Here is what finishing the job means
Section 131 of the Human Rights Act already makes it a crime to publish words intended, and likely, to bring a group into contempt or ridicule. Add religious belief to that list and you have created a criminal offence of bringing a religion into ridicule.
Read that again. Ridicule. Not violence. Not threats. Not harassment. Those are already crimes and they stay crimes. Ridicule.
On paper, the offence would protect believers, not beliefs. In practice, that distinction lasts until the first complaint. Write that a religion’s rules for women belong in the seventh century, and whether you have brought its followers into contempt becomes a question for police, prosecutors and judges to answer. You find out at the end. The process is the punishment.
That is a blasphemy law. Parliament abolished the old one in 2019 because it had no place in a country that protects free expression. Seven years later, the same offence is being walked back in through a different door.
The only question that matters is which party would vote for a blasphemy law?
The Greens and Te Pāti Māori both back legislating against hate speech. National says there is no need for it. ACT wants the laws we already have enforced instead of new ones written. NZ First blocked hate speech legislation once before, in government, and has said nothing about it this term.
Which leaves Labour. Asked where it stands, Labour says it will release a detailed policy in due course. It has been saying a version of that since 2021. Its justice spokesperson calls the Law Commission’s recommendations unfinished business.
Two parties want this. Three say no, or have stopped it before. One is running out the clock until after you have voted.
