After Christopher Luxon stifled Simon O’Connor’s personal view, I searched for National’s stance on freedom of speech. All I can find is Simon Bridges (as Opposition Spokesperson for Justice) in June 2021:
The National Party encourages open debate and discussion as this leads to people being better informed and able to form their own opinions. Democracy relies on the ability of people to speak freely and in turn others are, of course, free to disagree.
Protecting free speech does not mean that there isn’t speech that I find abhorrent. We are all offended by a variety of things. […]
This government, unable to deliver on much else, appears to want to regulate New Zealanders in every facet of our lives. Not content with just telling us what car we are allowed to drive, they want to restrict and regulate the words that come out of our mouths.
This is Orwellian and the National Party will oppose such a complete encroachment on our rights.
national.org.nz
That’s it.
In his interview with Guyon Espiner, ex brand-manager Luxon said, “My faith is actually about tolerance, not discriminating, not rejecting people.”
Doesn’t seem that that ‘tolerance’ extends very far…
Sound familiar?
Read more here. Discuss it on The BFD.