Dunne Peter: Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Dunne Peter: Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:640;Page:9979] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
:  
At the outset I want to acknowledge the support of the MMP parties for the Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill—United Future the Greens the Maori Party and ACT. I want to draw to the House’s attention that we held a joint press conference very deliberately on the day before Anzac Day to make our call for the Law Commission’s recommendations to be accelerated in their passage through this House. It struck us as ironic that although Anzac Day celebrations bring together all New Zealanders and commemorate the struggle of New Zealanders in a bygone generation for freedom we still had legislation on our statute book that was as archaic and anti-freedom as any legislation in our history. 
The stories have been told during the debate on this bill about the use to which the sedition legislation was put in earlier times to repress the free expression of opinion political dissent and sometimes a broader cultural dissent. My colleague Mr Locke has drawn attention to the fact that in many other countries around the world today these laws are actually being strengthened rather than repealed and that we stand a little bit to one side from the mainstream in having legislation before our Parliament to repeal sedition law. I say that is a very good thing. 
My family has had some personal experience in earlier generations of the application of this law because we were Irish nationalists. Were we in Britain today we would still be subject to the provisions of that law. I want to recall a couple of little stories for the benefit of the House. Thankfully in neither case was a sedition charge proceeded with but the threat was there. A very elderly relative of mine who died long before I came along was standing on the Wellington waterfront in August 1914 when the first New Zealand Expeditionary Force set sail for the Great War. Someone said to this dear old Irish lady: “You must be a very proud woman today to see your son going off with the first New Zealand Expeditionary Force.” She turned and in a loud voice said: “I thought I would never see a son of mine stoop so low as to fight for England.” and was dutifully carted away by the authorities and threatened with being charged for sedition for making this outrageous utterance. 
A generation later World War II came along. The same dear old soul was still alive and was at Addington Raceway in Christchurch. In those days apparently before the big racing events the national anthems of all the Allies were played. She stood rigidly to attention during all of the Allies’ anthems until “God Save the King” was played. Down she sat and away she was carted. I tell those stories not because a sedition charge resulted in those incidents although the threat was certainly made but because of the sense of the time about how one was defying the established order. Even mild acts of political dissent—if those could be described as such—or adverse commentary ran the risk of the full weight of the law being put upon one. 
When we look at the experience of the Labour leaders in World War I of the Maori nationalists in the 1880s and of Rua Kenana in 1916 and we see how this law was applied in a way that was simply the ultimate form of gagging writ—“We will shut you up because we will lock you away.”—and then when we realise that in today’s environment that law could still be applied and in recent examples has been applied inevitably we come to the conclusion as the Law Commission did that this is an assault on freedom and an assault on free speech that has no place in a democratic society like ours. Therefore it is good to see this Parliament moving by what looks to be unanimity to repeal this obnoxious outdated legislation. 
I stand here delighted to see the bill before the House urging expedition in its passage and looking forward to a time when the references to sedition in this country are purely historical never to be repeated again. A country that is confident about itself and its direction does not need laws of this type to regulate its behaviour. I look forward to the third reading of this bill which will hopefully be not too far away when we can farewell this particular legislation to the dustbin of history where it deserves to lie and rot.