Commissioner calls on politicians to avoid hateful speech

The Race Relations Commissioner is calling on politicians to use their words responsibly and avoid hateful speech.

Melissa Derby yesterday launched the fourth Statement on Religious Diversity, setting out religious freedoms and the government's responsibilities to safeguard them.

This was partly a response to Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki's comments calling for Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims to be "purged".

"I was absolutely appalled by those comments as were a number of New Zealanders," she said. "It pleases me that the police are looking into those comments ... I think that irrespective of where the law sits that's not something that we should accept in New Zealand."

She said where that sat on the balance between freedom of speech and inciting hatred was for police to look into.

Tamaki and his wife Hannah are behind the Vision NZ political party, which joined other fringe political movements to form the Freedoms NZ party ahead of the last election, garnering just over 9500 votes or 0.33 percent at the last election.

Derby said she worried this year's election could provide a platform for hateful messages.

"I think we've seen a lot of it already," she said. "I'm not naive about political rhetoric. I know that politicians have a role, and they perhaps get more attention if their speech is more edgy or whatever word they want to use.

"But look, my job is to remind leaders in this country - politicians included - that at the end of this rhetoric are very real people who daily feel the impacts of some of that hateful speech."

She said it was also important to remind people that religious and faith groups also made many positive contributions to New Zealand, including charitable work, providing a sense of community, reducing isolation, and providing refuge during natural disasters.

"I think that's a story we need to tell more often. Faith matters to a lot of New Zealanders."

Tamaki has said his comments fell within the thresholds outlined in the Human Rights Act.

In late 2020, the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attack on Christchurch mosques found the Human Rights Act did not list religion as a protected characteristic.

The previous Labour government in response looked to add a new offence to the Crimes Act to close that gap.

National campaigned against the change, saying it threatened to "muzzle" speech critical to a free and vibrant democracy. The party on Saturday confirmed it still did not support legislating against hate speech.

In his foreword to the Statement on Religious Diversity, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the statement "reaffirms the right of all religious and faith communities to practise their beliefs and traditions free from discrimination and harassment".

"We reject racism, xenophobia and hatred in all its forms, and will stand up for the freedom of all New Zealanders to practise their beliefs within the law," he wrote.

Derby said she and the Human Rights Commission supported changes to reflect the inquiry's findings "while also acknowledging that the threshold needs to remain high to balance those rights, both the right to safety, obviously, and also the right to freedom of expression".

"That needs serious legal analysis in terms of any unintended consequences," she said, "putting that aside, we need to make the distinction really clearly that it's not about going back to the days of blasphemy laws.

"People should have the right to criticise a religion or an idea ... which is quite different to calling for incitement against people who subscribe to a particular religion, and it's the latter that is never okay."