Incitement of Hatred and Discrimination in Aotearoa New Zealand

Overview

We invite your input on six Government proposals to make Aotearoa New Zealand safer for everyone, by strengthening the provisions that protect groups from speech that incites hatred, and by improving protections against discrimination.

The incitement of hatred against a group based on a shared characteristic, such as ethnicity, religion or sexuality, is an attack on our values of inclusiveness and diversity. Such incitement is intolerable and has no place in our society.

The aims of the proposals are to:

Increase the number of groups of people that are protected by the incitement provisions, such as religious groups and rainbow communities
Make it clearer what behaviour the law prohibits and increase the consequences for breaking the law
Improve the protections for groups against wider discrimination.

The six proposals that we would like to hear your views on relate to:

Changing the language in the incitement provisions in the Human Rights Act 1993 so that they protect more groups that are targeted by hateful speech
Replacing the existing criminal provision in the Human Rights Act 1993 with a new criminal offence in the Crimes Act 1961 that is clearer and more effective
Increasing the punishment for the criminal offence to better reflect its seriousness
Changing the language of the civil incitement provision to match the changes being made to the criminal provision
Changing the civil provision so that it makes ‘incitement to discriminate’ against the law
Adding to the grounds of discrimination in the Human Rights Act to clarify that trans, gender diverse and intersex people are protected from discrimination.

How to give feedback

Your feedback will help to inform decisions on whether and how to update our laws.

You can have your say by reviewing the Discussion Document and answering the specific questions relating to the six proposals.

Discussion Document: Proposals against incitement of hatred and discrimination [PDF, 408KB]

Submissions are open from 25 June to 6 August 2021. You can submit:

by completing the online survey (link below) on this Citizen Space website,
by emailing humanrights@justice.govt.nz, or
by post to Human Rights, Ministry of Justice, SX10088, Wellington.

Please note that your feedback may be subject to a request to the Ministry of Justice for information under the Official Information Act 1982. Personal details can be withheld under the Act, including your name and address. If you do not want any information you provide to be released, please indicate this clearly and explain why. For example, you may wish for some information to be kept confidential because it is sensitive personal information. The Ministry of Justice will take your views into account when responding to such requests.

The Privacy Act 2020 governs how the Ministry collects, holds, uses, and discloses personal information about you and the information you provide. You have the right to access and correct personal information.

Contact

Overview

How to give feedback

Supporting information

Discussion Document

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Summary Document

Discussion Document translated into other languages

Summary Document translated into other languages

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