Latest news with #VictimoftheDay
Newsroom
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Newsroom
Anne Salmond: New Zealanders deserve better
Comment: The past few weeks have been extraordinary. It's not every day that you're targeted in an online 'Victim of the Day' trolling campaign authorised by an Acting Prime Minister, and delivered via the Parliamentary Service from the Beehive, for writing a Newsroom article about the Regulatory Standards Bill. Or that the same Acting Prime Minister attacks you on Breakfast TV, accusing you of misinformation and having described a New Zealand government as Nazis. It's been surreal – reminiscent of George Orwell's imaginary Oceania in 1984, with Big Brother and his 'thought police' (think tanks?) with their 'doublethink' slogans – 'Truth is Falsehood,' 'Inequality is freedom'. Or since I'm a woman, maybe Margaret Attwood's Gilead in The Handmaid's Tale, with its tales of female oppression and its hidden motto of resistance, carved on the closet floor -'Nolite te bastardes carborundorum'- 'Don't let the bastards grind you down.' That's what my brothers and my sister said when I phoned during a family gathering recently. And those 25,000 citizens who signed an Action Station petition protesting against the 'Victim of the Day' campaign, asking the Prime Minister to call the Acting Prime Minister to account, said much the same thing. Rather than a barrage of hate mail, there's been a stream of messages of support and encouragement, and strangers coming up and asking 'Are you all right?' The radical disjuncture between the tactics adopted by some politicians and the expectations that New Zealanders have of their leaders is dismaying, but at the same time, a sign of hope. It seems that those who use the tactics of verbal bullying and intimidation to try and silence critics, or to divide and rule are misjudging their audience, or most of them. This is not Orwell's Oceania or Attwood's Gilead – not yet, at least; and these tactics are more likely to backfire and damage their own credibility. Across the board, many Kiwis are disenchanted with the political class in New Zealand and their top-down ways, the radical zig-zagging from 'left' to 'right,' the rush to cancel the projects of the last administration, and the self-serving lobbying and elite capture. In their tit-for-tat exchanges, too many politicians are forgetting the 'middle ground' inhabited by most New Zealanders, who want governance that is honest, respectful and competent, and relatively consistent through time. In the past, responsible leaders have worked to build cross-party consensus on key matters including climate change, Te Tiriti and the need for a healthy environment. Divisive tactics including climate denial, 'Iwi vs. Kiwi' politics and a disdain for 'Freddy the Frog' work against the national interest, making it harder for New Zealanders to agree on long-term strategies that give us a chance of a prosperous, peaceful future. Measures like changes to the Pay Equity Act put the boot into people who are already struggling. From the 'politics of kindness' we've switched to an empathy bypass, making radical inequality even worse in New Zealand. At present, many Kiwis feel that the occupants of the Beehive need reining in. The executive has seized too much power, both within government and beyond it. At the same time, fringe parties are allowed to run riot, imposing unpopular measures on the electorate without their consent. Some politicians seem to regard themselves as a higher form of life, looking down on the populace, berating us and telling us what to do, rather than listening. As a result, many voters feel disenchanted and resentful. My recent experience may be a case in point, when minor politicians assume power beyond their capacity to wield it wisely. With public displays of bullying and abusive behaviour, they authorise others to do the same. New Zealanders deserve better. Law-making has become shoddy, rushed and peremptory, often serving the interests of particular elites rather than the public interest. Serious constitutional reform is needed. At present, the constant use of urgency, the degradation of select committees, the overreach by minor parties and the debates over the Regulatory Standards Bill and the attempted treaty principles bill make this urgent, and imperative. According to the Cabinet Manual 'there is no statutory provision that constitutes the office of Prime Minister or defines its role.' That needs to change. The current mantra that a coalition agreement overrides the clearly expressed will of the people, in the case of the Regulatory Standards Bill, for instance, is deeply undemocratic. A Prime Minister should be required to uphold democratic conventions in New Zealand, and their constitutional duties defined more precisely, so it's clear what's expected. Otherwise, as they say, 'Rot starts from the head of the fish' – which in te ao Māori, is in Wellington.
Newsroom
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Newsroom
Anne Salmond: Freedom, for whom?
The debate over the Regulatory Standards Bill has been illuminating. New Zealanders have learned a great deal about how our society is being run at present, by whom and for whom. In this bill, a small libertarian minority is attempting to use the law of the land, past and present, to uphold the priority of private rights and property over all other values, including care for the environment, the just treatment of minority groups and the public good. A recent Post article by Andrea Vance casts light on how the Regulatory Standards Bill was conceived and drafted, and by whom. The New Zealand Initiative, a right wing think tank, with its predecessor the Business Round Table, has been trying to get such a bill passed for the past 25 years. After the last election, while the coalition Government was being formed, the Act party with just 8.6 percent of the vote negotiated the inclusion of the draft Regulatory Standards Bill in the coalition agreement, with the Treaty Principles Bill and many other measures. The Government was formed in late November 2024, with the leader of Act appointed Minister for Regulation with a new ministry, and as Deputy Prime Minister for the second half of the parliamentary term. The draft Regulatory Standards Bill was sent out for public consultation. The period for feedback was brief and included the Christmas holidays, a timing that aroused resentment. According to the Post article, during this time the New Zealand Initiative was deeply engaged in backroom discussions with the government. A primary architect of the Bill, a senior fellow of the New Zealand Initiative, was constantly in touch with the Act leader as Minister for Regulation and the CE of the new Ministry throughout, consulting on the bill. The impression one gains from the written correspondence, now in the public arena, is of a lack of wider discussion within the ministry, with critics of the draft legislation (including myself, with almost every other commentator) being dismissed in the most patronising and jaundiced terms – the opposite of a democratic exchange of ideas. In the event, and despite the unhelpful timing, 23,000 New Zealanders submitted on the draft Regulatory Standards Bill, with only .33% in favour. Nevertheless, in May 2025 the bill was brought to Parliament for its first reading, which was held under urgency, and sent to a select committee. During the consultation period, which ended in late June, a reported 150,000 New Zealanders sent in their submissions on the bill, the vast majority opposed to its measures, with 16,000 citizens asking to be heard by the select committee. Meanwhile, as Minister for Regulation, Deputy Prime Minister and Acting Prime Minister, the leader of the Act party authorised an online 'Victim of the Day' campaign, designed and delivered by staff using the logo of the Parliamentary Service on their social posts. This featured the portraits of a series of academics (including myself) and others, describing them as 'Victim of the Day' and 'deranged' for criticising the bill, and decorated with the parliamentary insignia. This effort to silence critics by online trolling, not just by the Act party but from Parliament and the highest office in the land, provoked a petition that has attracted over 24,000 signatures to date. This petition calls on the Prime Minister to uphold the requirement in the Cabinet Manual that ministers 'behave in a way that upholds, and is seen to uphold, the highest ethical and behavioural standards.' In early July, the select committee on the Regulatory Standards Bill began hearing submissions, over just 30 hours in total with no MPs in the room. Of 16,000 individual citizens who had asked to submit in person, only 208 were allowed to speak, and then for 5 minutes each. This was a further breach of the rights of citizens to have their views about legislation before parliament heard and weighed in the balance. Throughout the deliberations on this bill, in the name of individual freedom, the rights of individual New Zealanders to speak their minds and think differently from a small libertarian minority have been thwarted. This applies across the political spectrum, including many who might be described as 'conservative' in their values. New Zealanders who uphold ideas about civic responsibility as well as individual rights and property, including care for the environment, the just treatment of minority groups, Te Tiriti and legislative measures in the public interest, for instance, are dismissed as 'misinformed,' or even incapable of rational thought. If most Kiwis realised that when the bill talks about freedom for 'persons,' it's talking about freedom for corporations (which in law, are defined as legal 'persons'), not just citizens, they'd see why its backers are so keen to annihilate its critics. Individual freedom and rights sound appealing, until you understand the bill is also seeking freedom for corporations as legal 'persons' to make profits with minimal restraints. In the event, the submitters who spoke in front of the select committee were overwhelmingly opposed to the draft bill. Incisive, authoritative analyses of its flaws and negative consequences if enacted were offered from many different vantage points. In a healthy democracy, one would expect that given this kind of feedback, a select committee would recommend to reject the bill, or at least significantly revise it. A few days ago, however, an article in The Herald by Thomas Coughlan revealed that the leader of the Act party has threatened to break the coalition unless the Regulatory Standards Bill is passed as drafted. This would be another breach of the right of citizens to be heard by those in power, and for their views to be taken into account when legislation is enacted. While the Deputy Prime Minister and other advocates continue to argue this bill is simply a technical measure, aimed at smoothing the legislative process, this is clearly not the case. No political party in a coalition would threaten to bring down the Government over a trivial matter of that kind. On closer analysis, passionate rhetoric about individual rights and freedoms by Act and its supporters emerges as 'double speak,' talk that disguises an opposite intention – in this case, to force others to adopt libertarian values about the primacy of private property and the rights of corporations as legal persons, using the law to do it. This includes imposing libertarian versions of 'freedom of speech' on universities, alongside efforts to control the media in New Zealand, including the internet. Rather than the pursuit of freedom of speech, this is a fundamentally authoritarian project, underpinned by a sense of intellectual superiority. Anyone who thinks differently from the Act party, its think tanks and its backers is misguided or a fool, and must be made to pull the forelock and bow the knee, by law. 'Closed' rather than 'open' minds, backed by the exercise of political power. Faced with this kind of imposition, most New Zealanders would tell its proponents to get lost. Democratic values, a care for others and the land are still strong in this country, if not in some political parties. Distilled to its essence, that is the message coming from the electorate about the Regulatory Standards Bill – and the attempts by the same fringe party to subvert academic freedom, for instance. The majority in Parliament would be wise to listen. Act's libertarian stunts are a self-serving distraction from other, more urgent challenges – the health crisis, the energy market, resilience to climate change, and the hordes of Kiwis leaving the country, for instance. They're fiddling with old, passé ideas while the world is drowning, or burning. At the heart of the matter, a bill that requires the primacy of private property and the rights of 'persons' in all law making in New Zealand will inevitably privilege those who have 'property' and power over those who don't. While many Kiwis hold fast to ideas of 'a fair go' and a decent society, since the 1980s neo-liberal philosophies have dominated governance in this country, so that the top 1 percent in New Zealand now hold 23 percent of the wealth. Productivity suffers when there's not enough to eat at home and children go to school hungry; housing is poor or lacking altogether for many families; and low-paid workers are penalised to allow tax breaks for landlords and other wealthy interests, as in the Act-driven changes to the Pay Equity Act. The World Bank, the OECD and Nobel prize winners have all concluded that radical inequality works against sustainable prosperity. The Regulatory Standards Bill, with its privileging of libertarian ideas, will make inequality even worse, with widespread child poverty, low paid, insecure jobs and social misery. No wonder so many New Zealanders are leaving the country. Its time for National to agree to disagree with Act, and start making a positive difference for New Zealanders, or as Peter Dunne has warned, face the electoral consequences.
1News
25-06-2025
- Politics
- 1News
David Seymour's posts raise questions about what's OK to say online
Deputy Prime Minister and ACT Party leader David Seymour says he is being "playful" and having "fun" with his "Victim of the Day" social media posts, targeting opponents of his Regulatory Standards Bill. Massey University lecturer Kevin Veale takes a look at when a joke isn't a joke. But the posts – which have singled out academics and MPs who have criticised or made select committee submissions against the bill, accusing them of suffering from "Regulatory Standards Derangement Syndrome" – have now led to at least two official complaints to Cabinet. Wellington City mayor Tory Whanau has alleged they amounted to "online harassment and intimidation" against academics and were in breach of the Cabinet Manual rules for ministers. According to the manual, ministers should behave in a way that upholds, and is seen to uphold, the highest ethical and behavioural standards. This includes exercising a professional approach and good judgement in their interactions with the public, staff, and officials, and in all their communications, personal and professional. Academic Anne Salmond, one of those targeted by the posts, has also alleged Seymour breached the behaviour standards set out by the manual. According to Salmond: ADVERTISEMENT This "Victim of the Day" campaign does not match this description. It is unethical, unprofessional and potentially dangerous to those targeted. Debate is fine, online incitements are not. When is a joke not a joke? Seymour's claim he was being "playful" while using his platform to criticise individuals follows a pattern of targeting critics while deflecting criticism of his own behaviour. For example, in 2022 Seymour demanded an apology from Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi, after Waititi earlier joked about poisoning Seymour with karaka berries. At the time, Seymour said: "I'm genuinely concerned that the next step is that some slightly more radical person doesn't think it's a joke." Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. (Source: 1News) But the same year, Seymour defended Tauranga by-election candidate Cameron Luxton's joke that the city's commission chair Anne Tolley was like Marie Antoinette and should be beheaded. ADVERTISEMENT In 2023, Seymour joked about abolishing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples: In my fantasy, we'd send a guy called Guy Fawkes in there and it'd be all over, but we'll probably have to have a more formal approach than that. Māori researcher and advocate Tina Ngata criticised Seymour's argument that he was joking: Calling it a joke does not make it any less white-supremacist. What it does is point to the fact that in David Seymour's mind, violence against Pacific peoples is so normalised, that he can make a joke out of it […] but he's not any person is he? He is a politician, a leader of a political party, with a significant platform and the means and opportunities to advance that normalised violence into policy and legislation. Designed to silence An analysis of Seymour's recent social media posts by researcher Sanjana Hattotuwa at the Disinformation Project has argued they have the potential to lead to online harassment, saying they are: "Designed to silence opposition to the controversial Regulatory Standards Bill whilst maintaining plausible deniability about the resulting harassment, harms and hate." The "Victims of the Day" posts about Anne Salmond and former Green leader Metiria Turei were textbook examples of "technology-facilitated gender-based violence and online misogyny", Hattotuwa argued. And the use of the term "derangement" framed academic criticism as a mental disorder – undermining expertise. As my own research shows, online harassment and violent rhetoric can raise the chances of real-world violence. ADVERTISEMENT Since the early 2000s, researchers have used the term "stochastic terrorism" to describe a way of indirectly threatening people. Nobody is specifically told "harm these people", so the person putting them at risk has plausible deniability. Seymour is already aware of these dynamics, as shown by his demand for an apology from Waititi over the karaka berry poisoning "joke". Free speech for who? Seymour and ACT have long presented themselves as champions of free speech: Freedom of expression is one of the most important values our society has. We can only solve our most pressing problems in an open society in which free thought and open enquiry are encouraged. By going after critics of the Regulatory Standards Bill, Seymour may only be ridiculing speech he does not like. But he has taken things further in the past. In 2023, he criticised poet Tusiata Avia for her poem "Savage Coloniser Pantoum", which Seymour said was racist and would incite racially motivated violence. He made demands that the government withdraw NZ$107,280 in taxpayer money from the 2023 Auckland Arts Festival in response. ADVERTISEMENT ACT list MP Todd Stephenson also threatened to remove Creative NZ funding after Avia received a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement. Avia said she received death threats after ACT's criticism of her work. ACT MP Todd Stephenson. (Source: Q and A) The more serious purpose of saying something contentious is "just a joke" is to portray those who disagree as humourless and not deserving to be taken seriously. ACT's "Victim of the Day" campaign does something similar in attempting to discredit serious critics of the Regulatory Standards Bill by mocking them. But in the end, we have to be alert to the potential political double standard: harmless jokes for me, but not for you. Dangerous threats from you, but not from me. Author: Kevin Veale is a Senior Lecturer in Media Studies, part of the Digital Cultures Laboratory in the School of Humanities, Media, and Creative Communication at Massey University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. ADVERTISEMENT
