Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Ani O'Brien: Free Speech Union Council Member on ACT promising to keep workplace regulators from policing free speech

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Ani O'Brien: Free Speech Union Council Member on ACT promising to keep workplace regulators from policing free speech · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now the ACT Party is promising to restore freedom of
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: speech to professional regulators if re elected. They want to
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: band the likes of real estate agents who get struck
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: off for not taking courses in ten tivity, or teachers
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: who get told off for controversial Facebook posts. So to
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: speak to this, I'm joined by a member of the
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Free Speech Union as Annie O'Brien. Good morning to you, Annie,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: good morning, How are you very well? Why is a
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: law like this necessary?
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Basically, we've been advocating for this for some time because
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: increasingly we've seen regulated professions, and around around two hundred
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: thousand New Zealanders are employed and regulated professions, so you've
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: got nursive, doctors, architects, that kind of thing. These people
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: have been increasingly finding that instead of just being regulated
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: on competence, ethics, misconduct, they're being also policed on their
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: thoughts on what they're posting on social media in their
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: private time, and some political beliefs.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: And so as they're writing a bill, right, they're writing
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: a law, so the law has to be quite exact.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Will the bill just include firings people who get fired
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: from that job because they've said something or any other
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: type of reprimanding will that also be included.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Well, we haven't got a bill from Act as such.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: We've actually our lawyers have drafted a bill ourselves after
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: our chair Stephen Franks, went through an issue like this
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: with his profession as a lawyer, and for us, the
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: purpose is to restore political and ideologic ideological neutrality in
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: the regulation of professional services. So this is not about
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: individual employment decisions made, you know, between the employer and
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: the employee. This is about regulation. So it's about ensuring
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: that people aren't called before or be regulator for something
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: they put on Facebook.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: So proposed bill would avoid infringing on private businesses rights
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: to make their own decisions around employment. It's only about
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the regulatory bodies, that's correct.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: It's affirming the primary purpose of these professional regulatory bodies
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: is to promote and maintain competence, integrity, and kind of
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: the service that they're supposed to provide.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Well, that freedom of speech, the protection of that freedom
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: makes speech extend to those public service employees who we
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: expect to remain neutral. I mean, you can't have somebody
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: working for MB going on you know, a socialist rents,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: can you.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Well, it will be to the extent that, for example,
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: nurses employees in the public service, and they're also regulated
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: by a body that allows them to practice, so they
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: would be subject to the the regulatory body would be
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: subject to behaving in a way that was inline was
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: making sure that they were competent and ethical, but not
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: worried about you know, if they posted on Facebook that
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: they supported or opposed the Tree Principal Bill, for example,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: that's a relevant to their their work.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: All right, good Steff, and I thank you for your
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: time today, anyo. Brian, the Free Speech Union Council member,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: joins us. By the way, this is not We're not
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: an outlier with this sort of thing. The policy is
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: actually drawing on a rule and a lord that came
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: in in Canada and Albita and they have a Regulated
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Professions Neutrality Act. But it's been adapted to New Zealand.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: We'll see how it goes. For more from earlier edition
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talks. It'd be
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.