All right welcome everyone to the wee debate
here
this evening between Paul Spoonley & Mr Ikelei.
The
topic: Should hate speech be
legislated? Just a little bit about us
about the event we're Shalom Students
Association
we're an organization
basically representing an open forum for
democratic and fair and open discussion
for mostly issues related to Israel
Palestine and the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict but recently we've diversified
and we're taking on a range of
different matters of public interest in
Allrighty just thank you to Victoria for
hosting us thank you to my fellow
event organizers for all the work going to
see these events. Before I introduce my
speakers I thought I could two quotes
that I think represent the two sides at
the table that many of you will be
familiar with firstly the somewhat
ubiquitous Evelyn  Hall  quote that's
attributed to everyone from Barack Obama
to Churchill to Voltaire to Thomas
Jefferson I believe as well "I disapprove
of what you say but I will defend to the
death your right to say it". You probably
all heard that one come around
when election time comes about.
It's a very strong sentiment and it
probably represents a good deal of
what Mr Ikelei has to say to this evening
and what he (in the front) will be
supporting. In terms of Mr Spoonley quote
he'll be familiar with because I stole it
from one of his lectures once:
"if we extend ultimate tolerance even to
those who are intolerant if we are not
prepared to defend a tolerant society
against the onslaught of the intolerance
then the tolerant will be destroyed
along with the tolerance" That's Karl
Popper one of my favourite philosophers.
So a good deal to be said for both sides We
are looking forward to getting into a
really engaging and productive discussion
this evening. Just some quick
introductions
Professor Paul Spoonley is a
distinguished Professor at the College
of Humanities and Social Sciences at
Massey University he does research on
21st century citizenship specializing in
things like demography migration policy
racial and ethnic relations sociology a
massive research base. He's a Royal
Society fellow he's written or edited
written or edited over 25 books
he's a Fulbright senior scholar at the
University of California Berkeley in
2010 and he was a recipient of the Royal
Society of New Zealand Science and
Technology medal in 2009. And then we
have distinguished Mr Elliot lkelei
Deputy leader and board member in the Takanini
candidate for New Conservatives
New Zealand Mr Ekelei has been a passionate
defender of free speech "Our right to hear
discuss and express different thoughts and
ideas" He is [quote] "committed to stopping
the cycle of dependency that needs to
disappear in this country". He lives in
Papakura South Auckland with his
family. He's worked as a speaker
facilitator and youth advocate. Once with
the Ministry of Children, he was a
community liaison manager of the Pillar
Education Trust and and a tutor at BEST
Pacific Institution of Education so
wonderful C.Vs all around and some really
capable speakers that we are honored to
have with us today. Just a quick
introduction to our debate format I'm
gonna be doing five-minute segments
backward and forward starting with Mr
Spoonely, going through rebuttals and
secondary arguments then we'll have a
cross-examination period
in which arguments can interact with
each other and we can
switching to more of a casual
conversation format for about 5-10
minutes and then we'll have our closing
remarks Again that's five minute
installments I'll be gesturing to them
a moment we may have a minute 30 seconds
or so to go and then hopefully if we
have any time left so yeah fantastic.
All right without any further ado this
house believes that hate speech should be
legislated. Should hate speech be
legislated
we'll begin with Dr Spoonley. So
thank you Dr Spoonley and you have five
minutes to your opening arguments and
remarks.
Elliot has mentioned the Karl Popper quotes
I'll start that wasn't intended] I
was a student of Karl Poppers and some of
you might know that he escaped the
Holocaust in Europe to come to this country
and spent seven years here during the
seventies he wrote one of the most
important books of the twentieth century
The Open Society and It's Enemies. Karl was
always very clear that whatever you
needed to affirm in terms of
democratic principles there were some
limitations and then I want to talk
about what we might do in terms those
limitations today and I think we've got
a problem
and for me that problem the awareness of that
problem really only began a wee while
ago. I began my work on the far right of
the UK National Front way back in the 70's
and I've continued to do
work on it but when I begin a few years ago
to look at what was happening online
what I became aware of with by the
anti-defamation league since 2015-16
what they defined as being hate speech
had escalated very significantly
year-on-year so the largest annual
increase in anti-semitic hate speech was
2017 which was then immediately beaten
by in 2018 we are talking about
4.5 million tweets online in which Jews
are targeted the largest amount of hate
speech concerns conspiracy theories
around Jews 12% 0f that about Holocaust
denial about a third to do with Israel. So
what we've seen around the world is a
growing engagement with what's happening
online in terms of the declining safety
of groups and I want to set with the
theme of anti-semitism so I began to do
some work here you know I'm continuing
to do that work I'm working with groups
like Tell MAMA in the UK for me there
are three components of hate speech and
I'm coming down to my definition of it
one of them is the intent of the speeker
the second is the content of
the speech neither of those are
themselves sufficient to define
something as hate speech so there has to
be a severity threshold which needs to
be met and I think what increasingly I'm
leaning towards is something which then
encourages others to act in a way that
is detrimental to the targeted group I
actually believe that some of the
definitions you can find on Facebook
YouTube about attacks people on the
basis of the particular characteristic
is fine the UK has a motivated by
hostility towards and they've got some
protective characteristics but what we
have one of the world's best legal
philosophers and a guy called Jeremy
Waldron and Jeremy argues that section 61
of the New Zealand Human Rights Act
is actually a workable definition of
hate speech and the essential bit there
is the intent to excite (I don't think we
need an excite we need incite not excite)
Excite hostility or ill will
bring into contempt or ridicule a group
of persons. So to me we need to
have a debate we need to have a debate
about
the impact of hate speech on our communities
and if you've looked at the New Zealand
research particularly by Netsafe you
will see that there are some communities
in New Zealand that are experiencing
very high levels of hate speech. So you
can tell from my position what I
would like to do and I welcome the
discussion today is to actually debate what
it is we would define as being
hate speech and then the danger of that hate
speech in terms of communities and can I
end up with what we've seen in New
Zealand
on the 15th of March 2019 because that
is the end result of hate speech there is
excellent research around the world
which draws a direct line between a hate
speech online and actions and so when we
look at El Paso when we look at the
synagogue in Philadelphia when we look
at the mosques in Christchurch we are
talking about online radicalization
people who have been exposed to hate
speech and who then adopt the arguments
of that speech and then go out and they
killed people so there's been some a
very good work in Europe which is which
is made that connection and I just in
terms of finishing
I think the escalation of hate speech
the amount of hate speech online is
destabilizing our communities and having an
enormous impact on those targeted and it is
something we need to (a) understand and (b)
do something about. Thankyou.
 
Thank you Dr Spoonley. Mr Ilkelei has five minutes for your
Thank you so much for allowing us to be
here to speak on behalf of free speech. So
So, I am very honored to be here
I'm very honoured to be speaking here. I'm also very honored to be sitting
alongside Dr Spoonley. He is a very
distinguished professor and it's quite a
powerful thing to be alongside of him so I'm very much respectful and understanding
of that mana that's entwined in that area.
Now when I was first starting
to think about how I was gonna start my speech
and how I was gonna be talking, one of the
biggest things was I'm not an academic I lived and I've breathed the streets and I've worked
for the last 30 years in youth work
that's everything from suicide
ideations sexual abuse child prostitution
some of the most ruthless paths to self
harm and the fact that  they impact other people all the way up to building resilience
programs and teamwork and leadership
and articulation of young people themselves
So something which I live and work in the
field. I made the mistake of
telling one of my good friends that, I said
"well I'm not an academic..?" And she went
off her rocker..
she basically said first a version of "bullkaka"
"You are are an academic; you are an
academic of the streets. How many
academics have had people, young people,
coming into the homes at 12 o'clock
at midnight 1am so that you can speak to
them about pleading them not to kill themselves?
How many academics have
gone out into the streets and try to get
them off those streets go into the gang
houses try to walk around the streets
with them in terms of being able to discuss
to bring out the pain and trouble
so that they do not engage the suicidal
further or engage in suicidal ideation. When we do think about academics
how many academics have been in charter schools where I have been able to be right in
there with a heartfelt care and look after
those young people. To sit down with
parents to sit down with both victims
and offenders in various areas. And I did
did I when I didn't have to but she was about to it me over the back of the head?
than you. But I do I acknowledge that she
is correct. A lot of my knowledge,
information, my study, has come around the
reactions that we see coming on the
streets and if I backtrack it we see
that those are coming from policies
built by theoretical models by
academics that are progressed by law
through politicians. It's a lie and one
of those who does not come from one end I
come from the other end. I live with the
results of policies made policies
discussed and policies passed. Now I just
wanted to give some real-world examples
of something that I have spoken of both
of my professional and on social media
that have been labeled hate speech. One
of them is "Where is Dad?" One of the
biggest examples of growing hate speech
that I receive both of my professional
career as well as social media is "where
is Dad?" When I asked "where is Dad?"
most often or more often recently
becoming to "I don't need no man", "how
dare you ask the question" I am offended
usually comes with a few more
colourful quotes frontal discussion
on that but generally there is a desire
to feel in professional services to shut
down and to suppress the idea of asking
where is the father of this child who's
demonstrating a violent behavior sexual
behavior who started to stab others
stab himself steal bikes steal cars and
steal everything in between. "Where is the
father?" and this is something which is
extraordinary because this is one of
those halo effects.
Another one this is one that John Campbell brought up.
"Trans woman are men with a dysphoria/disorder to be treated with compassion and tolerance".
Well now I was of course blocked on twitter for a little while.
I received a warning about it being hate
speech. During that time by the way I
also had was as someone apparently that
someone attempted to dox me and that was of
course when
they tried to get my street address my
home address they failed miserably on that. They also went after my children
they also called out my practice from thirty years in the field.
When I've said the best place for a
young person to grow up is in a married Mum and Dad home. That gets assaulted
online social media all the time and in fact
in professional services we are
starting to see that that is also being seen as being  hateful being offensive
towards those
families who are not mum and dad married mum at home
We started seeing in professional practice not only on social media
and last thing that I want to use is
when I was at an Action Station event at least
I said that the reason why prisons have
more Maori and Pasifika is because we
commit the most crime. What you need
to be asking is why do we commit the crime
For that I was slandered I was attacked that
I was pretty much kicked out of that
little Action Station event arena and
when I bring that into professional
circumstances people do not want to deal
with it. So when you do think about the things that are legislated "hate speech"
( and I'm gonna use those a lot) what we see is a
damping down of ideas the ability to
speak out problems to seek and investigate what's going wrong and the elements of
society both have an individual and a
community level.
It is unacceptable to somehow legislate the very
investigative reportings and discussions
that we have
and I say this time and time again
that's why I'm on the other side not on this one.
Thank you Mr Ilkelei Mr Spoonley your
rebuttal plus 15 seconds
We're keeping a strict time here
Can I start where Elliot finished which is
the we shouldn't be stopping free speech
I absolutely agree with that. I do not
think that this society should operate
in any way in which people are shamed or
silenced but I also believe that hate
speech is part of the silence. So for me
the question is not of the quantum of
free speech because we're getting more
free speech it is where the boundary
lies and I would want to draw that boundary
out to the edge of our public debates
because we need to have these sorts of
discussions I would want them to be
respectful I would want them to be to
engage with what has been said and with
the evidence but there's one thing that
I think has been increasingly appearing
in which I would take slightly different
view to the one that Elliot's proposed
today and that is that I think that hate
speech has been one of those areas which
has been silencing groups in New
Zealand. Now interestingly enough New
Zealanders are in favor of hate speech
legislation. The research that's been
done by a Colmar Brunton first of all 30%
of all New Zealanders have experienced
hate speech online and 15% of them have
been personally targeted by hate speech
and one of the things I would want to do
if we were to move in the direction of
legislating against hate speech is that
I would want to talk to those first.
and if you want to know what hate speech
means to a New Zealander talk to Sticks
and Stones the year twelve and thirteen
students in Central Otago
and they tell you a story about what it
means for teenagers in New Zealand
so that's my first point I wanted to say well
that 68% of New Zealanders think that
hate speech online is growing and 74% of
them support legislation so there is a
recognition that there is an issue and
there is a willingness to think about
hate speech so I go back the threshold
for New Zealand has been tested
the Al Nisbet cartoons were taken to
the tribunal and the tribunal ruled
while those cartoons were offensive they
did not breach the legislation as it
currently exists and so the minister is
looking at that legislation.
Michel Bott is a a rights lawyer here
in Wellington has said that "the right to
human dignity and freedom from
discrimination shouldn't be subservient
to free speech" and that's the debate for
me that if we want to affirm free speech
what does that mean in terms of the
safety of members of our community. We're
here tonight talking with the Shalom
Students and we've just done a survey of
the Jewish community in New Zealand and
they are one of the communities that is
experiencing directly this
increase in hate speech online. So one of
the principles following what Elliot has
said in terms of actual experience one
of my principles would be that you talk
to people who are experiencing hate
speech in order to get their perspective and
create, construct a policy of law
that then prevents that hate speech
having outcomes on them. Never again and
I'm sure we all agree never again do we
want 51 people killed in this country
and unfortunately those were not the
first deaths from white supremacist
activities in the country. The Fourth
Reich had killed
three people previously, a gay man Korean
backpacker a Maori and so we need to acknowledge
this is not a minor issue for some
communities it really impacts upon their safety
and therefore it impacts upon our saftey.
So I would like to go out with a different
tack because I'm here and Paul's here. Paul
prefers his area I'm
always the person who deals with what
comes out and so I will actually take
on that note about the
users of hate speech. The problem that we
do see of hate speech
or young people who are
attacking other young people or bullying all of those
areas. It's something which I've worked in
quite a lot in the schools as
well as the alternative institutions
that I've lived in and it's quite
interesting actually but we have learned
how to use hateful type of speaking
bullying type of speaking that is a
occurring in that online [ ] we are able
to actually pull that out of people
bring in both  (and the other person) bring
them in and have a discussion and time and time and time again because we be able
to see the type of speech that certain
type of bullying we're able to bring it
out discuss it with the young people
help them build resilience from it
anything actually come to a resolution
between themselves and that's one of
the most powerful things by even saying
that we shouldn't be trying to dampen or
suppress free speech we should be trying
to instead work it so we build our
young people with resilience train them and
equip them how to handle the disgusting
and yuck stuff that will come out of
life. By sheltering with a bubble it will
do nothing sorry
it'll do with the nothing there were
resilience and it will increase suicide
rates. I can tell you we have seen
a lot of that. Violence has been increasing
increasing and what we've seen is that
every signal time someone gets bullied if
we do
not step in and then look at these
angles and the discussion the
communication going on if we don't do
that then we lose it and we do that we
make them stronger we make the resolve
and who knows in many of those instances some
of
those young people who I worked with have
gone on to lead sustainably more healthy
life
that's the offender that's the person
doing the bullying. So I would say that
there's something quite important in that
I  also want to bring up also the UN. And describe how the   UN  when it first startled in 1948
they did  could come up with the
idea of free speech free should be upheld
whatever they believe to be right and good
and wholesome everything and then they
could allow  for that discourse of ideas. Yet
it was interesting that very recently
they may come down and down I started
to shunt it down as academic and  democratic
power changes and shifts with them
they're doing they seem to be changing
their own ideas about free speech and in
terms of suppressing it but for myself the
coward
the Australian coward who murdered something
like 51 people
should never have been given a license at
all
so we do you think about the ideas
about free speech and how it was
actually hate speech or whatever it was
that somehow lead to the murder of all
those innocent people it doesn't happen
to be that actually it's to do with the
miserable failure of the agencies a
system that was designed to stop or prevent
people who have the most crazy, ideological
or most horrific ideas from
gaining a gun license so first and fore most
we need to understand that they
will think in the first horrible the
abuse of horrible say people are they on
top of that we don't even know we will
not allow to know because of the manifesto
being blocked for the period we are not
able to read it and look at the stupid
ideas and
and refute and then mock and deconstruct
those ideas. The ideas of the manifesto
are incredibly easy to
deconstruct and rip to pieces
they really are. I've read it several
times before it was banned  it's a
pointless document it really is. But it
does give a sense of nihilism and false
values in areas and if we
were able to come in there and
discuss and engage and free speak to that
person radicalism would lower in him
by legislating against hate speech we make it so that hate
speech will be buried under ground under stones
so we didn't have the to three minute
recess so feel free to just talk amongst
ourselves
and it will continue with a
cross-examination period where our two
gentlemen will get to interact and
investigate their opinions
wonderful well I don't know about you guys but I've been very very impressed. So the next ten minutes
we're going to be doing more of a casual
interactive conversation so any kind of
secondary rebuttals that are wanted
to take place. We can just we
can have more of an interactive period. I'll
be adjudicating
all right
so we can continue on with the Dr Spoonley
if he has any queries regarding
Mr Ikelei's questions.
Are there any circumstances in which you could think of which
somebody would be banned.
I was thinking pedophilia?
Actually that's an interesting one yeah
So,... I think that it's disgraceful
however I'm glad that it is out it would give me the chance to
engage with it and say that it is screwball and say exactly why it is screwball
That might not stop pedophilia taking place
in the first place
In what way?
Well, I've been around the extreme-right for
a long time
and knowing the people but not knowing this Christchurch shooter
They're not amenable to debate
so, I would fundamentally disagree with your view
that somehow by bringing it into the light
that would  stop having it
I do recall the incident of a young man who was (where was it?) in terms of able to deal
with it
in terms of the metric of thought and he was
actually very much of the far-right
and so he was very much of the far-right and
I remember listening to his story
and in that story he made friends with some
of the people
and regarded as being Maori and because of some of the
things that went on
that because of the -- that discourse over
time
he realised that the philosophy that they
were following was foolish
so because of the actual engagement with
him saying "ah yeah.... to know them well
he was able to actually to come....
come down into their environment
Interesting though I actually find that the
far-left are a lot more dangerous and closed to debate.
but from my perspective coming from the streets
gives me many aspects of life.
and that does also include
determine what you can and cannot say
I find that to be really bad
Individual dick-head "easy as"  to (sort of) engage with
but a state dick-head there
it's a lot different and  there's a lot more power
there's been an exponential rise
however if you look at the FBI documents
if you look at the European Commission
if you look at the German government dept
set up to look at it
then most of the contemporary terrorism
remembering that terrorism in countries like
the US comes from domestic terrorism
that's not connected to 9/11
that most of the terrorist acts came from
the right not the left
I will pick up on that I think that in terms of far left and far right
there are big problems that's why
groups like Black Lives Matter are far-left
even some of the very far right hate groups
Yeah I think there are extremists on both sides for sure
are quite dangerous dangerous but by action
if you start trying to shut down their ideas and opinions and their thoughts
even if they are reprehensible thoughts  like the pedophilia  like the racism
then if you shut those down
.then what we are saying is
..
I would also go so far as to say that right now that
what is beat up as Islamophobia
hey
blowing up
in the street
I think we do need to
Knife attack on London Bridge
I think we do need to go and open up all those
and
hate speech
Ah, Thank you. If we just switch focus
We just want to fire a question to Mr Ikelei about his remarks earlier
Well I mean terrorism is terrorism
and I
I would want us to talk about it. Left or right
anti-Semitic Islamic
terrorism. Whatever that terrorism is.
What concerns me really is the culture
online which creates these views
ideologies and then what in emerges in
terms of our ..I think we both agree we
want to keep safe and so in terms of
New Zealand at this point and 2020
I have to say,  it's the right that is most
challenging in terms of
our public safety
when I've got a young person and they are in the streets on the South side and they
are actually doing that what I need to do is to start to is to strengthen and make them resilient
for the attacks both physical and also for  peer pressure and for drugs
on line stuff engage with them and actually teach them self help
so I find that in the real_, in the field,  I have to show it to them
engage with them so that they have the .. of going
more positive by going down in the
pain and struggle  of it
and assisting them to come up so that if it occurred
more and more that doesn't matter they are
resilient they are strong and they can
resist all that the discussion because they will occur
because again every single
person here increases in pain we going to
go through death of our parents  we're going to
we're going to find a lot of pain
in our  lives we've  got to be able to
make ourselves resilient as opposed to
shelter us from what is going to come in our world.
I agree  entirely with that except that
are there not groups who are not going to be sufficiently resilient because
they're going to be subject of attacks?
but all people can either be subject to
particularly measures with that kind of thing
I suppose I've met a lot of people that ..aspects that would require a certain ... for that individual
what you don't want to do is to make a blanket statement banning everyone
all the time
think I think we're having a debate
about hate speech in fact I think the
what's happening very rapidly is that
the what happening online is no longer
going to be controlled by us. So if you
look at Facebook and what it just  did I
mean 4.5 million posts
concerning the Christchurch Shooting
Facebook's taken them down so Facebook
what Twitter as you mentioned before
they're going to be the ones that
exercised control over what's allowed
online and so we've got I think two
problem when
this is international so that whatever a
country like New Zealand does is
probably a limit to its effect but the
second is it's going to be the
platform's themselves which determine
speech online not countries it's not you
and I? Perhaps I think there is...
 
I think in terms of the taxation and publishing on platforms
Yeah, you know I think
that you do need to engage though I love
the idea because of make sure they all .. I've heard it before on Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter is not..about black lives they're actually activists
They don't really care about black lives
but we have ... knowledgeable
website and internet .. of it
the online social media that they engage in
and also the actual response of what
they well I wouldn't characterize those
men on that way I mean it's the
difference between the two of us I think
Well, I wouldn't characterize BLM in that way. That's a difference between the two of us.
I think it's much it's much more complex than that as are most of the issues that we and do talk about tonight
reducing it to a single thing so for
example while I've argued that this
legislation  is something we should consider in New Zealand or expansion of our current legislation,
for me any legislation is
actually the last step and that what we
failed to do is teach our young people
digital literacy so what they see online
the misinformation the echo chambers are
the hate is something that they can put
into context so the problem for me is
self-radicalization which is what happened
in Christchurch which is what happened in
El Paso or what happened in Philadelphia
and so there is that element
which is how do you reach out in terms
of those people who are in their own
little enclaves who are talking to
others they're not listening to you and
I
and they're probably not this thing to a
lot of people that are you know that are
able to contribute to these debates and
so I think that's the issue for me but
what we then need to do is talk about
community education resilience I agree
with entirely and digital literacy and
we need to talk but we're not that's not
in our communities at the moment so we
have an issue
Ok, we'll take a minute and a half break and we'll be ready for our final remarks
Fabulous, alrighty,  so I we've had ..
agreed that said their piece for a further discussion period
so were just gonna have a further 90 seconds for closing remarks from both
Beginning with Mr Ikelei I believe.
The best culture in the world is Western culture
it is the one culture where freedom of speech is the cornerstone of that culture
it is the one that has been able to correct itself, that has risen up from...
....ity being able to take away all those things (or not take way but) has been able to
engage in higher wages, labor productivity
quality of life lifespan for all races.
Inequity and .... are there , but
now it's quite .... to me now I'm
also going to say this carefully because I really like Paul
so I'm saying this is a
general umbrella of what's ....
but it's quite interesting to me that in
Western culture I know they're
politicians and academics you can be the
most disconnected from real world living
out of all types of people yet they can
change and they control the very lives
of our people through the progression of
theory to laws, something which was
always quite interesting to me so, alongside that  what I
found was it was a potent free speech or
"hate speech" but it was opposed free speech that lead to woman getting the vote it was
opposed free speech that lead to
the civil rights movement
it was opposed free speech that lead to the
abolition of slavery itself and so it's
a really important thing that we allow
these type of free speech to come out
we've got to be able to call out things in
our society as we see fit no matter how controversial they may seem.
Pedophilia  or something that was brought up. I accept
I want it brought out yeah because
I want to go against to debate it and smash it with my head.
Metaphorically straight to the teeth
I want to destroy it. And so one of the biggest things that I do  note that  "hate speech"
laws and you know this is the  suppression of free speech are coming by policy and law/core
from politicians as they seek to apply
their theory to New Zealand's law. God bless you...
In a few weeks my latest book will be appearing
just looking at the demography of New Zealand in the contemporary world
and there a couple of things in there that I  stress and I want to stress here tonight
one of them is we're becoming much more international despite what happened in the pandemic
and the other is that we are becoming a much more diverse society
so in societies like New Zealand
there are some aspects of this country which have changed considerably in the last twenty to thirty
years we reached a million
people in March this year and we added
that additional ..
we added that additional million people
by migration and so some of you here
tonight will not be in favor of the
levels of migration and you might not be
in favor of migration at all but
migration has made this country and it's
made a country in the previous century
which is incredibly diverse and so we
need systems that allow that diversity
to be represented and all it's manifestations and one of the things
that concerns me is that the moral right
to express views and sometimes unpopular
views is not a moral right to silence
others and in that mix that very
difficult mix are there hurt are their
hurts .. are there
things that are being done to people in
our society either that we are aware of or not
aware of because of what the online
provides us in terms of new ways of
interacting with the world of
understanding that world and so my
closing pitch is to say since 2015-16
apart from the demographic diversity
that I talking about we have seen this
proliferation of what's happened online
and it's positive aspects of which there
are many and it's negative aspects and so
what concerns me most as somebody who has spent 40 years looking at anti-Semitism is
that I am  experiencing  the level of
anti-Semitism and hatred which is
unheralded in my lifetime and some of
them some of them deserves the
descriptions of being called hate speech and on behalf of the Jewish communities in
New Zealand and  elsewhere we should be standing up and saying no that is not acceptable
legislation might be part of that I think I think there are other things we should be doing
but on behalf of the Jewish in New Zealand
I want to be very clear that they should not be facing the level of hatred that they are at the moment.
It happened before the internet.  Anti-Semitism?
Then you haven't been listening to what I said
I have been listening to what you said. You haven't brought it up?
Nor have you brought up [that] ideas that are truthful that
people aren't allowed to basically secure society
I said if you look at the Anti-Defamation League research
I said on this it is very very clear
Totally avoided the issue
Alright OK. this is obviously the start of the Q & A
Can we please have one round of applause for Dr Spoonley
I think it's alright on another note in respect  of my being here on behalf of Shalom Students Association
Association I think you know it's great
it's great to see such incredible cognitive
political diversity in this room and I
think what we can all agree on is how
wonderful it is to be here tonight
and to be living in a place, to be in an environment where  we can come together
all different all different back grounds all different backgrounds
to discuss and debate these things in an open forum
and that's something you all stand for as well. So thank you all for....
Who wants..Hands?
Can I just ask Dr Spoonley
It seems like an awful legislation
..every time the state legislate, legislated
there's nothing to stop the extreme behaviour you were talking about
but all it does is part of that far-left... behaviour
like ....
........
what you are proposing is exactly the same
You want to
but what is likely to happen
is what happened in the UK under theirs
if you stand in a public place reading the Bible aloud you are convicted
that's really what you where going to do with that
I didn't hear a question there what is it ...
Please don't attribute that motive to me
I'm going to ask you tonight that if you here me saying
that legislation.If we've got the legislation it would probably fail
you seem to think?
No, no, I'm prepared to argue that
That's part of the mix
So I wouldn't make this the first step
I would want to talk about a whole range of things
and secondly I would never take
the 2005 Religious and Racial  Hate crimes Act
of the UK as an example of anything.
 
and I would not use that, I would go to the Canadians
The Canadians have a much better model than that
The Brits have made an arse of what they're doing
so you and I probably
don't disagree on that.
but I think, look at legislation around the world
I wouldn't go so far as the Germans have done which is much more extreme than anything else
and it wouldn't be acceptable in New Zealand. But I would go to the Canadians.
Another question preferably to Mr Ikelei
I'm pretty sure that you referred to Black Lives Matter as a hate group
I would like to ask how it is that you can say
that you support freedom speech freedom of speech- all speech - but at the same time you are
putting down that movement's right to speak freely
on the sad experience
No you called it a hate speech
So by calling it a hate movement I would say you are putting down the legitimacy of that movement
I would say that you are putting down the legitimacy
of that movement and you are restricting their freedom of speech
to actually express their views  and express inequality of experience of how you experience
How can you be willing to
say that any freedom of speech should be
and at the same time call it a hate movement, call Black Lives Matter a hate movement?
No I agree with you and yeah, yeah
 
The reason being is the objective evidence that's that's just come out so
for example, you do have things .......
you do have the fact that they actually are
they've actually gone out and assaulted many
Not only that, you've also got that they
they're just waiting for conformation now  but two  BLM  have been arrested for murdering some of the black people
who died defending whites. Along side of that, you've also got the fact that they have quite consistently
sorry, the other side of that as well, you find that they do not look after them
they don't .. violence
even though the number one death for young black men in America is murder by other young black men
Not only have they shown they are not about black lives they have shown that they
have actually hurt black lives by their
you've also got physical assaults by the black lives
not only that you've got ..police they have been filmed all over Twitter
They are, they are a hate group, because they ..objective activities
Can we have a question for Mr Spoonley please? And just phrase it as a question please.
Well, OK. Professor Spoonley talked about the Christchurch Shooting
and um,
and that set off a whole lot of issues by the Government - draconian censorship
fast tracking ... gun laws at the same time normalising police patrol
armed police go into the homes of law abiding citizens
gun legislation and all of this creates a fear of dissent.
And I'm just wondering whether  if the strong hate speech legislation
The UK perception is that the police spend an inordinate amount of time chasing up insults on Twitter?
and so are we looking at if a  comparing Jacinda Ardern to Pol Pot
in saying that ... is that going to be an ...?
and I think there's a genuine fear of dissent now because of the train of initiatives by the Government.
Um. well of course, our legislations aren't ...what one member of parliament ...
 
No,no you talked about gun legislation.
the gun legislation was passed by the support of  every member of parliament
It wasn't that, it was the way it was planned
it was brought in straight after the shooting
so I guess
at the same time as normalising these controls
Firstly, has dissent been attacked in New Zealand?
I'm aware that the police certainly took a lot more notice of people who had been
active on media and  been involved in gun debates and so on
and I think that was part of an immediate reaction to what had happened
The second, I guess, would be back at you to ask it as a rhetorical question
is that, given what  happened in Christchurch, in March 2019
Shouldn't we have acted in various ways to reduce the possibility of that occurring again?
and so I think there was and has been wide support
for what the government has done by and large and you might not agree with me
because you see it in a particular way
But if you look at all the evidence then there is strong support for what the government did
around guns and around some of the police actions.
thank you
earlier on the professor talked about
the Sticks and Stones in  Central Otago
I can remember when I was a child and
that was just a few years ago, my mother said to me "sticks and stones may break
my bones but names will never hurt you"
and she also said "do unto others as you they do unto you" and "love your neighbor".
These sort of general ideas I guess, but, is education  better than legislation
That's the question I want to put to Mr Ikelei?
Absolutely, every part of life, every challenge in life comes with a learning and a resilience moment
so there is a lot at that stage  of psychological and neurological activity  especially in those first 16 years
legislation is incredibly suppressive that's why....  we need to fundamentally not have legislation at all
education, sure, education or resilience
training building families sticking together so the have that natural sort of innate sort of resistance stepping out
everything designed,that is, nature designed to make someone stronger able
to handle the traumas of life is a great thing.
legislation takes away that
ability
Alright, we're leaving it there ladies and gentlemen
if you have some personal questions. Go easy on them, they've both spoken
absolutely beautifully and thank you all
for coming and thank you all for
personal views and participating in this
public debate things that we value
so highly, thank you all once again
