Hide Rodney: Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hide Rodney: Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 October 2007. Volume:643;Page:12704. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I have to say that my friend Mr Ronald Mark actually has a point. I think as I survey the debates we have had that only two parties have been entirely consistent—one being New Zealand First and the other being the ACT party. We have disagreed on every bill but we have done so consistently. The ACT party believes that the individual citizen should enjoy the maximum freedom but it is very clear that Mr Ron Mark thinks that we should pile up law upon law just in case the authorities need it that there is always someone who needs dealing to by the police the Security Intelligence Service or the agents of the State and that it is handy to have the odd weapon or two to throw around. Well the ACT party does not go along with that. 
It was quite something to hear the Minister of Justice Mark Burton introduce a bill at the second reading with a quote from the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and to hear him talk about the importance of freedom of speech which I think there is agreement on when we have a bill before Parliament—which New Zealand First supports and which I guess the Government supports with some changes—that shuts down freedom of speech once every 3 years. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: For a year. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: For a year which is pretty astonishing. So what I will do in this third reading speech is talk about what the law is for. The law is not the plaything of Parliament; it is not to give politicians and the authorities the ability to do as they please. The law does not serve the role of shutting down people who disturb us or upset us with what they say—people we might disagree with or people who we think look suspicious or different or people who express way-out or wacky views. That is not what the law is for. The law actually exists to protect us—and when I say “us” I do not mean MPs political parties or this Parliament; I mean the citizens of New Zealand. I find that we are passing laws that far from protecting individual New Zealanders actually allow us to be attacked by the very agencies that should be protecting us. 
So what is it that we have that should be protected? What is it that we enjoy which the law should be protecting? 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Freedom! 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Well I think freedom is important but let us put some context in it. The first thing is obviously our life; our lives should be protected. As a free citizen one cannot just come along and extinguish my life or another person’s life. We have a law against that; it is called murder. We have a right to our life. So firstly the law should be protecting us. Secondly the law should be protecting our property. That is what it should be doing. It should be protecting our property from the bullies and the thugs who would come along and steal it from us. In fact I believe that is fundamentally why we have a Government; it is the big policeman to protect us from the thugs and the bullies. But we have passed law here today that allows on the say-so of the Prime Minister our property to be seized—and the National Party voted for it. Funnily enough Gordon Copeland voted for it and he has a bill in his name to protect our property rights! The National Party which was founded on the protection of the private property rights of New Zealanders voted that on the say-so of the Prime Minister a free citizen who is not charged with anything in court can have his or her property seized. That is astonishing. Labour members go with that I know because they are socialists; they do not think we should have property. But I did not think that was the National Party’s position. The law should be protecting our property. Why did National members not stand up for that? I do not know why they did not. 
The third thing we should be protecting is our freedom so that we can live our lives as we best see fit. I have nothing against people who choose not to work or who choose to have as many kids as they possibly can; it is their right to do so—they just have to accept the responsibility of the consequences. People’s freedom has to be that they can think what they like and say what they like as long as they do not infringe the rights of others—as was expressed very eruditely by my colleague Dr Richard Worth. One cannot go into a crowded theatre and shout “Fire!” because that impinges on the rights of others. One cannot go around defaming someone—unless you are Mr Peters or Dr Cullen operating in Parliament—because that is to take the property right that that person has in his or her good name. 
I think that there is also a third thing: one cannot use bad language around my mother. I think that is a restriction on the freedom of speech—one we should enforce more vigorously. 
Ron Mark 
: Well stop swearing in front of her. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: I never swear in front of my mother. My mother is convinced that I do not swear. 
They are the reasons that we restrict free speech. Beyond that one can say whatever one likes as Keith Locke says. One can stand on a soapbox and preach fascism. One can stand on a soapbox and say that the greatest man in the universe is Osama bin Laden. I think that is great because when one hears it it sounds so silly. It is when we shut it down that it sounds attractive and interesting. 
Hone Harawira is a good case in point. I have got to like Hone; I sit with him on a couple of committees. He is always good for a sound bite on TV; it is not so good when one hears 10 minutes of it. You know what I mean? So we want to hear the whole story the whole argument the whole debate. If we shut down political speech we make it exciting and attractive. Nothing turns a person off more than hearing a Marxist give a lecture. Their slogans are hot; it is the speeches that are deathly—as Keith Locke knows having sat through a few of them. So we want people to have the freedom to say what they want. People should be able to say: “Let’s get rid of the King.”; “Let’s get rid of the Government.”; “Let’s vote the Greens out.”; “Let’s destroy the capitalists.”; or “Let’s vote the ACT party in.” People should be freely able to say those sorts of things. So why oh why—as we get rid of the sedition laws which are wrong—are we passing law to allow the seizure of people’s assets if the Prime Minister thinks they are terrorists and declares them to be so or because some foreign agency like the United Nations declares them to be terrorists? And why oh why are we passing a law to regulate political speech so that everyone has to register with the State every 3 years if they want to make a political comment and spend their own money doing so?