Human Rights Review Tribunal serious about privacy damages
Friday, January 24th, 2025Damages for breaches of the Privacy Act used to be laughable. The very top award was $40,000 to someone whose treatment in an addiction facility was revealed to the media. Not only was it taking an age for the Human Rights Review Tribunal to resolve cases, the awards made it hardly worth the candle. That […]
Not so qualified?
Wednesday, January 22nd, 2025The defence of common law qualified privilege applies (to cut short a lot of legal jargon) when someone tells someone something in good faith, believing they need to know it. Think: telling the police that the neighbour is running methlab or dobbing in a colleague to the boss for stealing. If you honestly believe it’s […]
Supreme Court weighs in on name suppression
Thursday, May 16th, 2024Name suppression decisions can be tough sometimes. No matter your views on free speech, you have to be hard-hearted not to be torn by the tug of the competing arguments. I think you can feel the Supreme Court wrestling with that in M v The King. The case for suppression The appellant’s offending happened when […]
Media Council seeking new members
Thursday, November 11th, 2021I’ve been asked to post the following ad. If you are pillar of the community type, and interested in both free speech and media accountability, this could be for you. NEW ZEALAND MEDIA COUNCIL Public Member Appointment Do you have a passion for News and Current Affairs? Do you have an interest in Media Standards? […]
Climate action
Wednesday, July 7th, 2021This isn’t about media law. It is much more important. Lawyers for Climate Action NZ is seeking judicial review of the Climate Change Commission’s recommendations. It argues that the recommended cuts are not enough to contribute to keeping warming to 1.5 degrees as we’ve pledged to do in the Paris Accord. It also alleges that […]
Hate speech: a question
Monday, July 5th, 2021A question occurs to me that seems worth throwing into the debate. An ambiguity I think there’s an ambiguity in the proposed law. We don’t know the exact wording of the offence. It seems the government doesn’t have one. It’s not in the Cabinet paper or the discussion paper anyway. That makes it hard to […]
The case for hate speech laws
Monday, July 5th, 2021Graeme Edgeler has a terrific post making the case for hate speech laws. He is at best ambivalent about hate speech laws, and says he will also be putting up a post making the case against them. This is where the debate should be. It’s dispiriting how far away from this the debate is.
NZME admits it misled listeners by buying into Trump’s ridiculous election fraud claims – but BSA somehow finds broadcasting standards not breached
Thursday, July 1st, 2021Something is going wrong here. On NewsTalk ZB’s overnight talkback show, host Bruce Russell endorsed Trump’s claim that there was electoral fraud in Georgia, playing clips from people who said things like “there was fraud in Georgia’s election, we can prove it with data”. Russell concluded: “I think it speaks for itself, receiving 75 percent […]
Hating on hate speech laws
Tuesday, June 29th, 2021What is it with the media and hate speech laws? They loathe them. And in their anxiousness to ridicule and discredit them, and excite contempt against them, they seem happy to distort the debate. Do hate speech laws need hate speech protection? Newshub’s recent coverage Look at Newshub’s coverage in the past 24 hours. They […]
When free speech creates disorder or hate
Monday, June 28th, 2021“De-platforming”. It’s the free-speech zealot’s issue-du-jour. I’m looking at you, Damien Grant. It seems so exactly what cancel culture is. Don’t like the speech? Ban it. Except it’s not really a ban, is it? There is nothing to stop those poor begagged individuals from putting out press releases and YouTube videos, railing on social media, […]
« Previous Entries Next Entries »