Democracy requires free speech

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

I wonder if Phil Goff is really stupid, or thinks that we all are — at least, those of us old enough to remember.

Back in my youth we used to make the trip one Sunday afternoon a month from Hamilton to Albert Park in Auckland to what was at the time the biggest social change going on in New Zealand — that was to hear Tim Shadbolt and others speak, literally, on soap boxes in the park.

At that time public speaking was illegal and the whole spectacle of the cops arresting these guys and all the then modern hippie students, mostly promoting free love (which was the main attraction for us), was worth the trip in the old 100E.

Now, the interesting part is that Shadbolt and co had a student lawyer at the time to help them with the legal fallout from this by the name of Lange, later to figure in the “uranium on your breath” affair.

I am not sure if Goff was around at the time but he was certainly in the liberal left clique that has since inflicted much pain on our country.

It is interesting that now that they have degraded the thinking power of the vast majority of the population, he wants to stop anybody who has differing ideas from sharing them.

Personally, I have no idea who the speakers he wanted to ban are or what they speak about, and I dare say that was the case for most of the country until Goff shot himself in the foot and raised this issue to high prominence. He deservedly earned the wrath of clear-thinking people who know that free speech is a must for democracy — just as they argued back in the day, successfully enough to have the law changed to allow free speech.

PJ Roberts