Royal Commission guidance on terror attacks won’t be followed
The Government has ordered the Law Commission to stop all work on hate speech legislation, confirming a recommendation of the Royal Commission into the Christchurch mosque terror attack will not be progressed.
Work on a hate crimes law will proceed, but this has been narrowed and will only occur when “resources are available” at the Law Commission.
The Labour government committed to enacting all of the 44 recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch mosque terror attacks, including both legislating to create hate speech and hate crime offences.
But the politics of a hate speech – or creating an offence regarding the incitement of racial or religious disharmony “through threatening, abusive or insulting communications” – became fraught.
Struggling to explain how the law would work, and facing stiff opposition from the National and ACT parties which raised concerns about it curbing freedom of speech, Labour deferred the issue to the Law Commission.
The National-led coalition Government is now reviewing how it will progress the outstanding inquiry recommendations – but has avoided explicit confirmation that hate speech is dead in the water.
The Law Commission has now confirmed that Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has ordered it to halt work on hate speech, as committed to in the coalition agreement between the National and
NZ First parties.
“In relation to the hate crime aspects of the project, the minister has requested the Commission considers a narrower review on whether the law should be changed to create standalone hate crime offences as recommended,” said Linda McIver, the commission’s general counsel.
“The commission will commence that review once resources are available.”
How the focus on hate crime might be narrowed is not fully clear. The inquiry recommended that both the Summary Offences Act 1981 and Crimes Act 1961 be changed to create hate-motivated offences that correspond with existing language, assault, wilful damage, intimidation, assaults, arson and intentional damage charges.
Goldsmith said the Government was clear it did not want to change hate speech laws, but it would continue looking at hate crime law. “It’s quite appropriate for any government to consider which of the recommendations that they want to proceed with. And we’ve made it clear that we’re happy to look at the hate crimes element, but we’re not going to continue with hate speech legislation.”
He said the commission had the resources to complete this work.
But Abdur Razzaq, chairperson of the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand royal commission committee, said that hate crime legislation needed to be paired with hate speech law in order to be effective.
“We would have expected the new government, a government which promised outcomes, to have a co-ordinated and systematic approach to the hate speech and hate crime legislation.
“Focusing purely on the hate crime, and a narrow focus – whatever that means – will not resolve the issue.”
He said legislating for hate crimes without expanding “protected characteristics” in the law to include religious affiliation, which the proposed hate speech law change would have done, meant “a continuation of the current anomalies” in law.
It was “no good” the Law Commission had not been provided the resources to do the work, he said.
“This kind of ad-hoc approach was what the previous government did, and all it did was confuse and delay.”
Labour Party justice spokesperson and Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said the community affected by the mosque attack had “really been harmed by hate speech”. “I do think we need to keep working on hate speech. We know it’s not an easy topic, but it’s something which is, in and of itself, harmful and could lead to much greater harms.”
He said he did not regret Labour’s putting the hate speech issue to the Law Commission to get an “a political response”.
“Politically, the narrative got captured, and we wanted to put it somewhere where we could get good advice on how to address some of those inconsistencies and wrinkles in the law.“