[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, everybody. Welcome along to the Friday Freebie edition of the Dispatches podcast. We've got a really great conversation today with Jonathan ailing, the director of the Free Speech Union. There's two cases in particular. One involves a pro life nurse who's actually no longer a nurse, not even registered, and is still being targeted by the nursing council for expressing pro life beliefs, which is quite astounding. And some official Information act request results from the debacle that happened at Victoria University. Remember a couple of months ago, there was supposed to be a debacle debate, a panel discussion on free speech, and the free speech union did a little bit of OIA work and discovered a whole lot of machiavellian stuff going on behind the scenes. So we talked about those two cases and other things in general as well. And yeah, really enjoyable conversation. I hope you really get something rewarding out of it. But before we do that, don't forget that if you want to get access to a daily episode of commentary from the Dispatches podcast, that's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday Friday, go to patreon.com leftfootmedia. The link is in today's show notes and become a five dollar monthly patron. And if you do, you will get that daily, exclusive patrons only episode of the Dispatches podcast. So that's patreon.com leftfootmedia. The link is in today's show notes and a huge thank you to all of our patrons. It's thanks to you that this important episode is made possible. So without any further ado, let's hear from Jonathan ailing.
Hi, my name is Brendan Malone, and you're listening to the dispatches, the podcast that strives to cut through all the noise in order to challenge the popular narratives of the day with some good old fashioned contrarian thinking. You might not always agree, but at least you'll be taking a deeper look at the world around you.
Jonathan, thank you so much for being with us today. Before we even jump into any of the topics that I want to talk with you about, just tell our listeners who might not be familiar with the work of the Free Speech union exactly when you came to be and what you do.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: So the Free Speech union is the largest civil actor in the country now defending Kiwis speech rights. We've got about 100,000 supporters around the country, 10,000 donors. We've been around for three years, since the hate speech law campaign emerged in about June 2021. And that's when I there was a small steering committee of some great volunteers who said, look, we need to do this properly or we might as well not do it at all. And they got some staff together. I was asked to lead that. And in a way, we've kind of unfortunately gone from strength to strength since then. I would love it if we then realized that there was no more work to do and we could have all gone home. But unfortunately, through the Ardun government, of course, and then even since then, then with a lot of what's occurring in a number of our institutions, in the public service and in law and our universities, of course, and in our media, there's a real threat to the basic idea that individuals should be able to think according to their conscience, to believe according to their conscience and to express those beliefs. And so we stand non partisan. We don't take any substantial positions on any issues, but we simply stand up for the right of individuals to. We've got a team of about ten spread around the country, and we're part of what is now a growing international movement. Just this week I've come back from Sydney, where we launched what's called the International association of Free Speech Unions. And so we were the second free speech union in the world to establish after the United Kingdom. But now there's also one in Australia and one in South Africa, and we'll be launching one in Canada very shortly as well.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: Tell me, with the change of government from the Ardern regime to now the Luxon regime, did you expect things perhaps to tail off a little bit? Did you? And has that actually happened or has it been. It sounds like to me you're saying it's actually ramped up, if anything?
[00:03:55] Speaker B: That's right.
We weren't sure what the impact would be, though. There's a line of thinking that ostensibly the current coalition partners are more committed to free speech. I think on some issues that remains to be seen by some of the partners. But we certainly weren't going to be having a government pushing through safer online content regulation again, which was a real attempt to reform online speech regulation or hate speech laws, or the equivalent, in my opinion. What that means, though, is where under the previous regime, our would be censors. And again, I don't think I need to tell you this isn't a left right question. Both the left and the right have used and abused free speech, but where our would be censors were trying to provocate for, for censorship, they saw a government that was doing a lot of legwork and they thought, good, you guys go and do that. And we were able to spar with the government which has kind of a more dramatic appeal to the comms narrative. It was easier to get people concerned about what's going on now, though, a lot of everyday Kiwis who might otherwise care about free speech, see a government that isn't putting through hate speech laws. See a government with some of the minor parties that are more explicitly committed to free speech and kind of go, oh, well, good, you know, we don't have to worry about it. We've even had some people contact us and say, don't worry, Winston Peters is deputy prime minister. Now you guys can pack up shop. And I only wish it were that easy. But I think in many of the would be censors who saw the government working towards censorship and supported them in that, excuse me, they now don't see the government moving forward in that space. And they go, hang on a second. We need to do something, something about this ourselves. And that has meant, actually, we have more casework than we've ever had before. We have more engagement in fights with institutions rather than government itself. And so, yeah, unfortunately, I think there are a number of people invested in this that's coming to a head, but we're certainly far from any sense of a comprehensive victory.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: I was going to say that that point you made at the end about the institutions and sort of, I guess, institutional power, because it seems to me a lot of people have failed to account for, you know, James Burnham's warning about the managerial elite classes who would set up a bureaucratic machine and they would actually be the real power behind the throne. And it seems to me that when we think about free speech, we generally think, oh, it's the government, it's the state, it's some dictator. But in actual fact, we've failed to account for how much the bureaucracy just pervades our life now, and therefore just sets all of these and often very unaccountable rules that no one voted on.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: That's absolutely right. And I think you are absolutely correct in identifying that at the moment, we do have this bureaucratic, managerial, lanyard, class wearing elites that are seeking to impose a very new set of pseudo religious norms in our society. And that is particularly pronounced, I think, at the moment. But even putting that, you know, that this plays into kind of Dietz's long march to the institutions and such as. Well, putting that to one side, though, I think we can often be quite superficial in our analysis of what cultural change really looks like. And I've had wonderful friends who have enormous respect for care about certain issues. You know, in one case, I remember an individual who was pro life said, I'm going to get elected to parliament and I'm going to go to parliament and I'm going to change the abortion laws because they're wrong. And of course, I respect his passion and conviction of belief for that issue. But I thought it was a very superficial analysis that, well, all we need to do do is get someone elected because, because the reason we obviously have these wrong laws is because we have the wrong politicians. I would say the reason we have these laws is because our society believes in them. Unfortunately, many would say. And so what we need to do is actually probe a little deeper and it's through our institutions. But I think it goes even beyond that into the culture that every one of us are feeding every day in our society, and that bubbles up into our communities, into our media. What op eds are you writing, what letters to the editors are you writing? It flows into our podcast, it flows into our legal professions, the way our lawyers navigate these issues, our doctors, our teachers, of course. And then I think that it does find something of an ultimate representative expression in parliament. But it's impossible to say, okay, well, then I'm going to go into parliament and change it. You actually need to work through each of those layers first, I think.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great point.
I know the great Vaslav Bender, who I'm a big fan of, the czechoslovakian christian dissident who lived under soviet communism. He talked about the parallel polis and the importance of that. And part of that is that dialogue that exists outside of the official mechanisms. If you're not creating the summits, the forums, the places to have that conversation, it just isn't going to happen and you're not going to see a countercultural change.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: That's exactly right.
We have quite a large international network that we work in in defence of free speech, especially in the anglosphere. And so I'm over in the states a bit, and as I work with free speech advocates there, of course they have the First Amendment. And many advocates in the UK or here in New Zealand, for example, might think, well, if only we had a constitution that had a First Amendment like that, then we would have a rock solid protection of free speech and we wouldn't have to fight anymore. And that's the very problem. And I say this to free speech advocates in the states, and they agree. You create these rock solid, unmovable, unbending institutions that don't take into account the real cultural temperature of the room or people's beliefs. And it may mean, you win in court, but in the United States, of course, look at what's happening on college campuses, look at what's happening in society. They have lost the cultural battle around whether free speech is actually good for a nation and whether it's good for the marginalized, whether it's good for the vulnerable. In New Zealand, we have to go out every single day and make the case that free speech actually leads us to greater stability and greater peace and greater prosperity. Or tomorrow it could be taken away from us and it's kind of a bit more of an all or nothing equation. And I actually quite like that. It keeps us on our toes, having to persuade people and convince people that these are important cultural norms, not just rely on laws and impose it on people.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: I want to talk to you about two specific cases. That's actually the main reason for the conversation today. I actually was hoping to talk to you about one case. That's what I initially contacted you about, because I haven't seen as much media coverage of the follow up. You've done some OIA work and it's yielded some very fascinating but hardly surprising fruit. And I want to talk about that. But before we get to that, I also saw an update from you guys just a few days ago about yet another case and speaking of institutionalised pressures on speech and thought. And really, we're talking here about freedom of conscience, ultimately, because speech is what, you know, conscience has lived out in the world through action and through speech. Right? That gives voice to it. And we've got this nurse, if I understand it correctly, who is now being hauled before a body to, you know, please explain for sharing her opposition to the issue of abortion in an online forum. Can you tell us a bit about that case?
[00:11:03] Speaker B: That's right. And I would note as well, this isn't the only case that we currently have on where a pro life advocate is being opposed. We have a case before the district court, a criminal case, where an individual has been challenged as well. But in this particular case, a woman, a young, young Mori, young mum, mum of three, who had trained as a nurse but was no longer working as a nurse since having children was on a mum's page for Palmerston north. And an anonymous post came from someone who claimed to be a young woman who had recently found out she was pregnant. She said that she was wondering whether she should keep the baby or not, that she didn't want to have an abortion, but she knew that her boyfriend was very adamant that she terminate the pregnancy and that if she did keep it she would be raising the child by herself. And so she was asking for advice. And as a passing comment, I think it's. It's a sad place that that kind of. This is. These are the tones of the conversations we're having on social media. It is difficult to navigate these very personal, very, very, very weighty conversations in that kind of forum. But. But this woman spoke out of her conscience and spoke up good on her for that and said, look, I believe you should keep the pregnancy. If you, if you terminate the pregnancy, you are killing a baby. And I think you can do it. You can be the mother that you. That you know you are. And that was really all she said. Now, on her profile, this. This woman had noted that she had trained as a nurse, and so that was the connection that someone found. And they reported her to the nursing council and said that it was inappropriate for someone who had trained as a nurse to provide her perspective in this way. They said that she, as a professional, should have been much more impartial and supported the woman in whatever choice she thought was best. It's absurd in my mind that in any way there would be an allegation that just because someone has participated in a certain profession, they lose basic human rights and that in a private capacity, on their private social media, they can't express their opinion.
That would be the case anyway, let alone the fact that she's not even registered as a nurse now. And so really, there is no grounds whatsoever. It is entirely inappropriate and unacceptable for the nursing council to feel like they can send a letter saying, we're considering investigating this question. We would like to hear your perspective before we do. Well, we told her they need to tell them, bugger off. You don't have a point here at all and questioning this or evaluating, uh, my right to speak. The nursing council has no position here, and it's entirely inappropriate that. That they feel like they can have a narrative or a commentary there, that even them just sending that letter introduces quite a chilling element. We're watching, and if, if you. If you do try and register again, well, we might have to consider what you've done in this place. So we're very intent now on making sure that there isn't a black dot against her name if in the future, she did want to register and work as a nurse.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: Once again, that's quite astounding, that case, because you think about the absurdity and the contradiction, and you're right, it is. There's that chilling factor of, we're watching you, but there's also, another very chilling factor that maybe some haven't considered. So one is they're claiming this sort of patient autonomy doctrine, you know, the autonomous, self choosing individual should be respected. Okay, but what about the nurses? So, clearly, they don't view nurses and other health professionals as being autonomous, self choosing individuals. They are co opted, and they are effectively property of this bureaucracy now. And their conscience must be surrendered at the door. And not just that, but even once you leave the profession, we will still come back and pass judgment on you. We still own you, in a sense. We still own your conscience, even when you are no longer registered in that profession. And that, to me, is just astounding, the level of, I guess, hubris and power that we see there in this sort of extreme and completely immoral, authoritarian way.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: And you mentioned earlier, I agree, this interplay between conscience rights and speech rights. And in reality, the two are inextricable from themselves.
We talk of speech as the most human of rights. It is the foundation on which liberal human rights conceptions and beliefs are founded, and it can't exist. Speech can't exist without our conscience animating that speech first, right, our belief structure providing us with something to say. But equally, I think that doesn't mean actually conscience is the foundation, because equally, we are social beings, and we hold our conscience and we hold our beliefs in. In concert with others, and we share those together. And if I'm just a strong believer that if today I can believe something but not say it, tomorrow I won't believe it, we hold things together, and we practice the muscle of belief through expression. And I think I go into meetings with some extreme would be sensors who say, well, fine, your client can believe that if they must, but why on earth does that mean they should have the right to say it? And I just think it's this absurd notion that we can hold our beliefs inside. We actually must practice them, otherwise they won't remain true in our lives whatsoever.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great point. In fact, from the christian philosophical perspective, you'd say that's a very sacramental worldview that, you know, that these outward signs of invisible realities and our speech manifests what it claims to be about, right? Those beliefs are held in existence, and the speech is that sort of outward sign of that invisible reality of belief. And without it, the outward signs, the invisible realities, tend to disappear. That's a really, really excellent point. And I think also this idea of just co opting someone's conscience and then effectively suggesting that what is pretty much sort of boilerplate abortion related, ethical. Like she hasn't said anything out of the ordinary there at all. And you go back 20 years, no one would have batted an. Either they would have said, oh, that's a pro life thing or that's an anti abortion thing. Now it is verbotene. And they clearly want to take total ethical control of the public square. When you've got this going on, when someone's just expressing sort of boilerplate pro life ethics and they're being told, no, that is a punishable offence.
[00:17:35] Speaker B: And I hold this woman in really high regard because I don't think she was ignorant to the fact that what she was saying was controversial, that maybe she didn't think the nursing council would come knocking, but certainly that it exposes her to.
To account a narrative and opposition and perhaps abuse on social media. And yet she still spoke up in line with her values on something that she thought was very important. And I think, unfortunately for all the work of the would be censors and government censorship or whatever else there may be self censorship, is actually the most powerful repression and suppression of the exchange of ideas and the marketplace of beliefs that free speech is supposed to animate and enable. And so, you know, whether people agree with her or disagree with her, that's entirely beside the point. She spoke in accordance with her beliefs and that's a good thing for our society.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: I'll come back to that point to conclude with, but before we do, I want to talk to you about the main affair, if you like, the issue that I think really does deserve a lot more conversation. So for those who don't know, there was an event that was organized at the Victoria University around the question of free speech. Before we even get into any of the controversy, just tell us a little bit about that event. Just give us the quick overview of what that event was supposed to be and who organised it, etcetera.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: The coalition government and their coalition agreement have announced that universities will be required to have free speech policies, otherwise they will lose portions of government funding. And this recognises what the Free Speech union has insisted for quite some time, which is that the growing erosion of. Of speech rights and the promotion of sensorial worldviews is coming from universities, first of all. And this plays into a wide range of ideological and postmodern and philosophical concepts that I'm sure we could discuss for hours, but that's really where it's emanating from. And so we supported, we welcomed that. The vice chancellor at Victoria University, Nick Smith, who's just relatively recently been appointed there, wrote an op ed in the Post, the Wellington newspaper, saying that actually he thought the government's policy here would make free speech worse on university campuses, not better, because universities should be the ones to decide for themselves what speech is appropriate in that context. And I got a right of reply the following day saying, hang on a second, Nick. What you're saying there is free speech for the universities. It's free speech for you as the vice chancellor and your senior leadership team. Academic freedom actually rests with every academic as an individual and every student. And so really, academic freedom should be held within that community, not by your hierarchy.
This meant that he, following that, he announced that they were going to hold a panel, that they were going to have a discussion around these issues and get kind of a senior level of commentary on what was going here. And I was invited to participate in that.
As we got quite close to that date, it was announced that there were scheduling issues and that they were going to push out this. This. This conversation, which had by this point become quite anticipated. There were many hundreds registering to attend in person, and there was a real interest and buzz around what this conversation would present.
The long and the short of it is that there was enormous opposition on the false accusations that I'm a far right zealot, apparently, that I have never. They concede Jonathan a. Ling doesn't ever express anything that is hate speech, but that's only because he's keeping his hands clean. We know what he really is. And they say that I have never expressed hate speech, but that I have defended the speech rights of others who have expressed what they consider hate speech. And you know what? This nurse might have been one of them if it had happened at that time. You know, it's that we don't like what some of the people that Jonathan nailing has stood up for their speech rights, what they've said. And so he must be a deplorable as well. And there was enormous pressure that came on the Victoria University administration to either cancel the event or just get rid of me. They didn't get rid of me. And in the end, the event did go forward. I was under the impression that they deserved some credit for that because I thought, well, they could just drop me and get rid of the issue. It would seem from the OIA that they released that the reason that they didn't get rid of having the free speech union participating there was because they thought we would be a bigger headache to them by getting rid of me than they were enduring by keeping me there. And you know what? They were absolutely right. They were very astute in that regard. If they had gotten rid of us, we would have. There was already quite a stink. It led kind of a bit of a national conversation. The members of parliament got involved, but they were right that it is not appropriate to invite someone to a free speech panel to make the case for free speech and then uninvite them simply because bullies don't like what he was going to say.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: Now, you went ahead with the panel before we get into any of the OIA stuff, because, like, the media coverage at the time, there was a bit of media hubbub about this. People did write stories about it, but they haven't. I haven't seen any of the subsequent follow up to the OAI, so I want to get into that in just a second. But before we do get into that, did the sky fall? Did Victoria University erupt in flames at your mere presence? How did the actual panel go?
[00:23:03] Speaker B: It was an utter waste of time. It was so anticlimactic. They had, what it was initially was a panel discussion, and what it turned into, in the end, we weren't. They said, you're not allowed to talk to each other. We weren't allowed to challenge each other. We weren't allowed to ask each other questions. We literally could not speak to each other. I was given eight minutes to talk. Someone else was given eight minutes to talk. Someone else was given eight minutes to talk. And it had gone from a free. A panel discussion on free speech to a series of interviews on identity politics. That's all it was. Every identity was supposed to be represented there, and each identity spoke from their perspective around why, yes, free speech is so important, but not if they actually say anything that anyone else disagrees with. And it was an utter waste of time. I didn't say anything particularly original. You can imagine the basic defense of free speech that I presented. No one else said anything particularly original. There's only real interest or originality in these conversations as those different ideas interact with each other and as you have an opportunity to respectfully and politely and civilly put pointed holes in arguments and call out where lines of logic maybe fall. And that would have been very easy to do with. With the so called lines of logic that some of the panelists were presenting saying, well, you know, we. Corin Dan was the journalist who was moderating the conversation. Well, we don't think anyone calling for Corin Dan's head to be chopped off should be allowed to say that. So this is why universities need to control free speech.
As if there's some sort of connection between those two. I'm even still just stumbled.
Exactly what are you talking about? No one's talking about saying you can chop journalists heads off. In fact, the free speech union has always only insisted that free speech is the antithesis of violence. But that's something quite differently. To be able to raise some of the really important questions around identity politics, around postmodernism, around many of the fraught concepts, the philosophical and political issues that we're facing today that do seem so suppressed and censored.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it's quite astounding, really, isn't it? And what you're describing to me sounds exactly like what the bureaucratic managerial classes would do. They would reduce it to the lowest common denominator. They would come up with a bureaucratic mechanism to actually stifle authentic human interaction, which is messy, it's robust, it's great, it has rough edges, but that's the way it's supposed to be.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: And it's interesting.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: And there was six, over 600 people that were going to attend in person for that initial panel, and there were, I think, probably 150 who turned up for the pro forma humiliation of speech advocates. You know, I think that's kind of why they were there. Oh, well, we'll go all there to make sure that Jonathan ailing and Doctor Michael Johnson feel exposed for the radical beliefs that they hold. Well, I mean, it was just thoroughly uninteresting. And the free speech union sent round the live stream link. You know, there were thousands of people watching that supported us. But in the room, virtually, Michael and I were virtually the only people standing up for free speech. And in the end it was just none of us walked away having learned anything or considered a new concept. What was the point exactly?
[00:26:18] Speaker A: You're just still stuck in your ideological silos. No friendships are made, no dialogues had. It's. Yeah, so it's just crazy now after that, though, and as I said, we had a bit of media attention and a lot of people were saying, hey, hold on a minute, what's going on here? It sounds a lot like another awful day at another crazy university, but people were generally, I think, concerned and upset about what was going on. You have the panel and you then subsequently did some official information act requests to find out a bit more. And holy Moly, they've revealed some very fascinating behind the scenes machiavellian behaviours that were going on. Tell us some of the key takeaway sort of summary points that you've learned.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: It's always worth remembering and having worked in a ministerial office and in parliament, I was always very conscious of the fact that all of that was on the record. There's a strong free speech argument there, especially when you're being publicly paid. People will find out what you're saying. And it was actually long before the panel itself. And the disappointment that that was. It was just at the point when the panel was, was delayed. I thought, this seems a wee bit more than a scheduling issue, in my opinion. And so we decided to just review what material they were working on. And then over the course of May, as we went through that and then at the panel itself, it was very apparent that they, they were not operating in good faith. And what the OIAS reveal was an obsession with, with, with myself and Michael Johnson, the former educator, associate dean of education at Victoria, a gentleman and a scholar neither of us could you describe as having particularly radical views. But, but people were aghast at the idea that because, and it boiled down particularly to the fact that we had defended the speech rights of Julian Batchelor. That's. That, that in any way we should have a moment to put forward a perspective. The two great sins were that we defended the speech rights of Julian Bachelor and that a man called Graham Linehan, who is the author of Father Teddin, who is a gender critical individual, that he came and spoke in New Zealand under our banner. And so those, we had been associated with a gender critical community and we had. We had defended the speech rights of an individual who's considered to be racist. And that means that we are Persona non grasser. And, you know, just the tropes and the cliches emerge quite quickly. The vice chancellor was told, no Mori will sit on this panel while Jonathan ailing is there. And they already had a Mori who was willing to sit there. It was David Seymour. But of course, because David Seymour and I hold relatively similar views on free speech, then we would be speaking along similar lines. And so he's the wrong type of Mori because he wouldn't be disagreeing with me. And others said, free speech is all just an entry point for far right extremism. And the problem is, the problem is it sounds so reasonable, it's very difficult to argue against. But we know they're wrong. And so they admit you're just, you're legitimizing them by letting them present well thought out, well argued points because we know they're wrong. But people leave thinking, well, maybe they're not. And so it's this very indisputably ideological, dogmatic way of viewing these issues going, we are the anointed ones who know the truth, even though every other reason would suggest we are wrong. Everything your ears are telling you, everything your eyes are telling you, would tell you you're wrong. Don't believe them. We are still the ones that are right. And ultimately the worst excesses, I think, of the university and the reason we have so many concerns about free speech at university became apparent. Victoria University circulating at the moment what is called the principles of respectful dialogue, or open dialogue or something like that.
It's what might become their free speech policy. And in it, it says that we should not platform invite, nor invite individuals or groups to speak on campus that have previously demonstrated or expected to express hate speech, as the currently law defines. And neither Michael and I could remotely be accused of that. But that was the vice chancellor considered using that as a means by which to disqualify me from participating. And as he said that he invited individuals to send him examples of what might be considered racist speech from me so that he could catch me out and expose me. Now, of course, I was never disqualified from the panel. I can only assume that means no one ever found anything that that would have allowed them to use that clause. But it was, it was really quite a debased exchange by the end. And the entire school of Mori Studies co signed a statement calling on Michael Johnson and I to be excluded. And this is then why the panel proceeded in such a asinine, contrived, artificial way.
[00:31:28] Speaker A: It's quite astounding, really, isn't it? The whole entire machinery of the university is just trying to stop a pretty basic kind of dialogue from happening. And it really does show you, on the one hand, obviously, that is an alarming thing to see happening, and it's extremely authoritarian. But as I've long said, authoritarianism is the last gasp of dying ideologies, because they know they don't have public support, so they've got to silence and they've had got to shut down anything that, you know, the ordinary unwashed masses might be convinced by as they're admitting. It sounds so reasonable. And so there's a positive sign, in a sense, that they know there is fundamental truth in this idea that human dialogue is good, it is important, and it should be allowed to take place.
[00:32:12] Speaker B: I think that's a wonderfully hope giving comment, and I think you're absolutely right that resorting to these means I fundamentally coercive, but it shows what a weak hand that they are trying to play with. And ultimately, I think you're right that this was an absolute own goal. If the vice chancellor sought to set out at the beginning of this process to illustrate why universities should be allowed to regulate free speech themselves and not have the government compel them to respect it, that is the last thing that he achieved. Quite the opposite.
The New Zealand public is largely convinced that universities are not well placed to do this themselves. We conducted polling and a majority of Kiwis accept that or support the idea that universities should lose funding if they do not respect free speech. And what we can see here is that the very place where complex frauds, even distasteful conversations, should absolutely be allowed to take place. That is the university. This is the very place the hardest of discussions should emerge. It is one of the least capable institutions, I think, at the moment, to navigate those difficult questions, two things to.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: Wrap this up with, and I'll just actually add to the back of what you just said there. The irony, of course, is that often we hear from academics claiming there's this problem of trust in the institutions and they tend to blame everyone else, but they don't look at their own institution.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: How that lack of trust. And those two, I think, have their lion's share to account for in that demise.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: So two questions just to wrap this up. One is in your mind, what would, if you'd had your way and, you know, in an ideal, sane world, what would have a panel like a discussion like this actually have unfolded? Like what would have happened rather than what did happen?
[00:34:00] Speaker B: Look, that's a fantastic question and I absolutely love exploring these conversations because I think free speech can be quite a counterintuitive idea. It is a very natural impulse, and I try and be kind to, to our opponents at times, because it is such a natural impulse to try, if someone is saying something that is hurtful or harmful or heretical, to say no, they shouldn't be allowed to say that. And so much of what people say can be hurtful or harmful or heretical and they shouldn't say that. But that doesn't mean we should use force to suppress it. We should use persuasion, invite people into dialogue. And I think there is a Christ like narrative around that to invite people into a different way. And there isn't compulsion, there isn't force, it is an invitation. And we need to then exercise that ourselves and that autonomy that we've been given. And I would say that dialogue would have looked at what the real experience is for many students there, because I can only imagine, I think, resorting to calling people snowflakes if a transgender person gets misgendered. I can only imagine that that really does strike to the heart of their identity, and that is incredibly confronting for them.
I think we're not doing ourselves any, any service by trying to undermine the impact that that could have in someone's life. Now, that doesn't justify, of course, compelling someone to use various pronouns or whatever that is, but we need to recognize that words have incredible power. I get so frustrated with advocates for free speech that go around saying, sticks and stones may bake my bones, but words will never hurt me. I'm not a free speech advocate because I think words are meaningless and powerless. I think I'm. I'm a free speech advocate because I think they hold eternal power, they enormous weights, and that we need to be very, very careful how we use them and certainly how we stop others from using them as well. And so I think exploring that narrative and looking at the impact that that free speech really can have, but even where it is having a negative impact, I would have loved to explore what the most viable strategy and path forward to countering that harm is. You know, we led the fight against hate speech laws, and we're successful in seeing the government abandon that initiative. And every single time we fronted for the media, I said, by no means do we suggest that hate speech doesn't exist, that hateful ideas aren't out there and that they don't cause harm in our communities. Of course they do. The far more interesting question than whether hate speech is there is how do we counter hate speech? And suppressing it and censoring it has a counter impact. It actually makes it worse. And I would say we can quite easily demonstrate that in the universities as well. For wherever there are truly bigoted ideas, they are better challenged than suppressed.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: That's a great point. And as you're speaking, I was thinking in many ways, it's not so much the free speech union, but the freedom from bureaucracy union, in a sense, really, that you're looking for here. Which brings me to my final question. I've got for you. It seems there's two ways that the free speech union could get shut down. One is an unjust, authoritarian hand of the law, just shuts you down in some way, or the other one is the good outcome, where all of a sudden there's a massive shift in the culture and you're no longer needed, in a sense, because there's been this shift and a dialogue has returned. Now, how do we, how does that, what does that look like at a grassroots level? I think you've already indicated early on with the case of the nurse, we can't self censor. What do you think is the key here? So that maybe the culture shifts to a point where it's like, well, we don't need to keep calling on the free speech union.
[00:37:40] Speaker B: And look, the free speech union has four work streams. We work across cases, campaigns, content, and coaching. Cases is our legal work. Campaigns is our political work content, our tours and our podcasts and that kind of thing. Then coaching is education. And across all four of those, what we are looking to do is create the cultural cornerstone, the belief not only that they, I guess they're allowed to do that because the law says it, but them being allowed to speak their minds, even if I disagree with what they're saying is good for our society. How can you change my mind if I can't speak my mind right? It invites dialogue. It invites a relationship. And so we absolutely, every day we want to win our court cases. We want to win our policy victories, of course, but we're not ignorant to the fact that those are only symptoms of a cultural reality. And that's what we're attempting to touch. And so, look, honestly, if I was to say what is needed, it is courage. Courage to be willing to speak out and take a stand humbly, hopefully, because I don't think courage necessarily means we ignorant to the fact that we could be wrong. Free speech is the ultimate humble position because it recognizes that someone else can challenge you and you might need to learn something new. But I would say that there can be no courage if there isn't hope. And I think a lot of, you know, it's a really, really interesting sociological question as I kind of look at what is happening in our societies, what has caused this, and how we counter it with our. And I know that on our board, for example, a number of very influential individuals who partner in our work are just baffled at what has happened to courage in our society. And I don't think you can have courage, which you require if people are going to challenge you and you need to speak up. You can't have that unless you actually believe that that's building into something better in the future and that there's a hope that through dialogue and through the exchange of ideas and through building of relationships, we actually can continue to move forward together and move closer together. And just very briefly, I think what illustrates this very clearly for me is at the end of last year, the free speech union brought Lord Jonathan Sumpton, a former Supreme Court justice from the United Kingdom out here. And I facilitated a public event with him and Sir Bill English. Sir Bill English was prime minister when I was working in the beehive in 2017. And what strikes me about Sir Bill is just, you could say, his unwavering optimism, and he is optimistic. But I think it's a deeper hope within him that there actually can be change made, improvements can be made. Tomorrow can be better. This was juxtaposed to Lord Jonathan Sumpton, who, an erudite man, he's called the brain of England, one of the most influential writers of our time on a number of issues, and yet very pessimistic that any of this is actually going to end up better. And I go, well, what's the point? Why on earth would I continue to advocate in my work? Why on earth would others refuse to self censor and speak up, even if they're pushing against the grain at the moment, unless we actually believe it can make a difference? And I would say, remember that we each can make a difference and that together, I believe the free speed union is leading one of the strongest responses culturally to one of the most important issues.
[00:40:57] Speaker A: Jonathan, that's a very positive and upbeat note to end on. I think you're right. It's hope is essential. It's a big part of the work that I do. And I think you've really hit the nail on a, well, you've hit the nail on the head, I guess, in a sense, a very important nail, actually, is what I was going to say there, too. So thank you so much for taking the time to have the conversation today. It's been a real pleasure.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: My pleasure indeed. Thanks a lot. Cheers.
[00:41:18] Speaker A: Alrighty, folks, I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. Don't forget, if you want to get a daily dose of the Dispatches podcast, that's Monday through Friday, every single day of the week, go to patreon.com leftfootmedia and become a dollar five monthly patron. The link is in today's show notes. Thanks for tuning in. Don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And I'll see you next time on the Dispatchers.
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