Rotorua Lakes Council adopted its new submissions policy in February.
The Free Speech Union has sent Rotorua’s council a letter from its lawyer seeking clarification on its new submissions policy.
The union believes Rotorua Lakes Council’s new policy, adopted last month, breaches the Bill of Rights.
The policy change included the ability to remove or redact public submissions if they were deemed offensive, discriminatory, or contained personal threats.
However, the council says the redactions would only be in public publications and elected members would get unabridged versions.
The Free Speech Union’s website describes it as being made up of members from across the political spectrum and says it was founded as a “response to the rise of cancel culture and intolerance of free speech”.
It has previously positioned itself as being against proposed changes to hate speech laws that have since been postponed while the Government focused on cost of living pressures.
The union sent Rotorua’s council an initial letter on February 9, detailing its concern about the submissions policy.
It provided Local Democracy Reporting its second letter.
Sent last week, it was addressed to council chief executive Geoff Williams and asked for urgent clarification on certain policy points.
Liam Hehir from Freebairn & Hehir Lawyers wrote the letter on behalf of its client.
In it, he explains the firm was helping its clients with possible litigation following the policy adoption.
The main points of the letter included that the union believed the policy did not adequately define what the council intended to censor.
“Much confusion arises from the fact that the policy makes no distinction between ideas and how they are expressed.
“There is a large difference between an “offensive idea” and an “offensively expressed idea”, for example.”
Hehir said, in his opinion, both would qualify for censorship under the council’s policy as written and assurances submitters would not be unfairly denied the opportunity to make genuine submissions were not sufficient, and could result in decisions that could discriminate based on political opinion.
The letter conveys how people have the right to make their views heard, which had been central to democracy throughout history and recognised in the Bill of Rights.
It also said the council was required to regard all views under the Local Government Act.
“This duty is not limited to considering only those views that are agreeable or palatable to Council.
“Views that are unpopular or controversial may be characterised as “offensive”, “discriminatory” or “derogatory” while still being held by communities within council’s jurisdiction.”
Its final point regarded its belief the policy as it was written may breach the Bill of Rights, saying a policy that disadvantaged people holding an opinion “disfavoured” by the council would itself be discriminatory.
The letter finished by saying FSU was willing to work with the council.
It said FSU would be “much less apprehensive” were the policy revised to make a clear distinction between the ideas a submitter put forward and how they were expressed.
“The distinction is important because while ideas themselves are protected under free speech laws and human rights conventions, the manner in which they are expressed may legitimately be subject to limitation.
“However, any policy aimed at this should be as clear and unambiguous as is practicable.”
Local Democracy Reporting asked the council for a response to the letter.
Rotorua Lakes Council leadership and democracy deputy chief executive Oonagh Hopkins acknowledged the second letter was received and said the council would be responding directly to the union.
“For clarification, we have been clear that this policy is not about suppressing or excluding any submissions.”
She said elected members would receive unabridged submissions but the council would not publish on its channels content that did not meet content conditions specified in the policy.
Such content would be redacted.
“Council strives to be a responsible ‘publisher’ and that carries with it a duty of care, including with respect to the nature of content published, in any form.”
Under the policy’s submission content conditions, it said it reserved the right to remove from publication, any submission, in part or in full, that contained content that was clearly determined to be irrelevant, contain offensive language, be discriminatory or derogatory, be a personal threat or harassment of councillors or staff, be an abuse of the hearing process to allow the submission (or part thereof) to be taken further or be unrelated to council work.
“Submitters will not be unfairly denied the opportunity to make genuine submissions. Where there is uncertainty, the default position will be to allow the submission with every effort made to preserve as much of the content as possible.”
The mayor or deputy mayor and the chief executive will jointly be responsible for any final decision.
Any substantial redactions or removals of submissions will be listed and provided to the council prior to deliberations.
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