokena’’; aggressively inquiring into my parents’ ancestry – which is, more than anything, creepy; and pointing out my white skin. My interlocutors, nearly all of whom reveal themselves as far-right adherents, insist it’s ‘‘OK to be white’’, so I’m unsure what the problem is with my complexion.
Of course, none of this worries me. I delete most of the emails as soon as they arrive. But it does represent an alarming trend: Ma¯ ori, women, and other minorities in public life are experiencing a rapid rise in abuse.
For most of my 10 years that abuse was low level and barely worth mentioning – questioning my ‘‘Ma¯ ori-ness’’. But in the months since the antivaxxers’ occupation of Parliament the hate mail has become, well, hateful. People have told me I’m a ‘‘serpent’’ and a ‘‘separatist’’ for supporting Three Waters reform. One particularly enthusiastic correspondent told me he’d like to hang me personally for supporting ‘‘Jabcinda’’.
A small but significant number of correspondents warned me that, when their gang of jumpedup thugs take over the country, I’ll be tried under ‘‘Nuremberg 2.0’’ and likely sentenced to death for crimes against humanity. The crime in question? Being an academic, journalist and a Ma¯ ori who’s vaccinated.
The Disinformation Project, the research group that monitors radical and hateful content online, notes that after the occupation at Parliament was folded many of the worst disinformation actors turned their energy from ‘‘anti-mandate’’ and antivaxxer towards anti-Ma¯ ori disinformation.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson notes, in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s radical, far-right decision to overturn Roe v Wade, that ‘‘hate and bigotry seem to be on the rise’’. In a deeply personal account, Robertson reveals how an antivaxxer in a local meeting yelled that he was going to ‘‘f...ing get you, you homo c...’’.
This is disgusting, and it represents the sharpest end of the recent rise in abuse against public figures. Te Pa¯ ti Ma¯ ori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has also been the victim of abuse, as has Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman.
Is this abuse representative of most New Zealanders? Of course not. But as Robertson notes, the answer to whether this is representative doesn’t matter. What matters is the ‘‘response’’ to it. New Zealanders must condemn these attacks against the LGBTQI community – including recent arson attacks against their safe spaces – as well as the attacks against women (would Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern cop the sickening abuse that she does if she was a man?), Ma¯ ori, and other minorities. When you see abuse, call it out.
But the real power to confront this abuse lies with Government MPs like Robertson. The abuse that politicians, journalists and others are experiencing seems very American. And it’s comforting to think that the very worst aspects of American society – its polarisation, its violence against public figures – ‘‘couldn’t happen here’’.
But it can happen here. And it did. In 2019, 51 Muslim worshippers were massacred and 40 were seriously injured in one of the worst terrorist incidents in world history. A far-right extremist undertook that massacre. And the laws to help prevent another are worryingly thin.
In March the ministerial advisory group responsible for monitoring the Government’s progress on the royal commission’s recommendations into the attack wrote to Andrew Little expressing concern that reforms to hate speech laws and new hate crime offences were being put on the ‘‘back burner’’.
These reforms are vital to protect people against hate-motivated crimes and abuse. The Government’s role in reform sits alongside the police role in enforcing harassment laws. The far right is worryingly emboldened, harassing journalists and academics at their place of work.
As Robertson wrote, ‘‘we must stand up, organise, and make sure rights are not just protected but enhanced’’. The chief role in ‘‘organising’’ belongs to the Government. Hate speech laws must be strengthened, new criminal categories for hate-motivated alternatives to assault, intimidation, and other offences must be established, and police must get the message that harassment laws exist to be enforced.
In the months since the occupation of Parliament, the hate mail has become, well, hateful.