Counter-protesters - including one armed with a bottle of tomato juice - have seen British anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull aborting her central Auckland rally. Video / NZ Herald
Opinion by Merepeka Raukawa-Tait
OPINION
I understand free speech, but free speech should not be speech that harms others.
We know that in Aotearoa that we have people who feed off hate speech and speech that denigrates another group. Particularly invisible keyboard warriors.
When we’re talking about the transgender and LGBTQIA+ community, they’re already in a vulnerable position.
The last thing we need is someone like Posie Parker flying into our country to spread rhetoric in a public place, in a public way reported by public media platforms that magnetises the hateful underbelly of society.
Context and intention is the key determinant here.
Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency chairwoman Merepeka Raukawa-Tait. Photo / NZME
She is known on the record (if you Google) to be an anti-transgender rights activist who has built a platform of influence at public rallies and protests to disseminate her divisive messages opposing the human rights of transgender people.
This devalues our transgender whānau as human beings with the potential to incite hatred towards this group of New Zealanders purposefully with a malicious intent. That is absolutely wrong.
The Government could have well have said “no”. Aotearoa is better than that. We don’t want that in our country. Activists insidiously using the Trojan horse of public rallies to stir up trouble.
As a Māori leader, I am very aware that many whānau Māori are members of the transgender and LGBTQIA+ community.
It does not bode well for them or their health and their emotional and mental wellbeing if this rhetoric comes to our land and spews that sort of vitriol – that could put our community at risk.
Recently there was a policy bonfire and hate speech legislation was parked on the backburner which was a missed opportunity to sort this out with principle and robust discourse.
While I respect section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, it’s now 2023 where we have evolved and in many places, liberated from the societal construct of over 30 years ago societally and attitudinally.
So I was sorry to see the hate speech legislation shelved as there was a real potential to look at what tool was necessary to navigate the environment that we are now all living in.
It would be naive not to consider the knock-on effects of keyboard warriors spreading mis- and disinformation buoyed by the likes of Parker that get away with malicious mayhem in the shadows online.
Sticks and stones do break bones. Mental health has an important weighting here that must be a consideration given the suicide statistics of cohorts of whānau Māori.
Besides we see all around the world post-Covid that the climate has caused people to be nervous, due to the unforeseen suffering and loss, so the collective feels unsafe anyway.
Anything that could trigger or target another group, like Posie Parker’s agenda – just exacerbates this feeling of high stress, trauma and anxiety in our communities.
We need to take hate speech seriously and be courageous by calling it out for what it is and look at taking steps to ensure that it’s not allowed to fall on possibly fertile ground.
There is simply no mana in this particular speaker being on our shores. She does not open up safe space for respectful dialogue. She courts conflict and incites negativity.
If the system doesn’t step in to safeguard as kaitiaki, the community will surely have the last word – you watch.
Merepeka Raukawa-Tait has worked in the private, public and non-profit sectors and is the chair of the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency. She writes, broadcasts and is a regular social issues commentator on TV. Raukawa-Tait, of Te Arawa, believes fearless advocacy for equity and equality has the potential to change lives.
