SpeechHUMAN RIGHTS (INCITEMENT ON GROUND OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingHon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): I present a legislative statement on the Human Rights (Incitement on Ground of Religious Belief) Amendment Bill.SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I move That the Human Rights (Incitement on Ground of Religious Belief) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.This bill gives effect to a key Government priority to respond to the recommendations of the royal commission of inquiry into the terrorist attack on Christchurch masjidain on 15 March 2019. The key change that this bill makes relates to the parts of the Human Rights Act which prohibit speech that excites hostility against or brings into contempt people based on their colour race ethnicity or nationality. We're expanding these provisions so that they will now also protect groups based on the grounds of religious belief.This change responds to a part of recommendation 40 of the royal commission. A key part of this recommendation was to add religion to the list of protected characteristics under the law which prohibits speech which incites hatred. The commission considers that religious beliefs should be added for a number of reasons including and most significantly in order to reflect the current realities of Islamophobia and the association between hate speech and terrorism. In addition the commission noted that the change aligns the incitement provisions with comparable jurisdictions brings New Zealand into compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and removes the current discrepancy where Jews and Sikhs are protected under provisions as ethnic groups but followers of Islam and Christianity are not.This work also meets part of the Labour 2020 election manifesto commitment to strengthen protections for groups under the Human Rights Act from speech that is likely to incite others to feel hostility or contempt towards another group. This type of speech is about influencing how people see a population group and causing hateful views about people in that group. Speech that incites hostility or contempt causes significant harm to both those specific groups and to society as a whole seeking to divide communities and hinder our social inclusion.At the extreme end there is evidence of the spread of this type of speech alongside other circumstances being a precursor to violence. Victims can experience the loss of their right to feel safe freedom of movement and expression and at the right extreme end of the spectrum the right to life if someone is killed as a result of incitement or hostility.The royal commission found hate speech to be on the same spectrum of harmful behaviour as terrorism and that there is a link between hate speech and hate-motivated crimes. They saw value in seeking to reduce hate speech not only to prevent the direct harm it causes but also to limit escalation of such speech to hate-motivated crimes. Today's online world of communications creates particular challenges adding to the potential harm and highlighting the need for solid laws to protect vulnerable individuals and communities.Evidence and analysis has shown that faith-based groups are vulnerable to extreme forms of harmful speech in addition to those groups already covered by these provisions. For example Netsafe's 2018 survey on the impact of online harmful speech found that religion was the most frequent perceived reason of being personally targeted with online harmful speech.The current incitement provisions consist of both civil and criminal provisions—sections 61 and 131 of the Human Rights Act respectively. The bill adds religious belief to the existing grounds of national and ethnic origins race and colour to provide more protections for faith-based communities. Our engagement last year on proposals to strengthen the incitement and discrimination provisions in the Human Rights Act generated extensive public debate. Face-to-face feedback from affected communities largely showed support including for the protection from incitement on the basis of religious belief.The Government has carefully considered what next steps should be taken considering this response as well as the need to respond to the significant harm caused by speech that incites hostility or contempt and to hate crime. We've decided to take a staged approach to tackling hate-motivated offending. This bill is the first part of this approach and will immediately provide better protections from speech that incites hostility towards groups based on their religious belief.The second part of our approach is to have the Law Commission carry out a comprehensive review of incitement discrimination and hate crime laws. Other proposals in last year's discussion document on incitement laws such as harsher penalties and different thresholds and for explicit protections against discrimination for other communities will be also considered by the Law Commission.By taking action on our incitement laws the Government intends to enhance the ability of all New Zealanders to enjoy their rights and freedoms free from harm. The Government remains committed to implementing the recommendations of the royal commission as a key priority. This change will implement an important part of recommendation 40 of the commission. I commend this bill to the House.SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.