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Speaker 1: Laighton Smith podcast Power by news.
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Speaker 3: Welcome to podcast two hundred and fifty two for August
Speaker 3: twenty one, twenty twenty four. Centerpiece in two five to
Speaker 3: two is a lengthy discussion with Stephen Rainbow, the newly
Speaker 3: appointed Chief of the Human Rights Commission. Arguably the most
Speaker 3: critical issue involves the right to freedom of speech based
Speaker 3: on freedom of thought. Just how important freedom of speech
Speaker 3: is is reflected in headlines and stories from all over
Speaker 3: the planet, specifically those countries known as the West or
Speaker 3: Democratic countries. Virtually every day you will find if you
Speaker 3: go looking, and sometimes you don't even have to look for,
Speaker 3: you'll find examples of the battles that are underway in
Speaker 3: various parts of the world. For example, from this week's
Speaker 3: Spectator Australia comes the story of Dave Pellow. Dave Pellow
Speaker 3: is the founder of CSA Church and State Australia. He
Speaker 3: faces a complaint put before the Queensland Human Rights Commission
Speaker 3: accusing him of racism and vilification. He is being forced
Speaker 3: into a legal battle after he replaced the Welcomed country
Speaker 3: message with some twenty four to one church and state
Speaker 3: conferences led by Pello open with the ode to God's
Speaker 3: ownership of the land instead of the now common welcome
Speaker 3: to country message. Explaining reasons for the allegations, he said,
Speaker 3: I quote Psalm twenty four to one, which contradicts the
Speaker 3: claims of Aboriginal religion that the spiritual entity it calls
Speaker 3: country requires deceased ancestors to permit someone's arrival or travel
Speaker 3: through it. If that's racist, he asks, isn't criticizing Christian
Speaker 3: belief's racism too. The complaint also found fault with Dave's
Speaker 3: thirty minute presentation. Pello allegedly failed to fall in line
Speaker 3: and give voice and visibility to events such as invasion Day.
Speaker 3: You get the picture. We seem to be in a
Speaker 3: similar situation in New Zealand with regard to similar matters,
Speaker 3: the status of water being the latest that is a
Speaker 3: subject to shall we say, different opinions. But before we
Speaker 3: get to David Rainbow, there is another matter that I
Speaker 3: want to raise I received yesterday morning a press release,
Speaker 3: a media release from the University of Auckland. Does climate
Speaker 3: reporting make a difference? Let me quote Some of the
Speaker 3: New Zealand's biggest companies submitted their first mandatory climate related
Speaker 3: disclosures this year, but a new study shows disclosure does
Speaker 3: not guarantee better behavior. This year, New Zealand became among
Speaker 3: the first countries in the world to force note the
Speaker 3: word force their largest companies and financial institutions, about two
Speaker 3: hundred in all, to disclose their climate related risks and
Speaker 3: opportunities in their annual reports and make regulatory filings. But
Speaker 3: do these kinds of initiatives improve environmental outcomes? A new
Speaker 3: study co authored by Professor Chald D. Villier from the
Speaker 3: University of Auckland Business School finds that mandating social and
Speaker 3: environmental disclosures does not improve business's performance. What a surprise.
Speaker 3: Professor DeVillier and his fellow researchers examined the effects of
Speaker 3: a prominent EU sustainability reporting initiative, which came into effect
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen. The legislation requires large companies to report
Speaker 3: their performance on non financial matters, including environmental issues, social
Speaker 3: and employee matters, human rights, anti corruption, and bribery. But
Speaker 3: after analyzing a cross country sample of businesses between two
Speaker 3: thousand nine and twenty twenty, the researchers found that social
Speaker 3: and environmental outcomes did not meaningfully improve after the directive.
Speaker 3: Despite the regulatory push, European companies did not exhibit substantial
Speaker 3: improvements in their social and environmental performance. The findings are surprising,
Speaker 3: says debilias It's important that we don't assume that if
Speaker 3: we force companies to disclose information, they are actually going
Speaker 3: to do better by the environment and people. One could
Speaker 3: make many, many comments on this. This is a prime
Speaker 3: example of the authoritarian tentacles that we're being subjected to
Speaker 3: on a greater basis in all areas of life. It
Speaker 3: is social activism when it comes to matters to do
Speaker 3: with climate. Actually let me let me bypass that and
Speaker 3: be more inclusive. The legislation requires large companies to report
Speaker 3: their performance on non financial matters, including I'm repeating environmental issues,
Speaker 3: social and employee matters, human rights, anti corruption, and bribery,
Speaker 3: most of which, if not all, has very little to do,
Speaker 3: if anything, with what a company's job is. What the
Speaker 3: purpose of a company is There is much more to
Speaker 3: be said on this, and I'm going to include it
Speaker 3: at the end of the podcast because it will help
Speaker 3: explain why this approach to life is a nonsense. And
Speaker 3: by the way, Stephen Rainbow makes commentary on an aspect
Speaker 3: of this as you'll see, not so much of business,
Speaker 3: but an aspect of universities and what their role is
Speaker 3: or is not, and where their failings are, of which
Speaker 3: there are many. But let me leave you with a
Speaker 3: headlined at the moment, want more freedom of speech, try
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Speaker 3: The Human Rights Commission is an independent Crown entity established
Speaker 3: under the Human Rights Ack and the Crown Entities Act.
Speaker 3: The Commission works with the government and civil society to
Speaker 3: advocate and promote respect for human rights and to promote
Speaker 3: harmonious relations in New Zealand. As set outs in Section
Speaker 3: nineteen of the Human Rights Act, the Commission has a
Speaker 3: duty to carry out its functions independently of the government.
Speaker 3: Section five of the Human Rights Act provides that the
Speaker 3: Commission's primary functions are no advocates and promote respect for
Speaker 3: and understanding and depreciation of human rights in New Zealand society.
Speaker 3: Encourage the maintenance and development of harmonious relations between individuals
Speaker 3: and among the diverse groups in New Zealand society. To
Speaker 3: promote racial equality and cultural diversity. To promote equal employment opportunities,
Speaker 3: including pay equity. To promote and protect the full and
Speaker 3: equal enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities. Functions
Speaker 3: of the Chief Commissioner include chairing the Commission and leading
Speaker 3: discussions of the Commission, except when it is the function
Speaker 3: of a Commissioner to do so. Ensuring that the activities
Speaker 3: undertaken in the performance of the Commission's functions are consistent
Speaker 3: with the strategic direction and other determinations of the Commission,
Speaker 3: which one presumes vary from time to time. And ensuring
Speaker 3: that the Commission is effective and efficient in carrying out
Speaker 3: its functions. Now I have to say that those functions
Speaker 3: of the Chief Commissioner sound well open to interpretation, a
Speaker 3: little vague maybe so. Stephen Rainbow, congratulations on your appointment
Speaker 3: welcome to the Latensmith Podcast. I'm appreciative of the fact
Speaker 3: that you made the time available. How do you, as
Speaker 3: a first question, how do you interpret your role as
Speaker 3: the Chief Commissioner of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission.
Speaker 2: First of all, thank you Layton for the opportunity to
Speaker 2: appear on your podcast and to have this discussion. And
Speaker 2: can I say it's probably something of a relief to
Speaker 2: be able to talk about things in a little more
Speaker 2: detail than the sound bites which have dominated discussion around
Speaker 2: these appointments to date, So really look forward to that opportunity.
Speaker 2: The Human Rights Commission was established in seventy seven and
Speaker 2: so I hope it's not too use a response to
Speaker 2: say that as it heads to its fiftieth birthday and
Speaker 2: twenty twenty seven, when the new group of commissioners will
Speaker 2: be in charge, I think it's a really good opportunity
Speaker 2: to actually address precisely your question, which is what are
Speaker 2: the strategic priorities of the Commission? What are the key
Speaker 2: human rights issues that we are facing as a country,
Speaker 2: And if I could just give you a couple of
Speaker 2: immediate perspectives on that from where I come from. Apart
Speaker 2: from the fact that there are real challenges around issues
Speaker 2: like the impact on human rights from artificial intelligence. For example,
Speaker 2: if you look at the international literature on human rights,
Speaker 2: things like AI loom very large. My first point, my
Speaker 2: second point. I suspect that the context for this review
Speaker 2: of our strategic priorities and our work over the years
Speaker 2: ahead needs ideally to be focused on how we go
Speaker 2: about and what role we might have in fostering the
Speaker 2: social cohesion which seems to have been lost. And I
Speaker 2: say that because there is nothing that makes human rights
Speaker 2: more vulnerable than a divided, polarized society. I've spent a
Speaker 2: good part latent of my adult life exploring and researching history,
Speaker 2: in particular the Holocaust, and it really alarms me to
Speaker 2: see some of the patterns that occur in societies where
Speaker 2: totalitarianism and authoritarianism flourish, because one of those patterns is
Speaker 2: a polarized and divided society, whether it's the Soviets in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventeen, or Russia, I shou'd say in nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 2: whether it's a Nazis in Germany in the early thirties.
Speaker 2: And I think we've got a real role, and I
Speaker 2: can't see anyone else in such a strong position to
Speaker 2: actually look at what we need to do as a
Speaker 2: nation to foster social cohesion and perhaps to focus more
Speaker 2: on what it is that we have in common rather
Speaker 2: than what separates us.
Speaker 3: You, as I read the Commission, and your position as
Speaker 3: chief is independent of the government and is meant to
Speaker 3: operate that way. Where does it leave you with regard
Speaker 3: to advice to the government, either when asked for or
Speaker 3: even when not so.
Speaker 2: On the point of political independence, I just want to
Speaker 2: tell you very briefly about my background later, which is
Speaker 2: that I helped to form the Green Party in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety and I was the first person elected a New
Speaker 2: Zealand and a Green ticket, and I was a Wellington
Speaker 2: City councilor for nine years. Subsequently, I have worked with
Speaker 2: people across the political spectrum to progress a range of issues, including,
Speaker 2: for example, the funding of the City rail Link, Auban's
Speaker 2: underground railway. All of these activities that I've been involved
Speaker 2: in have been dependent on being able to work with
Speaker 2: people across the political spectrum, and I would hope that's
Speaker 2: one of the reasons I've been appointed to this role.
Speaker 2: That doesn't answer your question. The fact is that this
Speaker 2: is an independent statutory role and one of the things
Speaker 2: that I will have to use very judiciously is the
Speaker 2: potential to influence public debate around issues that I think
Speaker 2: government should be addressing. And I might give you an
Speaker 2: example of that if I may, although I need to
Speaker 2: emphasize I haven't even met with the Commission yet and
Speaker 2: I don't start in the role for a couple of
Speaker 2: months yet. If we look at what's happened in Australia
Speaker 2: as a result of the Middle East conflict, Prime Minister
Speaker 2: Albanesi recently decried the fact that the level of social intolerance,
Speaker 2: the destruction of social cohesion, the amount of violence and
Speaker 2: protest I really have led to a most unfortunate situation
Speaker 2: in Australia, and he has as one of the results
Speaker 2: of that appointed and emissary on anti Semitism. If I
Speaker 2: look at what's happening in New Zealand, I think it's
Speaker 2: not far removed, at least in our major cities, from
Speaker 2: what has happened in Australia. And I think one of
Speaker 2: the things that I might, for example, want to pursue
Speaker 2: when I get my feet under the desk is talking
Speaker 2: an advert advocating to this government that we need to
Speaker 2: do something more active in the space of fighting anti
Speaker 2: Semitism as has occurred in Australia of late.
Speaker 3: As far as you're concerned, what has led to that
Speaker 3: situation arising?
Speaker 2: That situation has arisen because of people's intense feelings about
Speaker 2: what is happening in the Middle East, and I think
Speaker 2: that's completely understandable. It's also arisen from the fact that
Speaker 2: we now have a far more diverse society than we've
Speaker 2: had in the past, with significant numbers of people from
Speaker 2: communities that have a direct relationship to what's happening in
Speaker 2: the Middle East. And I think that that helps to
Speaker 2: explain why that has emerged. But there's also a sense,
Speaker 2: perhaps if we were to try and look at this analytically,
Speaker 2: that it's hard to identify at the moment a cause
Speaker 2: that's perhaps more high profile and more immediate, with suffering
Speaker 2: is so evident than what's happening in the Middle East.
Speaker 2: It's far more understandable that people want to go out
Speaker 2: and protest about that than about the fact that you
Speaker 2: know that people are getting thumped in their shops in Auckland,
Speaker 2: for example, when they turn up to work because of
Speaker 2: the antisocial activities happening there. So I think that's I
Speaker 2: think it is a result of those sorts of factors.
Speaker 2: I guess the other thing is that we're possibly a
Speaker 2: little selective about what it is that we do protest
Speaker 2: about in the Middle East because it's been such a
Speaker 2: long or seems like such a long conflict has exacerbated
Speaker 2: these tensions. But I do note that at the moment,
Speaker 2: for example, that Hindu villages and Bangladesh are being burned
Speaker 2: to the ground, but we're not seeing protests about that.
Speaker 2: So we have this because we're part of the Western world.
Speaker 2: We have this intense interest in what's happening in Israel
Speaker 2: in particular, and I don't think that's going to change,
Speaker 2: but it has created a situation where, for example, the
Speaker 2: increase in anti Semitic incidents in New Zealand has increased
Speaker 2: somewhat dramatically since last October the seventh.
Speaker 3: You suggested that you didn't see a headline over the
Speaker 3: top of all this. Let me make a suggestion of one.
Speaker 3: You're not going to have a discussion like this without
Speaker 3: being controversial to some extent, depending on the on the recipient,
Speaker 3: of course, but I'm going to suggest to you that
Speaker 3: the situation. Actually, I want to back up. Last night,
Speaker 3: quite by accident, we came across a documentary on.
Speaker 1: This exacts.
Speaker 3: No on this exact situation in the Middle East on
Speaker 3: Sky Australia, and it was it was basically it was
Speaker 3: a documentary, but it was a Q and A and
Speaker 3: the journalist was was doing an extremely good job of
Speaker 3: talking to people on on of all of all attitudes
Speaker 3: involved in the violence that now exists in Australia, that
Speaker 3: you are rightfully concerned about happening here. And that led
Speaker 3: me to confirm something that I that I'd formulated not
Speaker 3: very long ago. And I'm going to suggest to you
Speaker 3: that the countries that we both live in different to
Speaker 3: different levels or different extremes at this point of time.
Speaker 3: But the countries we both live in, Australia and New Zealand,
Speaker 3: the days of multiculturalism are over. Once upon a time
Speaker 3: it was possible to have a multicultural society that ran smoothly.
Speaker 3: Now I don't believe it is anymore. That to me
Speaker 3: is the result of immigration policies and people of fractured
Speaker 3: cultures or fractured relationships to enter the country in increasing numbers.
Speaker 3: And when you do that you're going to get yourself
Speaker 3: from You're going to get yourself into trouble just very quickly.
Speaker 3: I was quite young at the time, but growing up
Speaker 3: in Sydney, I remember distinctly the Czechoslovakian division in Sydney
Speaker 3: in particular, where there were where there were bombs planted
Speaker 3: in various homes and offices, and there were people blown up, etc.
Speaker 3: Because they came from the same background where this problem
Speaker 3: exists in the first place.
Speaker 2: You say, well, later, and I need to be very
Speaker 2: explicit about the fact that I think that multiculturalism brings
Speaker 2: with it many advantages, not least of which is that
Speaker 2: my partner, for example, is an immigrant. But I think
Speaker 2: that the question might be perhaps better put as if
Speaker 2: we are, and we indeed are multicultural societies, if we
Speaker 2: are to have successful multicultural societies, then what is it
Speaker 2: that we need to do to ensure the success of
Speaker 2: that multiculturalism. And I guess one of the things that
Speaker 2: I think we need to do a far better job
Speaker 2: of is dialogue between the different commune nities who now
Speaker 2: make up New Zealand. So I'll give you an example
Speaker 2: if I may, and.
Speaker 3: Just before you do that, that'd lose your place, suggest
Speaker 3: that importing the problems, and the problems only exist when
Speaker 3: there's more than one attitude, if you like, importing the
Speaker 3: problems that can't be settled from whence they came is
Speaker 3: simply inviting the same issue to exist here or wherever
Speaker 3: it may be.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't think we're going to change the fact
Speaker 2: that we're a multicultural society, and so the question then
Speaker 2: becomes not the question that you're asking, but rather how
Speaker 2: do we make a multicultural society succeed? And I think
Speaker 2: that's something that a Human Rights Commission, for example, can
Speaker 2: play a role and fulfilling. I guess the example that
Speaker 2: I was going to give of where these issues are
Speaker 2: a challenge, and this is not to say that multicultural
Speaker 2: is not desirable, is that we had as our neighbor
Speaker 2: on the North Shore, my husband and I a Liberal
Speaker 2: National MP who knew us personally and who voted against
Speaker 2: same sex marriage. And I went up to Jonathan. I said, Jonathan,
Speaker 2: what on earth are you doing? And he said, the
Speaker 2: only issue that the Korean community in Northcote had mobilized
Speaker 2: against in his years in parliament was against same sex marriage.
Speaker 2: And there were six thousand I think there was the
Speaker 2: figure Korean people there, and he needed to respect their views.
Speaker 2: Now I'm not saying that's wrong, Please don't take it
Speaker 2: that way. I'm just saying I wonder, given that we
Speaker 2: have human rights progress for gay people, which has been
Speaker 2: quite what there's been a complete transformation in my lifetime,
Speaker 2: what effort are we making to talk to new immigrant
Speaker 2: communities about issues like that going to make multicultural succeed.
Speaker 2: We need more dialogue, more discussion about these kinds of issues,
Speaker 2: you know, late and what the most anti gay city
Speaker 2: in Britain now is. It's London, and it's London because
Speaker 2: that's where most of the Muslim immigrants and the conservative
Speaker 2: Christian immigrants. Now I'm not anti religion, by the way,
Speaker 2: please don't take it this way. But this highlights the
Speaker 2: fact that in the multicultural society it produces challenges, and
Speaker 2: the challenges are around how to quote that key we
Speaker 2: way of being, we learn to live and let live,
Speaker 2: and how we foster the tolerance that is needed between
Speaker 2: the different communities that are here, be they gay, be
Speaker 2: they Jewish, for example.
Speaker 3: And again I'm going to back up. I came to
Speaker 3: think a long time ago that if you don't understand.
Speaker 3: If you have no knowledge of biblical matters of the time,
Speaker 3: you have no chance of understanding why there is conflict
Speaker 3: in the Middle East now which will probably endure forever,
Speaker 3: however long that might be. And again, if you import
Speaker 3: people who have that same conflict in their mind, deeply
Speaker 3: rooted in their beliefs which are the most important to them,
Speaker 3: and some of the comments that were made by imams
Speaker 3: and others in this documentary last night, we're most telling
Speaker 3: in this regard, then you're going to have even if
Speaker 3: you settle it down for a period of time, as
Speaker 3: it does in the Middle East, and then you're going
Speaker 3: to have continued conflict nevertheless or by beating the same
Speaker 3: old drum.
Speaker 2: Where you are, and it doesn't help to address the
Speaker 2: issue of what is it that then needs to happen,
Speaker 2: Because whether it's Europe, whether it's the United States, the
Speaker 2: Western world has been a destination for people from many
Speaker 2: cultures because the Western way of life is what actually
Speaker 2: attracts and draws people. And so the question then becomes,
Speaker 2: how do we make multicultural societies succeed? And one of
Speaker 2: the things that a group like the Human Rights Commission
Speaker 2: could do, I believe more aggressively is to actually encourage
Speaker 2: dialogue between the different groups who now make up our society.
Speaker 2: I mean, and that's talking about the Human Rights Commission.
Speaker 2: But if we just go back to your Middle East example,
Speaker 2: I have to say that I've been somewhat dismayed at
Speaker 2: the lack of courage from our universities late in, for example,
Speaker 2: facilitating debates and dialogue around the Middle Eastern situation. They
Speaker 2: haven't had the hotspa to do that. And yet again,
Speaker 2: I would be looking to our universities to be taking
Speaker 2: a more aggressive role in terms of facilitating discussions and
Speaker 2: debates around these critical issues which, at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, whether whether we want to admit it or not,
Speaker 2: deeply impact on certain communities here and about which there
Speaker 2: is widespread interest. Why are the university is taking a
Speaker 2: more active role in facilitating dialogue between different groups and opinions.
Speaker 3: I think the answer to that's fairly simple, and I'm
Speaker 3: glad you've redirected, because we were going to get there eventually.
Speaker 3: Let me suggest to you that what culture is the
Speaker 3: is the real answer to that? Included in what culture,
Speaker 3: of course, is a DEI that we're all now familiar with,
Speaker 3: And I would imagine that considering your studies in politics
Speaker 3: and your experience, et cetera. Like me, you've watched it
Speaker 3: develop in America. That is what culture headquarters and transmit
Speaker 3: itself to the rest of the world, and it's been
Speaker 3: The most amazing thing to me is not that it's happened,
Speaker 3: but how quickly it has happened and how it's taken
Speaker 3: over the universities in this country the same as other universities. Now,
Speaker 3: if anybody suggested in a university suggested they do that,
Speaker 3: I think they would be swamped with objection, to put
Speaker 3: it mildly, from other members of the university staff. If not,
Speaker 3: it would transmit to the demonstrations from students and you
Speaker 3: would have, as we've seen on television time and time
Speaker 3: again from the States and Australia, you'd have violence in
Speaker 3: the streets.
Speaker 2: And I wonder whether there is not here an issue
Speaker 2: around leadership, because, for example, if a university were to
Speaker 2: hold a function, let's say, exploring the Middle East conflict
Speaker 2: and hearing from both sides of this dreadful suffering, and
Speaker 2: the university was to shut that down, then one of
Speaker 2: the things that I would consider doing as the chief
Speaker 2: Human Rights commissioners to challenge the university about that, and
Speaker 2: I think that there is a role for more muscular
Speaker 2: leadership around actually saying we need to discuss and debate
Speaker 2: and have dialogue around these issues if we're not to
Speaker 2: be shut into our self perpetuating bubbles, regardless of what
Speaker 2: that bubble might be, because we're not going to find
Speaker 2: a way forward as a country if we're going to
Speaker 2: be divided and polarized and not challenged on our views.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I'll go back to my experience as
Speaker 2: a gay man latent, but every bit of progress that's
Speaker 2: been made in this remarkable transformation of the lives of
Speaker 2: gay people in New Zealand has been the result of
Speaker 2: people like fran Wilde standing up, advocating for a perspective,
Speaker 2: building alliances, having dialogue with people. When I was involved
Speaker 2: in the same sex marriage campaign, I had to go
Speaker 2: and talk to people who I wouldn't normally be politically
Speaker 2: or or value in any way around values be aligned with.
Speaker 2: But you had to build alliances. And this is how
Speaker 2: democracy works, this is how free society works, this is
Speaker 2: how free speech works. And it seems that we've lost
Speaker 2: courage around some of those qualities and I think that
Speaker 2: we need more challenging of the dissipation of the courage
Speaker 2: to have these difficult conversations and to explore differences and
Speaker 2: to find a way forward. And I would hope that
Speaker 2: in the role that I'm going to shortly begin, that
Speaker 2: I might play some small part and facilitating that dialogue
Speaker 2: that is actually underpinning of a free society that we
Speaker 2: are so lucky to be living in.
Speaker 3: Want to quote you something. We need heroes, people who
Speaker 3: can inspire us, help shape us morally, spur us onto
Speaker 3: purposeful action, and from time to time were called on
Speaker 3: to be those heroes leaders for others, either it a
Speaker 3: small day to day weight or on the world's largest stage.
Speaker 3: At this time in America and in the rest of
Speaker 3: the world, we seem to need moral leadership especially, but
Speaker 3: the need for moral inspiration is ever present. Are you
Speaker 3: do you have hero in you?
Speaker 2: I would like to think so. And you know, this
Speaker 2: is going to be my last big at my last gig, Layton,
Speaker 2: and so I would certainly hope. So there's a huge
Speaker 2: hole that goes with trying to step into those roles.
Speaker 2: But if I look back, well, look, I'll take it
Speaker 2: to extremes On the one hand, I had a grandfather
Speaker 2: who fought because he was a working class Englishman every
Speaker 2: day from September nineteen thirty nine through to nineteen forty
Speaker 2: five for six years in the war, and he was
Speaker 2: a working class autodidact. But he had a picture of
Speaker 2: Churchill on his wall, and I I guess one of
Speaker 2: the great sadnesses I think in recent times is that
Speaker 2: the heroes that some of us have been inspired by,
Speaker 2: like Churchill, have been derided as part of the attempt to,
Speaker 2: I suppose, downplay the significance of significant figures like him.
Speaker 2: So I have these figures in my mind and I
Speaker 2: hope that they will give me the strength and the
Speaker 2: hooks part to actually do what is needed in this role.
Speaker 2: Because I think your quote is very apposite. I don't
Speaker 2: obviously see myself and see myself as being the sole
Speaker 2: player in that space. But if I could make even
Speaker 2: a small contribution to that kind of leadership in New Zealand,
Speaker 2: then I would feel that the role had been a success.
Speaker 2: And if I can help reduce suffering, constrain evil, offering
Speaker 2: encouragement to people, even in a small way on a
Speaker 2: day to day basis, while in this role, then I
Speaker 2: feel it will have been a success. What is evil, Well,
Speaker 2: we've seen evil. We don't. Actually, it's not an abstract question.
Speaker 2: We've seen evil later and as I said earlier, I've
Speaker 2: spent much in laid out life studying what happens with
Speaker 2: tyranny and oppression. And we might easily point to the
Speaker 2: Holocaust and the essentially the industrialized massacre of Jewish people,
Speaker 2: probably the greatest crime in human history. But then we
Speaker 2: might also look at the fact that the Soviets, so
Speaker 2: for example, my son's great grandfather was one of two
Speaker 2: million people shot during the Great Terror under Stalin from
Speaker 2: thirty seven to thirty nine in the Soviet Union. So
Speaker 2: we know what evil is. We've seen it in the
Speaker 2: twentieth century, and we need to be very vigilant about
Speaker 2: it civilized and I guess the view that I bring
Speaker 2: to this role is that civilization is very fragile and
Speaker 2: it's not something we should be taking for granted.
Speaker 3: So you'd agree with Reagan that freedom democracy is only
Speaker 3: one to think of the accuracy of it is only
Speaker 3: one generation separated from barbarity will do.
Speaker 2: Well if we look at the number of people living
Speaker 2: in free societies in the world, it's actually diminished in
Speaker 2: recent years. So I think that living in a free
Speaker 2: society and having the opportunity to express openly different views
Speaker 2: and different opinions, you know, I constantly think about the
Speaker 2: example of the Stazi in East Germany as recently as
Speaker 2: the late eighties, where one in four people was an
Speaker 2: informer for the Stasi, and if you said anything that
Speaker 2: wasn't a part of the greed party line, you know,
Speaker 2: you could well end up being incarcerated it or worse.
Speaker 2: So I think that we are incredibly blessed to live
Speaker 2: in a society where we're free to express our views,
Speaker 2: and we need to capitalize on that to resolve some
Speaker 2: of the real challenges that we face, and we need
Speaker 2: to be more aggressive and actually having those debates and
Speaker 2: those discussions to try and resolve some of the issues
Speaker 2: that we are facing.
Speaker 3: To wrap this portion of it up, maybe let me
Speaker 3: just go back to DEI diversity, equity and inclusion and
Speaker 3: the culture. Give me a brief opinion on your part of.
Speaker 2: It, I guess rather than explicitly addressing that, Layton, I
Speaker 2: would prefer to say that I think we need to
Speaker 2: be very mindful of and pay far greater attention to
Speaker 2: the values and views of the majority of people, the
Speaker 2: common sense that ordinary people bring to their lives, the
Speaker 2: fact that people in trades and skills have been considered
Speaker 2: to be, as a result of education policy over a
Speaker 2: long period, perhaps less worthy of listening to than people
Speaker 2: who are university graduates. I think there's a great wisdom
Speaker 2: and ordinary people, and I think we need to pay
Speaker 2: far greater attention to that. And what's happening in societies now,
Speaker 2: and I guess Britain would be an example, but possibly
Speaker 2: in other parts of Europe as well, is that there's
Speaker 2: a real backlash against the denigration of I guess the
Speaker 2: people that Hillary Clinton called the deplorables, and we actually
Speaker 2: do need to pay far more attention to ordinary people,
Speaker 2: the majority of people, the silent people, because at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, the society is made up of
Speaker 2: of a huge range of people, and we mustn't only
Speaker 2: think that there is one set of values and opinions
Speaker 2: which are acceptable.
Speaker 3: I'd suggest to you that you could spend your entire
Speaker 3: duration in this position when you uptake it on that
Speaker 3: particular front, without having time for anything else, such as
Speaker 3: the current situation.
Speaker 2: How about we actually take more time to tell stories
Speaker 2: in this country about what it means to be a
Speaker 2: New Zealander, about the stories of people with a Mildi
Speaker 2: Paki pacifica, refugees from Afghanistan, and actually start to tell
Speaker 2: these stories. And I know in places like Nelson they've
Speaker 2: set up cultural conversations to try and facilitate some of
Speaker 2: these discussions. Let's do more of that. Let's do more
Speaker 2: of talking with each other and discussing and working out
Speaker 2: what it is that we have in common, given that
Speaker 2: there are only five million of us on these septed
Speaker 2: aisles at the bottom of the world. World, Let's have
Speaker 2: more stories, Let's have more conversations, and let's listen not
Speaker 2: just to the to the the people who are more
Speaker 2: inclined to express their views, for example, on social media,
Speaker 2: but to actually listen to ordinary people going about their lives,
Speaker 2: struggling with lives, great life's great challenges, and pay more
Speaker 2: credence to the fundamental decency of New Zealanders and how
Speaker 2: we might celebrate that and what it is that we
Speaker 2: have in common.
Speaker 3: On that or off the back of that, do you
Speaker 3: consider that education is part of your flock?
Speaker 2: In a word, not directly but I think that when
Speaker 2: we look at the issues around the future of New
Speaker 2: Zealand and the need for dialogue and discussion and debate
Speaker 2: and research, then the universities have a critical role to play,
Speaker 2: and I'm quite fascinated by how that they might be
Speaker 2: better engaged in contributing to addressing some of the challenges
Speaker 2: that we face later. So no, it's not part of
Speaker 2: my brief but inasmuch as they have a role to
Speaker 2: play when it comes to us addressing issues and facilitating discussions,
Speaker 2: which is really what this is all about, then I
Speaker 2: would like to think that the universities had a role
Speaker 2: to play, and that I might engage with them about
Speaker 2: the contribution they could make to that objective.
Speaker 3: You know, we've got this. We've got this far, Stephen,
Speaker 3: and no one, no one, neither of us has mentioned
Speaker 3: the word speech, specifically free speech. Well, how do you
Speaker 3: define free speech? Are there limitations on it and what
Speaker 3: role does it have to play?
Speaker 2: Well, at the risk of giving a rather simplistic view,
Speaker 2: I think that free speech is the fundamental underpinning of
Speaker 2: a free society and that any compromises on it need
Speaker 2: to be extraordinarily well thought through and considered and so
Speaker 2: I would be very much a champion of free speech
Speaker 2: as the best way for society to discuss issues, to
Speaker 2: bring issues, even that we might find quite deplorable, out
Speaker 2: into the open, and to expose them to the sunlight,
Speaker 2: and to debate them and to question them and to
Speaker 2: challenge them for example. And I don't say I'm not
Speaker 2: saying this with any value judgment. I'm just saying that
Speaker 2: in response to recent events, I see Brian Tammocke, for example,
Speaker 2: has said some anti gay comments. I am a gay man.
Speaker 2: He is entirely entitled, in my opinion, to say those things.
Speaker 2: But then I will challenge him to debate them or
Speaker 2: not me personally. But although I could do, he needs
Speaker 2: to be challenged and these issues debated, and that is
Speaker 2: the way in which we will find the truth of
Speaker 2: the matter. So I think once you start to compromise
Speaker 2: free speech, you really start to chip away at one
Speaker 2: of the fundamental underpinnings of a free society. And as
Speaker 2: I have said repeatedly throughout this discussion, we are blessed
Speaker 2: and privileged to live in a free society. Every advantage
Speaker 2: that I have, for example, received as a gay man
Speaker 2: as a result of living in a free society with
Speaker 2: free speech, and I think any diminution of free speech
Speaker 2: needs to be extraordinarily carefully thought about.
Speaker 3: Do you think that there is a global struggle developed
Speaker 3: or developing over the erosion of free speech among countries
Speaker 3: that helped define help define this right.
Speaker 2: Well, I think there's a lot of things happening globally.
Speaker 2: I'm fascinated by what's happening globally, whether it be an Europe,
Speaker 2: whether it be in the States. And when I say globally,
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the free world. And I don't think
Speaker 2: that the trends are universal in any of those places.
Speaker 2: There's some competing trends, and I think they're utterly fascinating
Speaker 2: in terms of what's happening. So, for example, and again
Speaker 2: I need to emphasize, I'm saying this as someone who
Speaker 2: studied politics for forty years. I did my PhD actually
Speaker 2: on the emergence of green parties. Later, but in the
Speaker 2: last European elections, for example, young the first voters swung
Speaker 2: heavily to the right. So when we say that there
Speaker 2: are these battles going on, there's actually micro trends and
Speaker 2: or perhaps broader trends as well that seem quite generationally influenced,
Speaker 2: and I think therefore it's while it might be easy
Speaker 2: to say that there is a trend towards opposing free speech,
Speaker 2: that in fact there are other trends going on as well. Look,
Speaker 2: the reality is social media, as toxic as it can be,
Speaker 2: arguably provides the greatest level of free speech that any
Speaker 2: civilization and history has ever enjoyed. So we've got the
Speaker 2: democratization of speech through social media, for example. So there
Speaker 2: are a range of trends going on. I guess rather
Speaker 2: than saying that there is any one particular thing happening,
Speaker 2: I would come back to the fact that we have
Speaker 2: a duty, and particularly at the Human Rights Commission, to
Speaker 2: vigorously defend free speech because of the fact that that
Speaker 2: is so essential to addressing the issues and finding a
Speaker 2: way forward where there are competing views and interests on
Speaker 2: the critical issues that we are facing.
Speaker 3: I think most people think that free speech is the
Speaker 3: very foundation of freedom of liberty.
Speaker 2: I hope, I hope.
Speaker 3: So are you familiar with the satirist C. J. Hopkins.
Speaker 3: No American has lived in Germany for quite a number
Speaker 3: of years now, and satire is his main game. But
Speaker 3: he comments on all sorts of other things, and he
Speaker 3: substacks now and more recently, et cetera. But let me
Speaker 3: just say that in some circles he's very well known,
Speaker 3: other circles, not New Zealand being one of those latter circles.
Speaker 3: But he is going through at the moment a scenario
Speaker 3: that I'll describe to you as quickly as possible. In Germany,
Speaker 3: he was charged. He was charged with a crime for
Speaker 3: publishing a book that included a swastika on the cover.
Speaker 3: It was satire, and a couple of other I think
Speaker 3: social media comments that he made. He was charged with
Speaker 3: a serious crime. The details I don't have in front
Speaker 3: of me at the moment, but take my word for it.
Speaker 3: He was convicted in the in the lower court, and
Speaker 3: he won his appeal in the in the appeal court,
Speaker 3: and that was that. So he thought, he's now going
Speaker 3: through a second trial where they have they have charged
Speaker 3: him a second time, even though being found innocent the
Speaker 3: first time. In the end, and he's being he's being persecuted.
Speaker 3: And there are other examples of similar similar shall we say,
Speaker 3: usage of the swastika that have not been persecuted at all.
Speaker 3: So he's being he's being targeted by the by the
Speaker 3: by the German courts. Would you have any reaction to that?
Speaker 3: I mean, if they start in Germany, then where might
Speaker 3: it finish?
Speaker 2: Well, I think there's a reason why there would be
Speaker 2: a particular sensitivity towards the use of the swastika in Germany.
Speaker 2: Of course, Laighton, So I guess I manifested obvious the
Speaker 2: point though I would, without knowing anything about the details
Speaker 2: of that case, I would come back to the fact
Speaker 2: that the freedom to openly discuss these things. But look,
Speaker 2: this might seem to you as if I'm obfiscating, But
Speaker 2: I think of greater concern to me is the fact, well,
Speaker 2: let's just say, something which is of real concern to
Speaker 2: me is the fact that when young Americans, for example,
Speaker 2: and perhaps it would be no different here us, what
Speaker 2: is the Holocaust? Most have no idea. So this is
Speaker 2: what I think is a real issue. We have lost
Speaker 2: a sense of these critical historical atrocities and what their
Speaker 2: implications are now for the way in which society and
Speaker 2: its freedoms have evolved, not least of which is the
Speaker 2: Universal Declaration on Human Rights in nineteen forty eight. So
Speaker 2: we might focus on the court case that you're talking about.
Speaker 2: But I think perhaps the border issue is the loss
Speaker 2: of any historical knowledge about what the significance of that
Speaker 2: advance might be.
Speaker 3: I'll advance your statement. I'm aware of a young journalist
Speaker 3: in a newsroom in this country who asked that question,
Speaker 3: what what what? What's the what's the Holocaust? And that
Speaker 3: that only adds weight to what you're saying, of course,
Speaker 3: but why is it? So there's part of the education
Speaker 3: system that I could attach to your future.
Speaker 2: It's looking like a very fullsome future.
Speaker 3: I think. I think I'm wondering whether you actually realize
Speaker 3: what you've taken on. Look at this.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering that too.
Speaker 3: I do have to ask you this feel compulsed. I've
Speaker 3: going to quote you and then I'll tell you who
Speaker 3: made the comment. The US debt and money printing system
Speaker 3: is collapsing. The West is heading into an economic wasteland.
Speaker 3: The Middle East is on fire, Russia dominate Ukraine and
Speaker 3: NATO bricks is ending US hegemony and the fake rules
Speaker 3: based order US puppets are failing everywhere. Genocide, propaganda, censorship,
Speaker 3: and rigged elections are the new normal. Humanity is facing
Speaker 3: the abyss as World War III seems inevitable, and I
Speaker 3: won't play games with you because that would be unfair.
Speaker 3: It concludes. Oh, and the obedient US colony in the
Speaker 3: South Pacific just decided to extradite me for what users
Speaker 3: uploaded to mega Upload unsolicited and what copyright holders were
Speaker 3: able to remove with direct delete access instantly and without question.
Speaker 3: But who cares? That's justice these days? Would you consider
Speaker 3: that situation with kin dot com to be if you
Speaker 3: were currently in the position that you have been awarded,
Speaker 3: would you consider that to be part of your realm?
Speaker 2: The short answer is, on a very practical level, that
Speaker 2: immigration issues do come before the Human Rights Commission, and
Speaker 2: in all the talk about abstract ideas and concepts, there
Speaker 2: are My understanding is at least twelve hundred people last
Speaker 2: year who used the Commission services for addressing particular issues,
Speaker 2: and I think it's very important to stay focused on
Speaker 2: those because this is one of the critical services that
Speaker 2: the Commission provides. About twelve hundred. Of those of the
Speaker 2: twelve hundred, about one hundred and fifty I understand go
Speaker 2: to mediation, where one of our roles is quote unquote
Speaker 2: community peacekeeping, and so I think that we've got a
Speaker 2: big role to play in that space. I think the
Speaker 2: so immigration issues, yes do come before the Human Rights
Speaker 2: Commission number two. I just think when it comes to
Speaker 2: painting this very bleak picture of the future, that we
Speaker 2: also need to focus on some of the very positive
Speaker 2: things that have happened in that are happening and have
Speaker 2: happened in the world. It's not all bleak, and there
Speaker 2: are many extraordinary things happening, whether they are technological, whether
Speaker 2: they're to do with health, whether they're to do with
Speaker 2: the doubling of life expectancy in the last one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty years, whether to do with the fact that
Speaker 2: gay people can now lead a life in this country
Speaker 2: without any legal impediment whatsoever. We've made enormous progress, and
Speaker 2: there is enormous progress being made on many issues that
Speaker 2: we might choose to focus on rather than painting such
Speaker 2: a bleak picture of the future. What I do think
Speaker 2: we do need to do, and this is again reiterating
Speaker 2: what I hope has been a common theme, is that
Speaker 2: we need to rigorously defend the freedoms that we have.
Speaker 2: We need to be incredibly grateful and appreciative for the
Speaker 2: sacrifices that have led us to where we are now,
Speaker 2: and we need to recognize that human rights are fragile,
Speaker 2: and that civilization is fragile, and we need to vigorously defended.
Speaker 3: That was a very diplomatic and eloquent statement, and I
Speaker 3: find no fault with it. As somebody once said, I wonder, then,
Speaker 3: could you give me an example, give us an example
Speaker 3: of a freedom, a right that we are in short
Speaker 3: supply of, that has been diminished for us, that needs attention.
Speaker 2: Well, we get into in answering that, we get into
Speaker 2: the issue of defining what a human right is.
Speaker 3: But first of all, sorry, but first of all, can
Speaker 3: you remember there was a question asked of a would
Speaker 3: be judge what is a woman? Can you tell me
Speaker 3: what a woman is? My question to you is what
Speaker 3: is a human?
Speaker 2: Well, one of the interesting things about that is that
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence is going to bring that question into very
Speaker 2: stark relief later, which is why I mentioned it earlier
Speaker 2: as one of the enormous challenges for human rights going forward,
Speaker 2: because actually that seriously probably brings into very stark belief
Speaker 2: the fact that that that question is going to have
Speaker 2: a degree of significance now which it hasn't had for
Speaker 2: a long time. Unless we were to go into the
Speaker 2: spiritual realm. So that's an area that I think the
Speaker 2: Human Rights Commission needs to do a lot of working,
Speaker 2: and it is because of the impact of AI, and
Speaker 2: I think that's going to bring the answer to your
Speaker 2: question into very stark relief.
Speaker 3: Do you do you believe, as most people seem to,
Speaker 3: that that AI is something really serious, really really prominent
Speaker 3: or will be prominent. Yes, in our lives.
Speaker 2: Yes. If you read people like Uval Harari, arguably one
Speaker 2: of the more intelligent commentators on what's happening in the
Speaker 2: world today, he says that this is the number one
Speaker 2: challenge facing humanity now. He's also very clear about the
Speaker 2: fact that, you know, if we don't take control of
Speaker 2: our lives ie personal responsibility, that the algorithms will. And
Speaker 2: while that's not directly related to AI, I think it's
Speaker 2: also very opposite point that really, you know, we're in
Speaker 2: an age now with technology, whether it's AI or algorithms generally,
Speaker 2: where basic human rights and the way that we've lived
Speaker 2: to date are going to be under increasing challenge. Hence,
Speaker 2: I go back to my point consistently reiterated that civilization
Speaker 2: as fragile, we're going to be more and more easily manipulated,
Speaker 2: and we need to rigorously defend free speech and freedoms
Speaker 2: wherever we see them under attack.
Speaker 3: Which opens the door to about ten more different avenues
Speaker 3: that that I could undertake. I'm looking at a headline
Speaker 3: Pandemic Preparedness and the Road to International Fascism from the
Speaker 3: American Journal of Economics and Sociology. I think that's self explanatory.
Speaker 3: But there is a There is an attached headline New
Speaker 3: Zealand codifies forced injections in martial law pandemic plan I
Speaker 3: presume that you're familiar with that. Yes, I think that
Speaker 3: if there is, if there is an example of a
Speaker 3: diminished right, as we were discussing before, then that is
Speaker 3: probably it. A friend of mine who's an American living
Speaker 3: here texted me when that announcement came out very recently,
Speaker 3: and he was explicit in his objection to it and
Speaker 3: how he would deal with it, cope with it if
Speaker 3: it ever came to pass that he was being forced into,
Speaker 3: forced physically into an injection that he didn't want. Is
Speaker 3: that is that? Does that fall into your into your
Speaker 3: realm of areas that we need to protect because because
Speaker 3: it's been abused like crazy over the last few years.
Speaker 2: I have no doubt that there will be people looking
Speaker 2: to the Human Rights Commission if that situation occurs. I
Speaker 2: don't know enough about what is proposed to make any
Speaker 2: comment on that now, Laton, but what I would say
Speaker 2: is that I was reading something from Chris Finleyson, the
Speaker 2: former Attorney General recently, who talked about New Zealander's reaction
Speaker 2: to the lockdown and how we were all too ready
Speaker 2: to dB in a neighbor who stuck their head out. No,
Speaker 2: I can't remember the example he used, but there were
Speaker 2: certainly a lot of people reporting on their neighbors for
Speaker 2: what were perceived to be infringements of the lockdown and
Speaker 2: our willingness to do that. And I guess that highlighted
Speaker 2: for me yet again that while we're having all these
Speaker 2: abstract discussions that actually our individual behaviors, our individual responsibilities,
Speaker 2: are absolutely critical to whether or not we have a
Speaker 2: free society. Our willingness to dobbin people who are perceived
Speaker 2: to be perhaps infringing on those requirements was a concerning
Speaker 2: part of what we witnessed during the lockdown, as Christopher
Speaker 2: Finlayson was reporting it. So again, these issues have a
Speaker 2: lot of other implications which I think we need to
Speaker 2: take responsibility for. But in terms of what you're actually asking,
Speaker 2: I am no doubt that the Commission will be asked
Speaker 2: about this, and I am not informed enough about the
Speaker 2: full implications of this and what is planned to make
Speaker 2: any meaningful comment on it. Now.
Speaker 3: As a matter of interest, will you be pursuing that information.
Speaker 2: I think it's inevitable that the Commission will be asked
Speaker 2: and approached about this, and therefore I will need to
Speaker 2: get up to speed with this issue. And you know,
Speaker 2: I would reiterate I haven't actually taken up the role yet,
Speaker 2: but I would certainly imagine that this will be on
Speaker 2: the radar of the Commission.
Speaker 3: I can I just add a clip on that a
Speaker 3: precursor to what I've just said. Really, if we were
Speaker 3: starting from a different, a different angle, and that is
Speaker 3: that the the moves of recent times by the World
Speaker 3: Health Organization to formulate an international approach to this, there's
Speaker 3: been there has been much discussion about it, and if
Speaker 3: ever there was an example of the dangers of that,
Speaker 3: then this latest codification here, I would suggest, fits it
Speaker 3: slots into it and should and should should increase the
Speaker 3: concern that some people have and I don't need it.
Speaker 3: I don't need a response to that, really if you
Speaker 3: don't want, I just wanted to make the comment going
Speaker 3: back to the person thing, what is a human? This
Speaker 3: to me is something that I think is an area
Speaker 3: that is going to become increasingly important. I an Hersey
Speaker 3: Ali wrote, wrote a column yesterday. You know of whom
Speaker 3: I've speak. I won't even ask you wrote, wrote wrote
Speaker 3: a piece yesterday the abortion election, and I'm not going
Speaker 3: to go into it any any further than that. I
Speaker 3: just use it as a use it as a hook,
Speaker 3: because here's another one. California bill mandating pregnancy dignity for
Speaker 3: birthing persons passes Health committee, and you can see where
Speaker 3: I'm going with this. Add issue is Assembly Bill two
Speaker 3: three one nine, introduced by Democratic assembly Woman Laurie Wilson
Speaker 3: and sponsored by the California Attorney General Rob Mont, which
Speaker 3: says the legislature recognizes all both in people, including non
Speaker 3: binary persons and persons of transgender experience close quote. The
Speaker 3: bill additionally mandates implicit bias training for existing medical professionals
Speaker 3: by June one, twenty twenty five, and within six months
Speaker 3: of those opening new practices, the point being that the
Speaker 3: bill will allow abortion right up to the moment of birth,
Speaker 3: and some are pushing for it beyond birth. So you've
Speaker 3: got two aspects to it. One is the birthing person
Speaker 3: one the other is the human being given birth. In
Speaker 3: other words, sixty seconds before passing through the canal? Is
Speaker 3: that individual a human? I'm not doing this purposely to
Speaker 3: irritate you. I'm concerned with regard to definitions and where
Speaker 3: the future lies.
Speaker 2: And the thing that we might take from that later
Speaker 2: and is that this is a bill. Therefore, there is
Speaker 2: the opportunity with a bill for all sides of this
Speaker 2: discussion and this debate to be had, including contrary views,
Speaker 2: including supportive views, because we have institutions within our society
Speaker 2: that are designed specifically to facilitate that kind of dialogue
Speaker 2: and debate. Now that doesn't exist in totalitarian societies, and
Speaker 2: the fact that this bill will be vigorously debated, I
Speaker 2: have no doubt, is something that we should be heartened
Speaker 2: by because we actually have the opportunity to participate in
Speaker 2: next frawing issues like that with all their contention and
Speaker 2: all the divergent opinions. So you know whether it's courts,
Speaker 2: whether it's councils, whether it's parliament. We've got the vehicles
Speaker 2: in place to have those debates. Let's have those debates,
Speaker 2: because there is clearly, as you've just indicated with that example,
Speaker 2: there are movements pushing different agendas in the space. Let's
Speaker 2: celebrate the fact we've got the institutions to explore those
Speaker 2: in detail, to hear the divergent views, and to make
Speaker 2: decisions without what's traditionally been the case, which is the
Speaker 2: use of thuggery or tyranny to resolve these kinds of issues.
Speaker 3: I've got to add the California is a one party state,
Speaker 3: but the running vice presidential candidates for the Democratic Party
Speaker 3: in America is the governor of a state, and his
Speaker 3: state has already introduced it. I leave that with you
Speaker 3: for your consideration, because again I think I said mentioned
Speaker 3: something like this earlier. We've both watched developments, especially in
Speaker 3: a progressive environment like some of America is, and that's
Speaker 3: where things start and they seem to spread fairly quickly
Speaker 3: over a period of time. But I do want to
Speaker 3: ask you that re ask you the question, though, in
Speaker 3: your opinion, is a baby that's about is a fetus.
Speaker 3: It's not a fetus anymore. Is it a human? Does
Speaker 3: it fall into the category of human rights that that
Speaker 3: child be born?
Speaker 2: Layton. I'm actually heading to the States shortly to observe
Speaker 2: the American elections, and I'll be in California with my
Speaker 2: daughter who lives in LA and so I'm going to
Speaker 2: be exposed firsthand to some of these debates. I guess
Speaker 2: that it highlights the fact that, you know, it's been
Speaker 2: called the culture wars, call up what you will. We've
Speaker 2: got these real contentious issues going on, and we've got
Speaker 2: a variety of viewpoints on them, and we don't have
Speaker 2: you talk about California as a one party state, but really,
Speaker 2: you know, compared to one party states like the Soviet
Speaker 2: block up until nineteen eighty nine or any other or
Speaker 2: what's happening in Afghanistan at the moment, we actually still
Speaker 2: have democratic debate and discussion. And I have no doubt
Speaker 2: that the American election is going to be a graphical
Speaker 2: illustration of how those competing views are going to be
Speaker 2: tested out in the electoral arena, with everybody able to
Speaker 2: have their say. And that's what we should be celebrating.
Speaker 2: And I'm looking forward to observing that firsthand when I
Speaker 2: head to observe the US elections later on the air.
Speaker 3: I was going to go, and I may still go,
Speaker 3: but at the moment I'm not going.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 3: Let us conclude with one short paragraph and a quick
Speaker 3: reaction from you. Equality is in bad odor on the
Speaker 3: right these days. This is hardly new. Traditionalists have always
Speaker 3: had suspicions about America's theoretical foundation in equal natural rights,
Speaker 3: although the feeling has become more widespread in recent years
Speaker 3: as the cancer of diversity, equity, and inclusion seeps into
Speaker 3: every organ of American society. The reigning ideology of the
Speaker 3: ruling class contends that we are born unequal, either victims
Speaker 3: or oppressors, and it is the duty of our scientifically
Speaker 3: trained experts to correct this injustice by making us, at
Speaker 3: their emphasis, making us all equal. Final comment, I.
Speaker 2: Am so grateful to be living in a society where
Speaker 2: we can even have these kinds of discussions, and we
Speaker 2: can have different views on them late And that's what
Speaker 2: I really am grateful for, because for much of humanity
Speaker 2: that's still not the case, and for much of human
Speaker 2: history it hasn't been the case. For the vast majority
Speaker 2: of people. So look, honestly, we've got huge challenge ahead
Speaker 2: of us, and I look forward to playing some small
Speaker 2: role at the Human Rights Commission to making sure that
Speaker 2: these issues are debated and that we maintain that freedom
Speaker 2: of speech which is so essential to reaching the truth
Speaker 2: and as much as we can on these matters.
Speaker 3: Well, I look forward to you putting a headlock on
Speaker 3: the universities in that regard the Human Rights new Chief Commissioner,
Speaker 3: Stephen Rainbow. It's been a great pleasure talking with you,
Speaker 3: and I will be very intrigued at the reaction that
Speaker 3: we get, or that I get in particular. Thank you
Speaker 3: so much for your time, and may it not be
Speaker 3: the last.
Speaker 2: It's been a pleasure, latent, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Light and Smith, missus producer. Welcome to the mail room
Speaker 3: for podcast two hundred and fifty.
Speaker 4: Two late and how are you very well?
Speaker 3: I just I have to share with you something. I
Speaker 3: was just lying in the sun in the back room
Speaker 3: for ten minutes with my eyes closed and it was sinsational.
Speaker 4: I did I tell you last week that I was
Speaker 4: sitting out the back reading a book and literally had
Speaker 4: to come in. I think I mentioned this last week.
Speaker 4: So we're so starved for sunshine and this time of
Speaker 4: the year, aren't we But it's been fantastic winter. The
Speaker 4: long on the short of that was that I actually
Speaker 4: had to come in it was too hot. Exactly lovely,
Speaker 4: we love the sunshine. Let me start late in Jin says,
Speaker 4: I waited ages for this, so I was overjoyed when
Speaker 4: I realized you were interviewing Professor Robert McCulloch. He is
Speaker 4: especially good at turning the spotlight on the bad politicians.
Speaker 4: In your podcast alone, he exposed utterly crap policies from
Speaker 4: Jasinder r Dern, who granted a monopoly to the supermarket
Speaker 4: duopoly during COVID, Adrian Or's engineering of three recessions, and
Speaker 4: grant Robertson and Michael Baker's totalitarian COVID policies which resulted
Speaker 4: in none of the promised good health outcomes nor good
Speaker 4: economic outcomes. In fact, on roberts Down to Earth Kiwi blog,
Speaker 4: he recently exposed Helen Clark and Jacinder r Dern's hand
Speaker 4: in wrecking New Zealand's health system. I quote former pms
Speaker 4: Helen Clark and Jacinder ar Durn should come clean about
Speaker 4: how they were the chief architects of the omni shambles
Speaker 4: that has become our health system. Health New Zealand has
Speaker 4: succeeded only at being a large scale disaster. What seconds me,
Speaker 4: he says, says Jin is that every single one of
Speaker 4: these names mentioned continue to be rewarded for their failures.
Speaker 4: In fact, our durn is off to the Democratic National
Speaker 4: Convention to support compulsive liar and impostor KRMLA Harris.
Speaker 3: Look, you're going to be right at home.
Speaker 4: Birds of bad feather flocked together, so we need bird
Speaker 4: hunters like Robert McCulloch to take aim at them and
Speaker 4: remind people of the harm they have done to New
Speaker 4: Zealand society. People like him, Des Gorman and Elizabeth Rater
Speaker 4: give me hope that the University of Auckland has not
Speaker 4: completely gone to the dogs. Thanks so much for getting
Speaker 4: Robert on your podcast. He was so easy to listen to.
Speaker 4: I think I'm actually going to listen to podcast two
Speaker 4: fifty one again.
Speaker 3: Well, there is more of the same that's been and
Speaker 3: is coming. I've promoted this letter to the top of
Speaker 3: my grouping based on what you were just based on
Speaker 3: what you were just reading, because it's touches on similar things,
Speaker 3: but it comes with a different approach. High Layton, I
Speaker 3: feel obliged to point out a delusion shared by you both.
Speaker 3: When he says shared by you both, I refer to
Speaker 3: the subject line at the top of the email Latest
Speaker 3: podcasts with Robert McCulloch. So I repeat, I feel obliged
Speaker 3: to point out a delusion shared by you both. In
Speaker 3: talking about our abysmal productivity. You both rubbished the efforts
Speaker 3: of Descinda and Robertson to introduce modern socialist methods to
Speaker 3: run the country. Surely, surely you should acknowledge the facts
Speaker 3: of history. To run a country on laissez faire capitalist
Speaker 3: principles is an invitation to chaos. The lessons of recovery
Speaker 3: from the Great capitalist Depression of the nineteen thirties, whereby
Speaker 3: the US President Roosevelt reorganized the US economy along centrally
Speaker 3: planned socialist as far as he was politically able lines,
Speaker 3: or the lessons of post World War II in Britain
Speaker 3: by the Attlee government, whereby the vast industries were nationalized
Speaker 3: and put under expert direction with profit motives removed, or
Speaker 3: on an even greater scale, where Stalin and later Mao
Speaker 3: lifted their previously primitive economies up by their bootstraps. Is
Speaker 3: set against these historical realities. How could you both bang
Speaker 3: on about New Zealand's poor productivity and that more ad
Speaker 3: hoc capitalism might save the day. Surely we must plan
Speaker 3: at the highest political level to get rid of profit
Speaker 3: and lead our people to a brighter, fairer future. Okay,
Speaker 3: I acknowledge a few costs. Getting rid of the fat
Speaker 3: cats is a small issue. And yes, as the peasants
Speaker 3: of the old USSR and the People's Republic of China
Speaker 3: might acknowledge the few millions who starved to death. But
Speaker 3: after all, you can't make an omelet without breaking a
Speaker 3: few shells. Viva the Revolution, comrades bring back to sender
Speaker 3: only she will be able to explain by imprisoning the
Speaker 3: wealthy and starving the peasants is really an act of
Speaker 3: great kindness. I hope you accept this gentle economic lesson regards.
Speaker 3: Great podcast, by the way, Robert, I love a good
Speaker 3: piece of satire.
Speaker 4: That's cute, Leighton Dave says, I know you support the
Speaker 4: efforts of the Taxpayer Union, as do I. I particularly
Speaker 4: enjoyed your recent podcast with Jordan Williams. It is likely, therefore,
Speaker 4: that you have seen their recent Taxpayers Union articles, which
Speaker 4: highlight the utter nonsense which is contained in the description
Speaker 4: of many of the so called research projects funded by
Speaker 4: the Marsden Fund, an organization which seems to be overwhelmed
Speaker 4: by its own importance and which splurges millions of dollars
Speaker 4: annually on grants to projects whose applications are so full
Speaker 4: of incomprehensible, woke rubbish at beggars belief. In two recent
Speaker 4: emails to my local MP and a couple of government ministers,
Speaker 4: I have asked who assessors the worth of these projects
Speaker 4: and approves the fund, and who, if anybody, checks that
Speaker 4: the research has produced any meaningful result that can be
Speaker 4: used for any meaningful purpose. I've had no reply and
Speaker 4: don't really expect to get one. Perhaps this is something
Speaker 4: you might like to mention in your podcast, So there
Speaker 4: we've mentioned it, Daveyi. The latest Taxpayers Union article can
Speaker 4: be found at Taxpayers dot or. I have become an
Speaker 4: avid listener, and while I may skip some of the
Speaker 4: American commentators, I enjoy those who speak on matters close
Speaker 4: to home. Robert McCulloch was great. I hope you have
Speaker 4: one again in the future. Keep up the good work, Dave.
Speaker 3: Dave, I'm interested in your comment about the American commentators
Speaker 3: because I've had two letters sort of along similar lines
Speaker 3: in the last week. I think another one might have
Speaker 3: been two weeks ago, or maybe a year ago. I
Speaker 3: can't remember. There's not many of them, but I'm interested
Speaker 3: to know why you feel that way, because I will
Speaker 3: take it on as a personal ambition to change your mind.
Speaker 3: Oh it's my turn.
Speaker 4: I was busy rolling my eyes.
Speaker 3: Sorry, got to be careful with this, but it was
Speaker 3: forwarded to me by Brian Leyland from a friend of his.
Speaker 3: He says it was catching up on my Layton Smith
Speaker 3: podcast while driving today and had the pleasure of being
Speaker 3: surprised by your recent peace on the show was very good.
Speaker 3: I thought was great to hear the piece about the
Speaker 3: market structure brought up again, as that does not get
Speaker 3: mentioned too often, and the discussion about the market not
Speaker 3: being a real market in elasticity, etc. Also some enjoyable
Speaker 3: comments about general intelligence levels and lack of understanding about
Speaker 3: how it all works, shared by yourself and Layton. Hope
Speaker 3: all is well. And then there's a personal comment which
Speaker 3: I'll leave out and I won't name him. I just
Speaker 3: thought i'd throw that in because Brian said it to me,
Speaker 3: so fair game, Layton.
Speaker 4: Chris is writing from Australia actually in the act camera
Speaker 4: and he says, after hearing from Brian Leyland in podcast
Speaker 4: two fifty, that the retail price of electricity in New
Speaker 4: Zealand is thirty cents a killer?
Speaker 2: What hour?
Speaker 4: I went to my latest power bill to see what
Speaker 4: we pay in the act we have three different rates.
Speaker 4: Peak usage of thirty seven point five cents, shoulder usage
Speaker 4: of twenty six cents, and off peak usage of twenty
Speaker 4: three twenty three point one cents per killer? What our
Speaker 4: shoulder usage of twenty six cents and off peak usage
Speaker 4: of twenty three point one cents per killer?
Speaker 1: What hour?
Speaker 4: Which averages out to about twenty nine cents per killer?
Speaker 2: What hour?
Speaker 4: Not much different to the thirty cents In New Zealand.
Speaker 4: Before the most recent increase in the tariffs, we were
Speaker 4: paying an average for about twenty five cents per killer?
Speaker 2: What hour?
Speaker 4: That's from Chris.
Speaker 3: Okay, from Tim, I've just listened to your excellent episode
Speaker 3: of August fourteen. Your guest was excellent and it was
Speaker 3: so refreshing to hear an academic pushing back against the
Speaker 3: woke nonsense of Saint Dame Jacinda Hipkins Robinson and their
Speaker 3: partners in crime from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: Your episode should be compulsory listening for all fifth, six
Speaker 3: and seventh form us. Isn't it lovely to see that
Speaker 3: the Sainted One is sharing her wisdom and knowledge with
Speaker 3: the Democrats their convention this week, Kamala and whilst her
Speaker 3: bizarre choice of running mate will benefit from her depth
Speaker 3: of expertise in socialism aka progressivism. God save us from
Speaker 3: the legacy media and their cheerleading and truth telling. After all,
Speaker 3: the legacy media are never purveyors of misinformation. I should
Speaker 3: bread that again with a different tone. I think below,
Speaker 3: for your entertainment is an excellent article on the climate
Speaker 3: emergency hoax from the Daily Skeptic, all of and I
Speaker 3: look forward to to this week's podcast. Interestingly enough, I
Speaker 3: had that piece out for use elsewhere and didn't get
Speaker 3: round to it.
Speaker 4: So Laton, this is from Vincent and we've just had
Speaker 4: an argument because I swear that I read this last week.
Speaker 4: Laden you say no, I can't have done. Because the
Speaker 4: date is the fifteenth of August, which is after last
Speaker 4: week's podcast, but it just goes to remind us, sort
Speaker 4: of proves it kind of reminds us, isn't it because
Speaker 4: we read these a few days in advance, or read
Speaker 4: them to each other as they come in and talk
Speaker 4: about them. So, folks, if ever you hear one redone
Speaker 4: one week, it's because we simply can't remember what we've done.
Speaker 3: And you're lucky and if you've missed one, then you get.
Speaker 4: To hear it twice.
Speaker 3: How good is that?
Speaker 4: So forgive me. I'm pretty sure. Layton tells me we
Speaker 4: haven't read this, but Vincent, thank you for your email.
Speaker 4: He says, this is just to let you know that
Speaker 4: as I sit in a rooftop Paul here in Bermuda,
Speaker 4: that's what reminded me that i'd read it before. Contending
Speaker 4: with the over thirty degree temperatures, your podcast sounds as
Speaker 4: amazing and as informative as it does anywhere on the globe.
Speaker 4: Last week it worked in Marseille too. Your podcast also
Speaker 4: works brilliantly at thirty thousand feet when traveling long haul,
Speaker 4: as the topics and guests translate perfectly. No need for
Speaker 4: airline movies and TV shows when you can pre download
Speaker 4: your own favorite podcasts and listen at your leisure anyway.
Speaker 4: I'll be listening in a couple of weeks time to
Speaker 4: your latest edition as I mow the lawn on my
Speaker 4: return to Auckland. Congratulations on the fifty years. We value
Speaker 4: and depreciate your hard work. And then Vincent says, missus producers,
Speaker 4: obvious support and encouragement. Please keep up the great work.
Speaker 4: As I've said before, Vincent, he does it all himself.
Speaker 4: I'm just here to make cups.
Speaker 2: Of tea, not.
Speaker 3: I used to do it for Even in the studio
Speaker 3: he does.
Speaker 4: He's the team maker.
Speaker 3: Well, I learned from the best.
Speaker 4: Thanks oh Meryll.
Speaker 3: Yes, now from Harrison. This is a little long, but
Speaker 3: I'm going to read it anyway. I want to share
Speaker 3: an experience that I had recently after deciding to return
Speaker 3: to university after a thirty year hiatus. So I enrolled
Speaker 3: at my local university with the intention of exploring some
Speaker 3: further education in the hope of generating an opportunity for
Speaker 3: another career before I can no longer work. After experiencing
Speaker 3: the initial culture shock and realizing that I was probably
Speaker 3: the oldest guy in the lecture theater, I commenced my
Speaker 3: re education well. The first lecture was introduced by a professor,
Speaker 3: supported by the use of a visual presentation screen. The
Speaker 3: professor went on to state that she was a Socialist
Speaker 3: and further added that her father had been a great
Speaker 3: admirer of Lenham. The lecture screen includes a picture of
Speaker 3: the Russian Marxist of Vladimir Lenin, who was responsible for
Speaker 3: the deaths of millions of Russians. Was that one earlier, Robert, Robert,
Speaker 3: are you listening? I looked around the theater, seeing one
Speaker 3: hundred or so students intently absorbed in the Lesson The
Speaker 3: following day, I attended another lecture, this time on a
Speaker 3: different subject, specializing in psychology and its connection to our
Speaker 3: criminal justice system. Early into the lecture I realized that
Speaker 3: the underlying theme of this education was underpinned by the
Speaker 3: premise that our colonial passed a New Zealand disregard for
Speaker 3: mary customary law were the reasons why mary were overrepresented
Speaker 3: in our criminal justice system. This view was later reinforced
Speaker 3: by the coarse reading material. Without a doubt, I believe
Speaker 3: any counter argument in any reading assessment would have guaranteed
Speaker 3: a failing grade. Anyway, on to another lecture, this time psychology,
Speaker 3: where such as cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and echo chambers
Speaker 3: were banded around, before moving on to gender based education,
Speaker 3: where one professor even suggested that male and female babies
Speaker 3: are born with exactly the same brain and that masculine
Speaker 3: and feminine differentiation is a social construct anyway it goes
Speaker 3: on all these experience, it is a he isn't it, Harrison,
Speaker 3: I haven't made a mistake. All of these experiences began
Speaker 3: to make me feel like an insurgent, a heretic who
Speaker 3: had to watch his every thought and guard his every
Speaker 3: opinion in an upside down world where left is right
Speaker 3: and up is down. I felt that my common sense
Speaker 3: and intuition were under assault. I can see without a
Speaker 3: shadow of a doubt what this institution is all about.
Speaker 3: It peddles in doctrination. It is an institution at the
Speaker 3: center of society's drive toward collectivism or in other words, communism.
Speaker 3: I lasted two weeks at my local university. I came
Speaker 3: away deeply saddened by all the young people being exposed
Speaker 3: to this indoctrination and a social ideology. I came away
Speaker 3: feeling that New Zealand doesn't have a chance. But then
Speaker 3: last night I watched the film Beneath Sheep's Clothing, a
Speaker 3: documentary that explores the Commonist's takeover through educational indoctrination in
Speaker 3: the former Soviet Union. Add its comparison to woke ideology
Speaker 3: taught in our schools. It is very good and anyone
Speaker 3: who cares about freedom needs to watch it. In fact,
Speaker 3: pushing back against communism is an excellent career option, and
Speaker 3: we have work to do. Also, your podcast is excellent,
Speaker 3: so please keep doing what you're both doing. I have
Speaker 3: to say that I have already adopted that career, Harrison.
Speaker 3: I have already adopted that career, as you may have noticed,
Speaker 3: and it's intensifying, missus producer.
Speaker 4: See you next week, lovely, Thanks Layton.
Speaker 3: Now it seems it's never ending. But another little example
Speaker 3: of the war on free speech, this time from the EU,
Speaker 3: and I quote. The latest salvo in the ongoing battle
Speaker 3: between Elon Musk and the European Union came courtesy of
Speaker 3: the X owner. He revealed that in a run up
Speaker 3: to the European elections, X was offered quote an illegal
Speaker 3: secret deal if the platform would agree to secretly censoring
Speaker 3: online speech then the European Commission would not find it
Speaker 3: for violations of its new online content moderation law, the
Speaker 3: Digital Services Act. X refused to cooperate, but all the
Speaker 3: other major platforms accepted the deal, so confirming that the
Speaker 3: world is full of corruption and hypocrisy. So back to
Speaker 3: the University of Auckland's media release, does climate reporting make
Speaker 3: a difference? You may as well ask I think does
Speaker 3: the nightly weather report change the weather? Just a thought anyway,
Speaker 3: what I wanted to include because it deals with this
Speaker 3: issue particularly appropriately, why corporate retreats from social activism is
Speaker 3: good for everyone. In January, Axious reported axius is, a
Speaker 3: news organization of sorts, reported a developing trend in corporate America.
Speaker 3: Corporations across the United States were backing away from DEI diversity,
Speaker 3: equity and inclusion. And by the way, that's what they're
Speaker 3: calling Kamala Harris at the moment the DEI candidate. Actually
Speaker 3: that goes back to the twenty twenty election. She was
Speaker 3: the DEI candidate and then she was the DEI vice president.
Speaker 3: Now she might very well be well now she won't
Speaker 3: in fact, but she could be the DEI president. Anyway,
Speaker 3: Where was I. In January, Axios reported a developing trend
Speaker 3: in Corporate America. Corporations across the United States were backing
Speaker 3: away from DEI, which had become a minefield for companies
Speaker 3: following a multi year boom in diversity, equity and inclusion
Speaker 3: space following the death in twenty twenty of George Floyd.
Speaker 3: Corporations were pulling back on DEI initiatives. The risks were
Speaker 3: too great, especially in what was expected to be a
Speaker 3: politically charged election season amid growing attacks from conservatives targeting
Speaker 3: woke corporations, of which there are many. Axius wasn't wrong
Speaker 3: about the trend, which has only picked up steam this summer,
Speaker 3: so here's some examples. In July, John Deere announced that
Speaker 3: it was stepping away from DEI efforts and would cease
Speaker 3: sponsoring social or cultural awareness events. The announcement came a
Speaker 3: week after Business Insight reported that Microsoft had laid off
Speaker 3: its entire DEITAM. Microsoft's action, in turn, had come just
Speaker 3: weeks after Tractor Supply, a Brentwood, Tennessee based company, decided
Speaker 3: to pull the plug on its social activism efforts in
Speaker 3: the face of a social media campaign targeting the company.
Speaker 3: The backlash against DEI has been so intense that the
Speaker 3: term itself appears to be going the way of the DODO.
Speaker 3: The Society for Human Resource Management recently announced it was
Speaker 3: ditching the word equity from its acronym. DEI is just
Speaker 3: one form of corporate social activism, which comes in various
Speaker 3: forms and includes its cousin environmental social and governance ESG.
Speaker 3: Both ideas fall under, to some degree, corporate social responsibility,
Speaker 3: known as CSR, the idea that corporations have a duty
Speaker 3: to take social and environmental actions into consideration in their
Speaker 3: business models. Now, if you're wondering why Burger King has
Speaker 3: commercials on climate change and cowfarts, and why bud Light's
Speaker 3: commercials went from featuring Rodney Dangerfield and Bob Uker I
Speaker 3: don't know his name, Bob Buker to transactivist Dylan mulvaney,
Speaker 3: it's because of CSR. Corporate social responsibility, the idea that
Speaker 3: corporation should fight for social causes, has skyrocketed in recent
Speaker 3: years in such to such an extent that activism is
Speaker 3: inhibiting companies in their primary mission. Well, who would have
Speaker 3: guessed generating profits by serving customers. Bud Light's decision to feature.
Speaker 3: I'm picking from this article as it's fairly lengthy. Bud
Speaker 3: Light's decision to feature mulvaney costs them an estimated one
Speaker 3: point four billion dollars in sales, and it revealed the
Speaker 3: danger of corporation's leaning into social activism, particularly campaigns and
Speaker 3: policies that alienate their own customer bases. I'm not alone.
Speaker 3: I know every one of you would have thought the
Speaker 3: same thing when you saw because we all saw them.
Speaker 3: When we saw that idiotic ad with that idiotic individual,
Speaker 3: you just knew it was going to blow the company apart. Anyway.
Speaker 3: Not long ago, companies like Chick fil A faced backlash
Speaker 3: from progressive activists for progressive activists you know of the
Speaker 3: adernkind for supporting traditional marriage. Culture war advocates on the
Speaker 3: right have responded in similar fashion. Conservative influences have made
Speaker 3: a point in raising awareness around woke corporate initiatives, white
Speaker 3: privilege campaigns, climate change goals, LGBTQ events. The most successful ones,
Speaker 3: such as Robbie Starbuck, who pioneered the campaign against Tractor
Speaker 3: Supply and John Deere, made a point targeting corporations with
Speaker 3: conservative consumer bases. Starbuck recently told The Wall Street journal.
Speaker 3: If I started a boycott against Starbucks now I know
Speaker 3: it wouldn't get anywhere near the same result. One can
Speaker 3: support Robbie Starbucks's tactics or oppose them. What's clear is
Speaker 3: that corporations increasingly face risks for participating in social activism campaigns,
Speaker 3: and the threats now come from both sides of the
Speaker 3: political aisle CSR Corporate social responsibility can help business reach
Speaker 3: the goals of social justice and economic prosperity by creating
Speaker 3: welfare for a broad range of social groups beyond the
Speaker 3: corporations and their shareholders. He wrote, this is a version
Speaker 3: of stakeholder capitalism, an idea that says corporations must look
Speaker 3: beyond serving customers to generate the profits for shareholders. Various
Speaker 3: other stakeholders must be considered. No, they mustn't, and it's already,
Speaker 3: as we're discovered, proving to be a huge failure. I
Speaker 3: remember there was in New Zealand there was a situation
Speaker 3: where something that was happening in the north of the
Speaker 3: North Island from memory, got interfered with, if your pardon
Speaker 3: the expression, got interfeed with by so called stakeholders in
Speaker 3: the bottom of the South Island who had no investment
Speaker 3: in the operation whatsoever. Other than this sort of attitude
Speaker 3: gave them permission to be troublesome. Over time, other incantations
Speaker 3: of stakeholder capitalism emerged, including ESG, which stemmed directly from
Speaker 3: a two thousand and four report Who Cares Wins spearheaded
Speaker 3: by the United Nations Asset Management Groups and Banks. Its
Speaker 3: purpose was to develop guidelines and recommendations on how to
Speaker 3: better integrate environmental, social, and corporate governance issues in asset management, securities,
Speaker 3: brokeraage services, and associated research functions. These guidelines and recommendations
Speaker 3: eventually morphed into a global ESG framework which graded publicly
Speaker 3: traded companies on social responsibility. Now, while corporations are free
Speaker 3: to inject values into the workplace and support social and
Speaker 3: religious programs, they have no societal responsibility to do so.
Speaker 3: In fact, there are compelling reasons why they should not
Speaker 3: be doing so. The Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman
Speaker 3: wrote what he is perhaps the most famous rebuttal to
Speaker 3: CSR in a nineteen seventy New York Times article titled
Speaker 3: a Freedman Doctrine. The social responsibility of business is to
Speaker 3: increase its profits. Freedman accused champions of CSR of preaching
Speaker 3: pure and unadulterated socialism and being puppets of the intellectual
Speaker 3: forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society,
Speaker 3: Which would probably be an appropriate place to terminate this.
Speaker 3: But I shan't Freedman understood the corporations do not have
Speaker 3: a social responsibility or a religious one beyond serving their
Speaker 3: consumers and generating profits. This is their raison deetre at
Speaker 3: how they best serve society. They don't have a responsibility
Speaker 3: to spread religion, order champion diversity, or to stop climate change,
Speaker 3: or to promote equity. These values might be good, might
Speaker 3: be good, but it's not the responsibility of corporations to
Speaker 3: promote them. This is the most famous element of Freedman.
Speaker 3: Of the Freedman doctrine writes the order, but I don't
Speaker 3: think it's the most important one. The most important line
Speaker 3: is Friedman's warning on the dangers of straying from this model,
Speaker 3: which he makes at the beginning of the same paragraph.
Speaker 3: The doctrine of social responsibility, taken seriously, would extend the
Speaker 3: scope of the political mechanism to every human activity. It
Speaker 3: does not differ in philosophy from the most explicitly collective doctrine.
Speaker 3: It differs only by professing to believe that collectivist ends
Speaker 3: can be attained without collectivist means. This is the true
Speaker 3: danger of CSR stakeholder capitalism, or any of the alphabet
Speaker 3: soup acronyms that seek to replace capitalism with collectivist systems
Speaker 3: that seek to undermine the rights of property owners. Its
Speaker 3: risks extending politics into our private lives beyond its proper scope.
Speaker 3: One of the hallmarks of a totalitarian society is that
Speaker 3: public and private leavers of power are utilized to enforce
Speaker 3: adherents to state dogmas, and Freedman was not the first
Speaker 3: to recognize the potential dangers of corporate social activism, and
Speaker 3: that shall do us. I think the article is extremely good,
Speaker 3: extremely timely, and valid to hang on to, better to
Speaker 3: put up in corporate boardrooms, and if you need to
Speaker 3: know where it comes from, here are the details. The
Speaker 3: author John Miltamore m I L T I m o ire.
Speaker 3: He is the managing editor of pe dot org f
Speaker 3: W and a senior writer at ai e R, the
Speaker 3: American Institute of Economic Research. His writing and reporting has
Speaker 3: been the subject of articles in Time Magazine, The Wall
Speaker 3: Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.
Speaker 3: If you want to hang it on your corporate wall,
Speaker 3: that's how you will find it, Leighton Smith. That will
Speaker 3: take us out for podcast two five two do not forget.
Speaker 3: Please that if you'd like to correspond, and we love
Speaker 3: your correspondence, the pithia the better when appropriate Layton at
Speaker 3: newstalksib dot co dot mz or Carolyn at newstalksib dot
Speaker 3: co dot mz. We shall return shortly with podcast number
Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty three in the meantime, As always,
Speaker 3: thank you for listening and we shall talk soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you for more from News Talks at b Listen
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