Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I rise to speak in this general debate in a short call of about five minutes and I just wanted to thank the National Party for their ongoing advice this week to the Green Party of Aotearoa / New Zealand. I want to use this call to address the issue of live debate—Chris Bishop: You're welcome. CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —of freedom of speech—Mr Bishop—with that being expressed obviously in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 particularly in section 14 Freedom of expression" as everyone having "the right to freedom of expression including the freedom to seek receive and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form." I note because I am a philosophy grad and a nerd that all of this is what's technically called a freedom right not a claim right. What that means is that you are able to have your opinion but having your opinion does not entitle you to a platform. It does not entitle you to be listened to. It does not entitle you to be sheltered from critique from alternative viewpoints or from disagreement. What I'm concerned about with the nature of the dialogue that we've seen over the past week is that I feel as though it's been kind of pressed into this false binary that either people have freedom of speech or they don't. To that matter I'd just like to say that if a private venue declines to host you they are not impinging on your freedom of speech. If people are coming together to sing waiata and to hold heart-shaped balloons in Aotea Square they are not impinging on your freedom of speech—particularly I might add if it's in response to your xenophobia your racism or your sexism. The focus of this discussion ultimately I feel has become one of pandering to the attention of the wounded feelings of those with pretty abhorrent views where freedom of speech is being invoked as a shield to protect people from the real-world consequences of their aggressive views—and not I would add as a vehicle to push society forward which is what the Green Party believes freedom of speech is indeed supposed to be used for. Lost in this heated and overly simplified conversation are the voices of people who face colossal man-made barriers to participation in our democracy—those who have ultimately been marginalised in the dominant culture and by systems that disable and repress. Notably these are the kinds of people who are actually also often ostracised and targeted by these self-styled mislabelled fighters for freedom of speech that we've seen in the past week because genuinely fighting for freedom of speech looks like making space for points of view that are neglected overlooked or oppressed in the mainstream and not thinly veiled racism and sexism that actively attempts to take that space or to invalidate others' freedom of speech. I think one of the things that I've be most proud of in my time in this House in the past nine to 10 months whilst I've been privileged to serve is the unanimous support that Mojo Mathers' Election Access Fund Bill received in its first reading. I want to thank members of the Governance and Administration Committee—particularly the likes of Brett Hudson and Ginny Andersen—who allowed me to sit in on the oral submissions that started this morning where we heard from members of the Deaf and disabled communities and actually beyond from wider society about how we remove the barriers that we have unintentionally put up at every step of the process when it comes to engaging democratically. I want to say that I really look forward to the ongoing cross-party work to improve our democracy and to improve access to freedom of speech because what I really hope comes out of the controversy that we've seen over the last week or so is that we progress the discussion forward and we end the conflation of controversy with value of content. Genuine freedom of speech pushes society forward it celebrates diversity and it empowers everybody. Freedom of speech looks like equity. Kia ora."