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Speaker 1: The government's decided to give unis a bit of a

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Speaker 1: hand sorting out their free speech guidelines. A law will

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Speaker 1: be passed forcing the unis to adopt a freedom of

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Speaker 1: speech statement and then also banning them from taking any

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Speaker 1: positions on issues unrelated to their core functions, like the

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Speaker 1: war in Gaza, for example. With US now as former

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Speaker 1: Victoria University Dean and New Zealand Initiative Senior Fellow Michael Johnston, Heymichael.

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Speaker 2: Good morning.

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Speaker 1: Aren't they already legally supposed to do this because of

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Speaker 1: the Education Act and the Bill of Rights?

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Speaker 2: Yes, they are. The Education and Training Act certainly makes

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Speaker 2: very clear their obligations to provide a venue for academics

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Speaker 2: and students to freely discuss ideas and challenge controversial ideas

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Speaker 2: and so on, and the Human Rights Act guarantees freedom

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Speaker 2: of speech. The problem is that if they don't uphold

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Speaker 2: those obligations, then academics and students have very little recourse.

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Speaker 2: They can go to court or perhaps the Human Rights Tribunal,

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Speaker 2: but those time consuming exercises and onerous and in the

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Speaker 2: case of the court's expensive, So they need a bit

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Speaker 2: of help.

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Speaker 1: So how does this law change it? Does it give

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Speaker 1: them a course.

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Speaker 2: Well, one of the stipulations is that there needs to

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Speaker 2: be a robust complaints procedure, So yes, it really would

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Speaker 2: help with that.

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Speaker 1: How do you feel about this? I mean, in an

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Speaker 1: ideal world, you want them to sort of get to

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Speaker 1: the point where they realize how important free speeches of

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Speaker 1: their own ecoio.

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Speaker 2: Well, an ideal world for sure, and in fact, in

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Speaker 2: the past it's been a lot better. I've been around

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Speaker 2: university is a very long time. My father was an

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Speaker 2: academic and I remember an environment that was very different

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Speaker 2: to the current one. So the culture is the root

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Speaker 2: problem in universities, and in particular that the culture in

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Speaker 2: the university management.

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Speaker 1: Now. The problem is if you're forcing it on them

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Speaker 1: rather than them voluntarily and through their own intelligence realizing

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Speaker 1: how important free speeches, then aren't they just going to

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Speaker 1: find other ways to get around it and do what

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Speaker 1: they want anyway, like citing health and safety.

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Speaker 2: As a risk of that for sure, And this is

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Speaker 2: not a silver bullet to solve the cultural problem, but

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Speaker 2: I do think that it's necessary and hopefully it will

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Speaker 2: shake them up enough to instigate a culture change. Now

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Speaker 2: that will take time. Cultures don't change overnight and certainly.

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Speaker 2: I would say that the problems on campuses are in

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Speaker 2: part a result of a political bias pretty strongly to

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Speaker 2: the left, and there's a lack of viewpoint diversity amongst

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Speaker 2: staff as a result of that. That's the sort of

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Speaker 2: thing that requires quite a long process to change, But

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Speaker 2: in the immediate term, I do think that universities need

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Speaker 2: some help to recognize their existing obligations.

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Speaker 1: As you've said, it really is like putting training wheels

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Speaker 1: on the mome. Michael. Thank you. Michael Johnston, former Victoria

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Speaker 1: University dean and Initiative New Zealand Initiative Seen You Felt.

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