Stephenson ToddTODD STEPHENSON (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise today to speak about a topic—and in fact a right that we get to exercise every day in this House as a privilege—something that is actually fundamental to our democracy and that is freedom of speech.ACT has always been and always will be a leading voice in Parliament for the protection of this fundamental democratic value of freedom of speech. Why am I talking about this today? Well during the recess something very exciting happened—something very very exciting happened—and that was that the University of Otago my old university now led by a former member of this House the Hon Grant Robertson released its free speech policy on 10 July. It is a wonderful wonderful document. I'm going to come back to that in a minute.Freedom of speech is really a core classical liberal value and it needs to be protected in any democratic nation. Freedom of speech is protected in New Zealander under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. A number of people will know section 14 the Freedom of expression" "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression including the freedom to seek receive and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form." Again we do that every day in this House and we see robust debates often of ideas that we don't agree with but they're allowed to be expressed and we try to win each other over.Freedom of expression obviously has a long history. I was looking back today. There are a few points in time I just wanted to point out which I think are very very interesting. Way back in 399 BC Socrates speaking to the jury in his trial said this which is great "If you offered to let me off this time on the condition that I no longer speak my mind I shall say to you men of Athens I shall obey the Gods rather than you." He was prepared to be sentenced to some horrific sentence rather than be silenced.Another obviously famous one that people will be familiar with is Voltaire where he says "I detest what you write but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write." which is really a great sentiment about actually being tolerant of others' views.Our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act "Freedom of expression" obviously is built on the Universal Declaration for Human Rights which in 1948 again gave a number of rights including the freedom of expression.The last quote I'm going to use before I return back to the University of Otago is actually Norm Chomsky—Hon Member: Noam. TODD STEPHENSON: —which again probably not such a—Noam yes sorry—great liker of some of the politics that ACT espouses but what he actually did say was this which I love "Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're really in favor of free speech then you're in favor of freedom of speech for precisely for views you despise." It does remind me of some of the members on the other side of the House when they did actually try to bring in hate speech laws which again this Government got rid of which would have actually severely undermined the rights of Kiwis to have a free and open debate.Now I do want to just return to the University of Otago. As I said they've put out this excellent policy and I hope it actually will be a blueprint for other universities in New Zealand to follow. Some of the wonderful things they say are that free speech is the lifeblood of a university "It enables the exploration of ideas the challenging of assumptions and the uncovering of truth through open exchange. It allows students teachers and researchers to know better the variety of beliefs theories and opinions in the world." I think that's a great sentiment. Another great line is: "The university is not a place for safety from ideas". Time and time again I think we've seen too many universities actually try to censor free speech and not let there be a free and open debate of ideas. Immediately my colleague Parmjeet Parmar put out a statement welcoming this in her role as university spokesperson. I just want to end with this: our education system must prepare young people for life in a liberal democracy. That requires the practice and expressing and contesting of all kinds of ideas many of which will be unappealing and some will even be upsetting. We must develop their resilience so they can be productively converse with those who they variantly disagree like we do in this House every day. We must teach them to express their own arguments and counterarguments. Thank you."