Is Prayer Now Criminal? Bob McCoskrie on NZ's Conversion Therapy Law

Is it now a criminal offence to pray for someone struggling with gender confusion? Could a parent face prosecution for affirming their child's biological sex? 

Bob McCoskrie of Family First joins Dane to unpack the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Act 2022 — and why he believes it should be repealed immediately. 

Bob explains how the law's vague definitions, the removal of consent as a legal defence, and its deliberate one-directional design have created a chilling effect on counsellors, parents, and religious communities alike. 

He makes a striking argument: now that the government has banned puberty blockers, the conversion therapy law is actively fighting itself — criminalising the very parental behaviour the government now endorses. 

The conversation also covers the under-16 social media ban debate (Bob's answer is more nuanced than you'd expect), the lessons from the 2020 cannabis referendum, and why shutting down debate always backfires. 

CHAPTERS 

0:00 – Introduction & South Auckland memories 

4:35 – What is the Conversion Practices Act and why does it exist? 

9:40 – Vague definitions and the consent trap 

19:15 – Prayer, parenting, and the chilling effect 

25:33 – Detransition stories and the clinical pushback 

30:28 – The under-16 social media ban debate 

38:52 – Holding big tech accountable 

48:10 – The puberty blockers ban creates a legal contradiction 

52:00 – Cannabis referendum: how Bob beat Chloe Swarbrick

57:30 – Media silence, labels, and free speech

Transcript

Welcome And South Auckland Memories

0:00

Welcome to Free to Speak, the New Zealand Free Speech Union podcast. If you enjoy the show, subscribe for uncensored conversations and free speech news from New Zealand and beyond. Kioda, and welcome to Free to Speak, the official podcast of the New Zealand Free Speech Union. I'm your host, Dane Giroud, a council member of the Free Speech Union. And joining us today is Bob McCoskrie. Bob of Family First. Dane, good to be with you, and uh congratulations on pronouncing the surname correct. I never expect it to be correct. So people can't spell it, people can't say it. So I just get used to it. But you do have you well, thank you. You do have R's in in some strange places. But but it's like if I ever do an uh interview with someone named Brian, I'll always kick off by asking how many times are you referred to as brain in emails? Yeah. And because it's invariably a lot. No, but that's great. Well, no one can pronounce my name, obviously, because it's got the D at the end. Actually, uh there's two pronunciations for my name. There's can can you say it? Well, I I think I used to call you Gerard, and then I realized it was Giroud. So um, yeah, Mia Culpa as well. Yeah, well, Giro would be the angle uh like the the Anglicized way to say it. Then you've got Giro, then you've got Giral, which is the original Ocatan. So it's all it's all a little wild, you know what I mean? Okay, okay. A man of many names and many masks and faces. Oh, I think I think probably both of us have been caught a lot of names, and probably some of them we don't want to no, that's right. Well, like I I noticed that you were called far right the other day. I get called far right and a communist. I mean it it's all a bit confused, but um uh you're from South Auckland, uh like me. Yep, born and bred Papatoy Toei, and um through all the schools there, and now I live in Manarewa, but um from the South Side. So yeah, very proud South Side boy. Yeah, fantastic. Yeah. So you would have gone to the Starlight Picture Theatre when you're a young fella. Oh boy, now you're now you're talking, and then down to little Little Abner's at uh Hunter's Corner and Yeah. Which is still around, isn't it? Well yeah. I actually I actually set up a youth center directly opposite um Little Abner's, and um people thought that it was just so that I could go from my office straight across to get the beautiful uh salted chicken flavored chips uh at the takeaway to Little Abner's. It's an institution. Yeah, yeah. Or Papatoui, last time I was there, I mean there's so much fantastic South Asian cuisine now. It's just it's it's just amazing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Multi-ethnicity for sure. It's uh it's full on. It's a great place, great place. Um uh yeah, South Auckland, it it's it's amazing. Like I notice in in Eastamaki there now, there's a whole new subdivision that never existed when I was a kid. It's like there's a mall there right there, isn't there? It's it's it's quite incredible. It's around the Flatbush area that I think has really taken off. Uh is just you know, houses everywhere, whole cities, uh townships, and like you say, movie theaters. And um, you know, you know, you know, when you're really um sort of got an urban area all to itself, when you get your own movie theater, that's kind of the benchmark. Well, at the Starlight, I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark plus double feature jaws on the same night. Well, my memory is the Titanic, and I don't what year was the Titanic? That's that's my memory of the Starlight Picture Theatre in Papua Toyota. Are you going to watch? And we all just went mainly to see the ship get bowled by the you know massive tidal wave. Um, I don't know what year that was. Iceberg, iceberg, yeah. Yeah, I might I'm I'm I I'm just gonna look that up because that's memory that I saw Beverly Hills cop and all sorts of things there. 19 1997. Oh well, that's late in the day for me, but yeah, I was oh hang on. No, that's Titanic. Sorry, um sorry, wrong movie, Poseidon Adventure. The Poseidon Adventure, oh Gene Hackman. Well, what the 1972? I was only uh what was I? I was nine. Wow. Wow, the Poseidon Adventure at the Starlight, yeah, puppet toy. Yeah, what that that's a good uh Christian character, isn't it? Gene Hackman's pastor, who's leading them through the yeah, well, we're yeah, this is becoming a film podcast, so we're gonna move on. But um fantastic, Bob. So okay, now this is a gear change for you people.

Why The Conversion Practices Act Matters

4:35

We're gonna be talking about the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Act 2022, passed by the last uh Labour government. Um now, this is something I want to talk about for a while, and Bob's the perfect person to talk to about it. Um we uh um it's a kind of bill where it's a little bit like abortion, where as soon as you uh voice any sort of opposition, people are gonna come down on you like a ton of bricks. You're gonna be this nasty, terrible character that doesn't care about people and all this kind of stuff. But it was pretty clear to me that there were some religious freedom issues in this. And uh we had an obligation to push against it. We did submit. Um, we didn't have a heavy campaign against it. I'm I remain concerned. So let's let's go back to the start and just down this basically, Bob. I've got notes here I'll be referring to. So maybe just the history of the bill as you know it, who who brought it forward and and what did it seek to really achieve? Well, it was brought forward by uh the Labour Party, and at the time the Minister of Justice was Chris Farfoy. Uh it was always a desire, I think, of uh Labour to see a conversion therapy bill. In fact, I think the Green Party were also involved. They did a petition as well. Uh Elizabeth Keddy Keddy, who of course is no longer in Parliament, uh, was pushing for it as well. And look, in our view, it was a solution looking for a problem. Uh if if if um if they were talking about coercive and abusive counseling involving electric shock treatment and uh anti-gay boot camps and um, you know, that type of pressure, everybody was opposed to that. And it was hard to find. In fact, we did an official information out request of the Human Rights Commission saying had they had a complaint uh about conversion therapy happening to a person, because you know, if it's a human right, that's where you would go to make your complaint, especially if there's no law. You couldn't go to the police, so you would go to the Human Rights Commission. They had had one, one informal complaint in 10 years leading up to the bill. So this wasn't a problem that needed to be urgently addressed. This was more about ramming down an ideology. Uh, and that's what the bill was used. It was simply used to push an ideology that if you encourage people to live naturally in their biological sex, and if they want to align their sexuality with whatever teaching they align themselves with, so personal autonomy, uh, then that should be illegal. But if you want to encourage people to, for example, change their sex or identify as one of more than 200 plus sexualities that are available, then that should be encouraged. So I always say conversion therapy hasn't been banned. It's just uh conversion therapy in a certain direction has been criminalized. And it, you know, it's it's a it's a shocking law, it needs to be overturned. And I'm sure we're going to get into the detail. And I've got a very good reason why the law should be scrapped immediately. Okay, well, that's that's that's quite a teaser. So that's gonna be because I'm looking forward to that. Um, so uh my understanding is that the reading through the documents that you gave me in other documents, that the uh a massive issue here for religious freedoms, because I'll I'll I'll I'll state of the religious freedoms and the free speech aspect of it as much as I can here. Um it's really broadly defined. I mean, is that fair fair to say? I think Labour would would probably push back and say, no, the bar is quite high, but we we can't it is still feasible that prayer can be pulled up in this, can't it? Even ultra calls, uh, the Human Rights Commission were going around telling groups that uh even an ultra call could amount to conversion therapy. Look, when the debate was going through, Chris Farfoy was on Newstalk ZB, and uh the interviewer, I think it was Heather DuPlacey Allen, said, uh, so if a parent, for example, says to a child who may be pre-pubescent, I want to go on hormone blockers, uh, can a parent say, no, you can't? And the Minister of Justice, Chris Farfoy, said, uh, well, no, that's not acceptable. A parent can't say that. So that was just a red flag of just how far this was going to go. And and look, sorry, sorry, Bob. Is that is that in the actual law though, or is it just Chris Farfoy, who wasn't a terribly effective spokesperson for any of this censorship stuff? Like he could be both. Yeah, yeah, he sort of mangled, he he did mangle it a bit, poor. He did, but uh the problem is that uh the definition of conversion therapy is very loose.

Vague Definitions And The Consent Trap

9:40

I mean, let me just give you an example. In the actual act section, uh, that it talks about serious uh harm. So it's an offense to perform conversion practice that causes serious harm. So immediately you say to yourself, Oh, what's serious harm? So you go back to the definitions. Serious harm means any physical, psychological, or emotional harm that seriously affects the health, safety, or welfare of the individual. So they've used the word serious in the actual um answer or the definition of the title, which of course to me is a no-no. So it's not defined. We don't know what serious means. Uh, and is it serious harm to say to a young child, uh, look, honey, I know you want to be a boy, but I'm not gonna approve you going on puberty blockers. Wait until you grow up, make a decision as an adult. Um, I mean, that's one of the interesting things. In section eight of the act, uh, it says that it's an offense to perform conversion therapy on a person under the age of 18 or lacking decision-making capacity. There's there's an admission there that under 18-year-olds lack decision-making capacity. And yet, who is being railroaded into chemicalization, um, personal pronouns, identifying as the opposite sex, even though they apparently lack uh decision-making capacity. So there's all these contradictions throughout the act. And like I say, they just have isymmetry there, isn't there? Yeah, they don't define conversion therapy. Conversion therapy, in their eyes, is basically not affirming LGBT, QIA plus, whatever. It's not affirming that you have 120 plus genders to choose from or 200 plus sexualities. You may be saying I'm making up those figures. No, I've seen evidence of that exact message being pushed in New Zealand schools. So um, kids are receiving that message to go in that direction to affirm. And if you oppose that, conversion therapy immediately, and it's been criminalized. So it's the chilling effect. Well, Georgina Bayer opposed that. Yeah. Yeah. Georgina Bayer would say to me, this is not a decision a child can make. Speaking of Hunter's Corner, actually speaking of, sorry, don't totally, totally sidestep here, but speaking of Georgina Bayer, and because we've just talked about Hunter's Corner and Papatoto, Georgina Bayer, also, who ushered through the decriminalization of prostitution, admitted that um the problem, the problem of street prostitution, it should have been banned. Hunter's Corner has always had a major problem, as has South Morland Monorawa with street prostitution. Uh, so there was this turning around, there was this realization that actually inherently prostitution harms. Uh, and so yeah, just when you mentioned Georgina Bayer, but that was the interesting thing about the whole conversion therapy debate. We found that we were linking arms with groups that did not want uh people affirm that they could change their sex, um, the the gender critical groups. Uh and so, yeah, that was sort of an interesting aspect of this whole debate. Because a lot of them wouldn't be um uh that sympathetic to Christian causes necessarily. No, and I don't think um it what definitely wasn't uh purely religious opposition. Well, I mean, you could argue that there was Muslims opposed to it as well, there are other faiths, but there were people who simply wanted the ability. I mean, that I I think one of the most amazing aspects of this law change was the fact that there's a provision within it uh that talks about consent. And it says that even if a person, even if an adult consents to wanting counseling to deal with unwanted sexuality issues and gender confusion, even if they consent to it, that does not protect the counselor or the medical professional or the parent or the pastor. Uh and and I thought it was more of a child's bill, though, isn't it, for under-18s? Or is this if it happened when you were younger, you can section 10. It is not a defense that the individual on whom the conversion practice was performed uh consented to the performance of that practice, or the person charged believe that such consent was given. So, you know, even if you say, look, I don't want to perform conversion therapy on you, whatever you think that means, but hey, I want to help you uh realize your goals in terms of your sexuality and your gender confusion, that still means that they are committing a criminal offense under this act. And and what amazes me most, Dane, is that the Act Party as a party supported this law even with that provision. They should have tossed this law out and said, go and work on it and fix it purely on that provision, because it's taking away uh autonomy. You know, these groups argue for autonomy and freedom of choice, uh, but not on this issue, apparently. But the consent thing. So if this was in a religious context and you were a religious person who wanted to discuss and maybe potentially change your sexuality, whether you can or not is uh I'm not saying you can or you can't or anything. I've got no opinion on whether these things work or don't work. I I'm that I'm not I'm not coming to well, I have my own views, but I'm not gonna, I'm not bringing that to this interview, you know. Um, but if you were you would be consenting as someone who was following a faith and believed that there was utility in speaking to your imam or rabbi or or pastor. So because of that, the the consent thing should hold because you were doing it as a person with with strongly held beliefs, at least at the time. Yeah. And so there's someone else who shared your beliefs. And the advice was that it breached the Bill of Rights for that exact reason, but it just didn't hold. The agenda, the the desire to uh get this law across the line uh outweighed any uh concerns around that. And look, there were attempts to uh sort of make the bill a bit more normal. So, yeah, maybe deal with those extremities of uh electric shock treatment and and ice bars and all that type of stuff. And so there was a number of amendments. I just looked them up actually before we um came on here, and like there was um there were amendments. These were all voted down by politicians uh to allow conversations between a child and a parent that those shouldn't be illegal. They they voted against that. They voted against the expression of any opinion. So even you expressing your opinion could be deemed to be, you know, like if I came to you and says, uh Dane, um uh could I could I change my sex? I want to identify as a woman, and you said, Well, Bob, sorry, you're gonna make a very ugly woman. Uh, you know, it over a period of time, that could become conversion deemed to be conversion therapy, especially if I go whining after the Human Rights Commission, who have spent $2 million looking for complaints. They're desperate to find a complaint, right? Um, another one, parental consent for treatment of gender transitioning should be required. They voted against that. So, in other words, they took away the involvement of parents to give the final say. Um, a health practitioner should be able to speak freely about treatment options. That's a massive issue because you've got medical professionals now. What they say is that, yes, they can give their opinion, but it has to be reasonable. And actually, the law says that it has to align with um, in terms of reasonableness, it has to align with the professional groups. Now, as we know, the professional groups have been captured by Partha. The Ministry of Health has been captured by this, you know, they're still they're still arguing about whether we should chemalize, chemicalise kids who apparently decision-making capacity with puberty blockers. Yeah, they're not they're not neutral. A lot of this stuff is is very driven by the the the fashionable politics of the day. Um just one other amendment was prayer. Prayer for unwanted sexuality and gender issues. Um, the the SOP, the the amendment was that that should not be illegal. So if you ask for prayer for unwanted sexuality and gender issues, uh that, you know, it should be quite clear that that is not illegal. They voted against that. So, so prayer could be because what you do is it may not be deemed to be conversion therapy at the time, but what you generally find is that people um go away and then they get annoyed and they think, oh, gee, I think I was subject to conversion therapy. I'm gonna go and make a complaint. And that's that's the chilling effect. And counselors contact me and they say, uh, when am I entering into conversion therapy? If I ask them for permission to just talk to them, to pray for them, I say, well, theoretically uh they are consenting, but the problem with the law is consent will not be your defense. And even if you pray for them as aligned with what they want prayer for, you know, they want prayer for their gender confusion, uh, that that could still be deemed to be conversion therapy. It's it is so vague. Uh, and because it's not actually about enforcing a clear line in the sand on what is criminal and what is not criminal, it's about enforcing an ideology, ramming down the ideology that yes, you can change your sex, you can identify as all these sexualities, don't you dare try to stop

Prayer Parenting And Chilling Effects

19:15

me. Reading this, I found something uh similar uh in the um prohibition of protests outside abortion clinics. Safe zones. Yeah. The safe zones, the safe zones, and and I presented the submission on that. And what I found interesting about it is to me, uh, we had harassment laws. If someone was really in someone's face, there there was a way to deal with that individual, right? Now, you could argue that having uh you know, sinks people with placards, even if they're silent outside uh a clinic is going to upset some people, sure. But we should have we should be we should have the ability to be able to persuade others, right? Now 50 women may go into that clinic if one of them sees someone praying silently and decides I'm not gonna do this, that to me is an outcome that should not be legally prohibited as a society. We should have the right to be able to engage with people and say, we think what you're doing is wrong. You know, have you considered this? You know, I mean, let me let me give you an example of a of a contradiction to show just how contradictory this whole thing is. You have a young girl who uh thinks she's fat, and so she starts starving herself, she starts uh vomiting, she basically she has anorexia and nervosa, she gets incredibly thin. Basically, her mind says to herself, uh, you are fat, uh, you need to lose weight. She looks in the mirror, she's stick thin, she's starving herself, she's actually making herself ill, and yet she thinks uh what she thinks is is different to the factual physicality of her body. How do we how do we deal with that? If she turns up, do we say, well, yeah, no, you are right. Uh, we need to book you in for a liposuction. Here's some weight loss tablets, um, you know, and do we affirm that or do we heal the mind? Do we deal with the presenting problem? Now, imagine if we created a law that criminalized parents against getting counseling help and you know, um uh affirming their daughter and not going along with the daughter's wishes to have the liposuction and to to to have the take the weight loss pills and you know to enable her to vomit whenever she has food. Imagine if we did that. It would be heartless. And yet, um We don't do that. We heal the mind. We don't harm the body. Now, in this whole gender confusion issue, especially with children, we rather than healing the mind, we cut the body. And we've gone to the point with this conversion therapy law where if you try to encourage healing the mind, you are actually criminalized. Because in the law, it actually says, um, under the meaning of conversion therapy practice, it's section five, if anybody's got it nearby, uh, it says um conversion conversion practice does not include assisting an individual to express their gender identity, assisting an individual who's undergoing or considering undergoing a gender transition. That is not conversion therapy. So you can see it it's it's only criminalizing in one direction. It's a direction they don't like, but it's a direction that says, firstly, that we can affirm somebody in their biological sex. And secondly, we can affirm somebody making a decision uh on their own autonomy as to the values they want to align with, whether those are religious, non-religious. I mean, even non-religious people have gender confusion and want to detransition. So uh, you know, don't want to go down that path and understand that yeah, they they're just quirky as male and female. They, they, you know, there are some there are some um dudes who like ballet and there are some women who like playing rugby. Uh, and that's great. You don't need to change your sex to accommodate that. Um yeah, I mean, it sort of strikes me thinking about it, that this in a way is a religious bill. The way Georgina Bayer would have understood it, her condition would be very different from the way that people understand it now. Uh, she would have uh called it dyswaria. A lot of people still use that word, but it it's they fundamentally believe that that gender is a construct anyway. Now, this is not scientific. It sort of comes from the Judith Butler idea, which is just a really basically a batty academic theory. So there is a religious element here, and that a prophet has said some stuff, and people uh uh have transitioned what was transitioned, transitioned what was considered a medical condition and saying no, it's a can it's a social condition, it's a condition of conditioning. Yeah, uh look, I I I just think that um it basically it's an it is enforcing an ideology down, and you know, for young people that are confused, uh it's interesting that the legislation talks about the fact that that uh you know under 18s lack decision-making capacity. We completely agree with that, but uh it is it is criminalizing. And I think the the most concerning part of the law for us was that it was criminalizing parents who affirmed their daughter as a girl, who affirmed their son as a boy. Look, you know, there is there can be a lot of uh disagreement within families, but to actually criminalize that action when you're doing that affirmation, I think was uh, you know, completely unacceptable. And, you know, they tried to they tried to soften the effects of the bill, the kind of the radical nature of it, you know, by allowing prayer, by allowing parents to speak freely, by allowing uh medical professionals who may disagree with the professional body that was pushing down the gender affirmation.

Detransition Stories And Clinical Pushback

25:33

I mean, you've now got, for example, there's, I don't know, uh you're probably aware of Dr. Andrew Amos and Dr. Gillian Spencer in Queensland, both of them have been stood down from senior positions because they won't affirm the chemicalization castration model for gender-confused kids. The the evidence that they see, which I think backs up uh why this bill um should be overturned, is the fact that uh present with a lot of kids that suffer with uh gender identity disorder is uh uh uh comorbid disorders, uh things like autism, things like trauma in their young life. There's other presenting issues. And what they've found is that when you deal with those other issues, uh then you actually deal with the gender confusion. And I've, you know, anecdotally, I've spoken to detransitioners who have gone through that. Look, there was, I was just looking up some of the more recent research uh around, and it was the Finnish study. And the finish study found that uh, so this was a study uh in uh sorry, a new study published showed that those who underwent gender surgery had a suicide risk 12 times higher than those who did not go through gender surgery. It was 56 healthcare organizations, 90 million patients. Uh, and they said gender-affirming surgery is significant significantly associated with elevated suicide attempt risks. Now, there's there's a whole lot of research that that backs up those findings around the world. Uh, and this is this is the basis of our argument that we should um heal the mind rather than cut the body. Uh, and but this law criminalizes anybody who goes down the counseling route and even criminalizes counselors for suggesting actually, no, I don't think you should go on puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones. I don't think you should uh have them stectomy or, you know, um castrate healthy parts of the body to try and identify as the opposite sex. Uh medical professional is at risk of conversion therapy for that and liable up to five years in prison. A parent is liable up to five years in prison if a child argues that the parent has done serious harm, which by the way, they haven't defined what serious harm is. Well, well, actually, I want to go back to harm because uh and and just just working off what you've just been saying, uh harm is very hard to define. Some of the stats that you're talking about, which I've actually read too, around suicide rates for people that have transitioned. Now that says to me um that there is deeper trauma or other trauma. Um now, someone who approaches their imam uh may be dealing with prof depression first anyway, before they even go there. Whether they leave the session, uh I mean, how would you establish any causation there? Uh there could be all sorts of other things that have happened in their lives that have that have driven them to that point. Um it's it's hard to it's hard to lay it at the feet of that one, that that session. Yeah. You know what I mean? Well, I I I mean, I've interviewed a couple of detransitioners. Chloe Cole uh in the United States. We had her speak at our conference a couple of years ago, but I also spoke to her a couple of years before that when she was 18. Uh, we've we've had two detransitioners in New Zealand, Zara and Nissy, that we have profiled. And the the messaging is common amongst all the detransitioners, um, testimonies that I read is that um their mental health was suffering while they were going through this desire to change their sex. But even as they affirmed a change in sex and started that progression, they still had mental health issues because the mental health issues weren't being dealt with. And in fact, what they say is that once they decided to park the whole transitioning and deal with the mental health issues, the desire to change their sex suddenly disappeared as well. Uh, and this is and this is what um you know many of the medical experts have said. Don't cut the body, heal the mind. And uh, but this law, the conversion therapy law, criminalizes attempts to get counseling over the wishes, the desires of the person. But, you know, as we've already identified, Dane, if you wish to go down the track of transitioning, full support of the state. If you decide that you don't want to go down the path of transitioning and someone helps you, that someone is criminalized. That's wrong. Yeah, criminalized or at least stigmatized and and and and all sorts of things. So so back to harm. Now, do you uh I'd be interested to know. I'm just gonna change topic

Under-16 Social Media Ban Debate

30:28

a little. Um, where do you sit on the under 16 uh potential ban there? Because from social media? A social media ban, sorry, yeah. So what what I what I've what I've learned being a part of the free speech union for for quite a while now, a few years now, is that when you actually get into uh evidence and proof for hate speech laws, the effectiveness of them, um uh even even uh the impact of violent video games, you know, all that kind of stuff, science can't really give you too much there. Uh and it's interesting as to why that would be. Uh I mean, I'm not a scientist, so I but uh it it's like these are these are so um uh specific to the individual, how we interact with material. Yeah. So how do you feel about the under 16 social media ban? I I'm wondering, like in the Christian community, which you're you know aligned with and have connections with, is there some support there? Like I'd imagine there could be, but am I right or wrong on that? Oh, look, there's debate both ways. Uh, there's uh there's groups that I know that are totally opposed to the ban, and there's groups that uh support it where we have landed at family first is to say, look, there's definitely a problem. Social media has been unregulated, big tech we call it. Uh, it's been a little bit like big tobacco. Big tobacco spent a whole lot of time persuading everybody that they weren't going to target kids, that their product wasn't addictive. It was big smoke screens. They got all these people to endorse the product. Even doctors were recommending which cigarette to smoke. And then suddenly the research came out and found out that no, it is addictive. No, they have been targeting kids. And we called big tobacco to account. It was one of the arguments we made during the Say Note to Dope campaign, you know, against legalizing weed. Uh, it was the same thing. Big marijuana does not respect families or kids. They want to addict people because then they've got a client for life. And um, you know, we we said that the the that was going to be harmful to our communities. When it comes to social media, the problem I have is that look, of course, there's positives to social media. You know, I mean, you know, a lot of us do love aspects of it. But big tech, we've realized through recent research and admissions that big tech knew that they were addicting kids. When they found out, Meta admitted that when they found out that they were addicting kids on social media with the algorithms, and when they found out that the material they were pushing through, the suicide ideation, the body image, the cyberbullying, uh, when they weren't taking control over that, that was harming kids. They knew that and they buried the research and they stopped it. That actually came out in the uh the Los Angeles case recently, uh, where Meta lost that case. So our argument is look, we need to hold big tech to account and we need to put the liability back on them. I don't want the government monitoring any of us. I don't want that, you know, government-backed digital ID any more than anybody else does. But I do think in the same way that we protect kids, that we have restrictions on age for drinking, for entering into contracts, for getting licenses, uh, a whole lot of things we understand that kids' brains are still developing and there are certain things that will not be good for them. So as a society, and then and that doesn't stop kids. I'm sure these kids under the age of uh, what is the age for driver's license? Is it 15 or 16? I think it is. 16, I think, yeah. I bet there's some 13-year-olds today who are driving tractors, motorbikes, and driving vehicles, right? Uh, it still happens, but as a society, we've said, look, ideally, we want licenses for this age because that's when we think a child is mature enough to handle it. The argument with social media is that because of the content, the algorithms, and the dirty tactics of big tech, we need some protections in place for children. I think we can do it without the big hand of government simply by putting liability back on big tech. And look, watch United States at the moment, because all these the Supreme Court just was it last week or beginning of this week, decided that actually Meta no had to face up to these allegations that the Supreme Court didn't back them or protect them in any way. So there's gonna be all these lawsuits. I think it was a Vermont case where the Attorney General was going after Meta and the Supreme Court said, no, Vermont, you can go after Meta uh for what you're claiming. So uh that's gonna be a big account. That's kind of big tech's big tobacco moment, in my view. Uh and so do I want to ban in New Zealand? I think there's argument for it. Ultimately, I just want children to be protected from some of the stuff that they've been exposed to. I think we should watch Australia just a little bit more because I think they're the kind of laboratory test, aren't they? Uh yeah, and kids are getting around it, which they will. Kids are very, very clever when it comes to dodging censorship. Oh, well, kids are drinking alcohol, kids are driving vehicles, uh, kids are probably entering into contracts as well. You know, it's it's never going to be perfect. They're gonna they're gonna be entering R18 porn sites as well, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah. That I mean, if we can be specific about it, if we could be sort of targeted there, that would uh work for me. I mean, where I push back on on comparing it to driver's licenses, that that's a very specific or alcohol, that's a very specific harm, yeah, which we know is going to damage their body, impair them, all that kind of stuff. The internet is so large, and so invite and so much part of our life nowadays. In so much part of our life and professional lives, yeah. It's like it's literally like walking out the front door into the world and just engaging with the entire world in your street, you know. It's like that. So Which is why I'd like to tell big tech uh look, if we prove that you are deliberately targeting under 16-year-olds with objectionable material, because we know they have the power to stop that stuff. Yeah, the algorithms make sense to me. Yeah, that that that makes sense to me. They still need to know they were kids. So we still get into that digital digital ID territory a little bit. So I I don't know how that would be. Well, I think they've already got 90 data points on you already, Dane. And if we start talking about the fact that um I'd I'd really like a holiday on Waikiki Beach now, I can guarantee within half an hour my feed is going to be filled with ads for Hawaii. I found that. It disturbs the hell out of me. It disturbs the hell out of me. Like I well, I was speaking to Peter Bogosian about, and he was saying, Oh, you know, the backlash to um the the censorship of just censorship error we've come out of. And he said, There's this guy that walks around just just using the N-word at black people he confronts. And and he said, you know, this is and I said, Oh, well, that's that's a real pity. And he goes, Oh, well, it's a necessary backlash, it was always gonna happen. You know, people were gonna go that far with with this newfound freedom. And I'm like, oh no. And so, you know, it's like watching a watching a car car crash or something. I looked at one of his um uh clips just to see if the guy was real, and that was like, oh my god, how offensive is that? And then I was flooded with this guy for the next two days, you know. I just had to sort of no, no, no, you know. So, you know, you go to one thing, yeah, it'll just bombard you. I mean, you just look at one clip, it'll bombard you to go, oh he likes that. It's like, no, I don't like that. I'm looking at it because I'm just I wanted to know is this guy for real? You know, it's just it's but I just think big tech has uh been uncountable. It's been it's been the wild west, uh, and they have deliberately exploited uh their freedom. They have targeted kids with algorithms, they have not, you know, stopped objectionable material. Um I I think to be honest, Dane, I actually do think that big tech knows uh most of their audience. They may not get it 100% right, but the fact that just before the ban in Australia in December last year, the fact that they went around and they were blocking um accounts of um 16 and under, now that yeah, they didn't get it perfectly right, did they? But they still had measures to know whether

Holding Big Tech Accountable

38:52

they will. Uh for Family First, we've always at we've actually promoted uh App Store accountability, which has been very successful and was uh has been used in Florida and some other states. It is being challenged, but the app store accountability means that, and it puts the power back in the hands of the parents. When a child goes to uh sign up for an app like Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok, the uh they have to do it through their Apple or Google account and it's linked to the parent. So the parent is kind of the the guardrail for whether the child gets on it in the first place. That means that the you know the parent doesn't have to prove their age, it's just that it's a family-linked account. We just think that that's a better guardrail. Uh yeah, well, I I do too. And those tool tools have always been there. And it's interesting that that National isn't sort of talking about that or promoting that. But I We've floated it past them. Well, yeah, I I think they I think this is a bit cynical for them. That you know, they're they're a little bit beleaguered as a party and they think that this is an easy win. Maybe, you know, that there'll be enough parents in the middle that will sympathize and give them an easy win. So I I it'll yeah, yeah. I mean, there's there's there's always a risk too that uh if kids can't go on certain sites, it'll drive them to even darker ones. Because a lot of these other sites will say, well, well, let's put a chat feature. You know, if we have a chat feature, we'll probably get three or four months of all the kids coming to us before we get shut down, you know. So at least we knew where they were. Now they could be migrating to all these other dodgier sites. But but the other thing I've got to do. Well, I think I think a site, sorry, Dane, I think a site with uh suicide ideation and body shaming and cyberbullying that's allowing that to come through, that's already a dark site. So I'm not sure they can go to a darker site. But you're right, there were the alternatives will spring up. I think there would there are darker sites. There would be darker sites out there. But but the the the other thing um I just wanted to say is like, and this is where I do get a bit concerned, um uh like Substack in Australia is banned, right? So because you can you can have comments, you're right. So that they ban that. Now all children are are individuals. A 14-year-old future head girl on Substack reading David Edinburgh blogs, or or that uh we should have she'll be banned from doing that. So and that's what really concerns me. There's a hell of a lot of knowledge online. We're all getting smarter because of the internet. Uh there's a lot of doom and gloom, and there are issues that may that need to be looked into. But I think a lot of our kids are actually getting a hell of a lot smarter. They're actually getting ahead of their teachers in many ways. Like my one of my sons, um, the 17-year-old, when he was a um, when he was about uh eight or nine, he was watching um uh a lot of David Edenborough and people like that on on YouTube. Whenever we went out for meals, like he'd he'd sort of want to join the adult conversation and he'd say, Did you know sharks? And and and he'd actually have people quite fascinated. They'd be like, I never knew that. But tell me more, you know, like he was absorbing so much good knowledge from the internet. I I do have a concern that bands like this are gonna shut that down, you know. Um and look, we are playing catch-up, there's no doubt about it. I mean, if I can give you the Auckland example, you know, Auckland is expanding, building houses left, right, and center. We talked about that at the start. And the problem is that our town planners aren't that smart and they don't build the roads and the infrastructure around those residential places. And then suddenly they figure out, oh, we've got a whole lot more cars and people around. We need to widen motorways and and all that. And and, you know, if I say jury to people who live in Auckland, they'll know exactly what I'm talking about. This is the problem with social media as well. The cat is out of the bag. We're playing catch up. We're gonna be playing catch-up with AI as well. That's a whole topic in itself. We're never gonna catch up. No, 100%. And so the the question is okay, if if a ban doesn't work, which you know, there are arguments for a ban not working, how at least we have to have the debate. I'm just glad we're having the debate about how do we protect kids. We actually raised this issue back in 2014. I got a guy called Dr. Arik Sigman from the UK to write a paper called Screen Time. And look, I was on one breakfast um and and talking about the report. And look, they were quite dismissive of it because the report said that kids are spending too much time on the screen, more than the guidelines. And part of the problem was because screen time, there's a huge amount of screen time at schools, and then they go home and then there's a free time. And I mean, the guidelines say that kids under two shouldn't be on screens at all. I think it is under two, and then it's only an hour or two a day for two to five or something like that. And look, I was sort of, you know, almost laughed out of the studio as a as though look, what's the problem on being unreasonable? Now, of course, everybody's worried about the effect. Screen time, the effect it's having on kids, the lack of sleep, um, you know, the dopamine hits and and the addiction to it. So I'm glad we're having this honest discussion. I'm like you, Dane. I I'm not quite sure of the absolute solution. And I also don't want to say, well, we've got to do something, because that I don't think that's a good approach. No, I I really, really don't like it. It's like, well, at least they're doing something. But I want I want big tech held accountable, and that's why I'm enjoying watching what's happening in the United States, because uh what in the courts what they're having to do is prove harm and they're persuading juries, juries, that there is harm, and then they're holding big tech to account. And you can already see big tech is squirming and they're starting to introduce little features that they should have introduced from day one when parents were concerned. The other thing, Dane, I think, just on this issue, is that some people say, Oh, look, it's just bad parenting, lack of parenting. I just find that a little bit hard to take because I think it's unfair. Uh, as a parent, and my kids are slightly out, they're in their 20s now, but when they were in their teens, it was tough. You tried your best, you tried to put in the filters. I signed up with Safe Surfer, which was a you know great organization where I could have those filters, but that could only control when they're in the house for you know the sleep time and when they're home. I had no control over when they're outside. I tried to get apps that could block certain sites. But, you know, when I have problems with my phone, Dane, you know who I ask for help. Hey, if I can my computer plays up, oh hey, can you solve this problem? Uh, you know, and and so parents, I think, in fairness to parents, um, we've we've shortchanged them a little bit as well in just terms of support and help. And I've always wanted the government to do more in that area. Uh let me just push back a little bit. Uh I uh when I was a kid, I would um I was mad for horror films, and I would get my hands on like restricted material whenever I could, and I would watch it and I would get seriously traumatized by some of these films. Like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre absolutely threw me for six. I was just petrified for about three months, six months. Right now, you could argue that shouldn't have happened, but I'm a screenwriter. I I'm writing a two horrors now, you know, for for some for some directors. So it's it's like sometimes dodgy content can be the best thing for you. It can sort of help you find who you are and set you on a path. I I I do uh I mean, this is a complexity that's hard that you could never let just say, you know, I mean it's just a it's quite philosophical, I guess. But if we're gonna do it, if we're trying to clean it up, yep. Will you have an age restriction on your horror movie? Well, by law, there will be there will have to be an age restriction on the horror movie. And see, I think that that's kind of what we're getting at is that as a society, there are some restrictions we do put in place to protect children. Where that line is, is it 16 years old? Is it a ban or is it a restriction? Um, you know, we yeah, and and look, if your movie is so scary that uh you put an R16 on it, uh, you know, or parental guidance, kids are gonna get around that. We know that, but we still do it because we know it's that's part of good society and protection of kids, isn't it? But it can be an incentive for them to care. Like I I found art like Clockbook Orange being R20, I would say, R20. I gotta I gotta see that. No, I gotta see that. You know? Yeah, it like it can almost be, well, here's the wager, it's an R20, what are you gonna do? You know? Um hey look, in in the last 10 minutes we've got, um I I wouldn't mind just having a little chat about the um uh the cannabis stuff. Because hey, um just before we do that, Dane, sorry to interrupt because I know you're the host, but that's I did it I did a teaser

Puberty Blockers Ban Creates Contradiction

48:10

at the beginning of the show and I haven't uh given the answer to that. Okay, well you do it. Why the conversion therapy law should be overturned. Okay, okay. The conversion therapy law should be overturned immediately because it's based on the fact that if you affirm a child to change their gender, that they believe they can change their sex, uh, that they should go into puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and then surgery at 18. And I've interviewed a young girl who, you know, even at 14 when she was transitioning, her medical professionals were telling her, we'll get you ready for 18 and you can have your breasts cut off. That's in New Zealand. So um there is this affirmation towards that and that puberty blockers is the answer, they're fully reversible and they do no harm. Um, and you have doctors like, you know, Dame Sue Bagshaw saying puberty blockers are great, they they give you the chance to think about it, but they don't. Basically, 99.9% of people who take puberty blockers then go on to the next step. The problem with the conversion therapy law is that if you say, Ashley, honey or son, uh just hold off on the puberty blockers, wait until your age, when you understand what's going on with your body, when you're older, you can make the decision. That is a criminal offense under the conversion therapy law. Now, that was singing sort of in tune with what the Ministry of Health and Partha and all the radical activists were pushing, that puberty blockers is the answer. We're now at the point where the government has banned puberty blockers. So you're criminalized for uh saying, actually, son, you're a boy, or hey honey, you're a girl, you can't change your sex. You're criminalized for that. Uh, but you also can't access puberty blockers anymore because we've finally acknowledged that the risk of puberty blockers and the effect of puberty blockers, the risk is high and the effect of puberty blockers is low in terms of improving the situation. So you've got a complete contradiction there. And that's why this law should be immediately overturned, because it's actually fighting itself. Because you you're actually criminalizing parents who follow the government directive. You think about that. You're criminalizing parents for saying you can't go on puberty blockers, but the government has said you you can't go on puberty blockers, we're gonna ban them. See what I'm getting at? Yeah, the science has changed or was revealed, and because of that, uh yeah, it's it's made a nonsense of uh of a law like this, and you know, we'll probably end up just getting more science. Yeah. So uh yeah, but whether they you know overturn it, uh I again it it's it's it's like abortion. It's like if you tinker with it, uh all these parties want the center. All these parties want the center. So if you try tink tinkering with any of this stuff, people are gonna come down on you like a ton of bricks. So that's that's that's a tough, tough part of it. Um well there's 113 to eight. Um 113 MPs voted for this, yeah, uh, including the ACT party, taking away consent, only eight brave MPs, and I know those MPs were subject to vile threats, rape threats, and everything. Uh it was it was a shocker. Um, but look, that should be changed. So if I if I uh you know, as part of our campaign, I'll be lobbying New Zealand first to say, hey, you've banned puberty blockers, so therefore the law is actually fighting itself. You need to repeal the law. And I'll also be lobbying ACT to say, you're you're a party of free will, free determination. Why have you taken away people seeking consensual counseling? Um yeah, it's it's and it goes totally against their supposed values. So yeah, no, we'll be we'll be campaigning to overturn this law. It's a it's a harmful law and it it's a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist.

Cannabis Referendum And Potency Reality

52:00

Okay, well, look, uh we've got five minutes, and I do want to talk about weed. Yeah, let's talk about we I didn't plan this, but you did bring it up uh earlier, and I was oh jump on you you did mention it. Yeah, it got marijuana, that's right. Yeah, um maybe I did, I I've I had one before we started, no. But uh so what I found I I personally feel I've got a I've got a few opinions on this law. I I feel that Chloe Swabrook has never really recovered. I think that she was on the rise before this campaign. It really knocked her bum in. We saw that she's not a very great not very gracious in defeat. And but you know, her arguments were rubbish. Now, I could have got it over the line by just saying you're allowed to have three plants in your backyard. Um, yeah, but that's it, that's my argument. You're allowed to have three plants in your backyard. It like it's a libertarian issue. Marijuana was always a libertarian issue. Her argument was state, state, state, state, state. We're gonna have these dispensaries and they're gonna be outside of the, you know, 200 uh, you know, three 500 kilometers out of the out of the main street, or whatever it was, but it was just status nonsense that just made people go, uh, you know, just let me have three plants in my backyard. You know, all the other stuff just did it, just there was nothing sexy about it at all in terms of a campaign. So, what was your kind of argument? You were just going for the the harms uh and and medical evidence and and and so forth. Well, basically, we were saying that when you're talking about marijuana these days, you're not talking about your parents' pot or your woodstock weed. Uh, in effect, cannabis uh is a lot more potent. Uh in those days the THC levels were around 2 to 4%. Uh now you're averaging around, in fact, anything less than 15% is just junk weed. Uh and then of course you get into the uh the dabs and the oils, and I mean you can get THC. I remember um Andrew Little, oh uh Patrick Gow did some research and he went to Huntley where this guy was growing these, uh, like you say, uh growing these weeds in the back. Sorry, that's my Labrador. Um Wednesday Walk, Dad, um, is growing these weeds uh plants in the back and was getting it. They measured the TH, they they took it to um the the testing place and the THC was around, I think it was around the 80, 80% mark. And I remember Andrew Little being blown away by that, that just the potency of it. So look, it's the harm of uh cannabis because it's it's far much stronger. It's it's not your little joint that you're referring to. By the way, if you grow three plants in your backyard, you're basically a drug dealer because there's no way that you're gonna be able to smoke or consume what those three, if you're any good at at um growing weed, you're you're not gonna be able to South Auckland is Ono Bob. And and look, um, I I would encourage anybody who thinks that legalizing weed is a good thing to just go to Colorado, uh, California or Vancouver, walk around, see the evidence, smell the air. Um, I I mean, I actually in Colorado, I visited a place where there was a grow. So, in other words, a you know, a place that uh marketed and and and grew all these plants, uh, and it was next door to a couple of venues, including a church. And they said that if the wind was blowing off the grow on a Sunday morning when church was gathering, they couldn't gather because they started speaking in tongues. Exactly. And the smell was so pungent. Yeah, they were it was a holy high. In fact, I went I I in Colorado I went to the- I could feel the spirit. I went I went to an outlet that was called a holy high, and I met the two pastors who are, I think we're actually drug dealers. Uh, but you know, uh, look, yeah, our our warning was simply that the social harms were greater than the so-called uh benefits of having a high. And look, uh yeah, as you say, Chloe didn't put up good arguments. They felt they could regulate it. We were told that with big tobacco, we were told with big alcohol that they could regulate it. We know that there's, you know, huge problems with abuse uh as well. So uh unfortunately New Zealanders came on side despite the fact we were battling not only Chloe, but also the media. Yeah, yeah. It's it's interesting, but it's it's quite instructive for me in terms of like campaigning. Uh, you know, you ran a good campaign. Um, I mean, I am sympathetic to someone having a little bit in the backyard. I mean, I don't think it's a big deal so much. I mean, I do take your point that it's got a lot stronger. Um, and that is a concern. But, you know, her argument just was not sexy. Like, uh what who would it? It's like, well, what are you talking about now? It's like Well, the interesting thing was that when we looked at the polling, and you can actually see this in the graphs, the average of poll of polls, uh, the the the yes vote was gonna win by miles. And then uh when I came back from Vancouver and Colorado on the fact-finding mission, uh QA had me on with her, and we had a debate. Uh and from that time, basically that's when it swapped because finally the media inadvertently had given us a chance to put up our argument. And this is the problem with

Media Silence Labels And Free Speech

57:30

a lot of these debates. For example, that you know, I mean, the conversion therapy debate, we led the charge on that as an organization. I mean, we we got tens of thousands of submissions, so did the other side. I mean, it was it was more than 100,000 submissions on this bill. We got tens of thousands of submissions. Do you know how many media interviews I had in that whole debate? How many? None. Yeah, it's not good. One news One News did one thing from us and they grabbed it off our website. They grabbed a YouTube clip that I'd produced. They couldn't even come and talk to us. No, uh, and when we looked at the coverage, it was clearly uh in favor. So Venushi Walters, just the the other the other day, the Labour MP pushing back on the on the new, you know, NZ first bill of um oh hate, hate, yeah, yeah. Well, it's like it's irresponsible. We're we're allowing the conversation to happen. I'm sorry, this is but people need to have these conversations. I think the worst thing for genuine transgender people today has been the censorship. Yeah, it's it's really it's as soon as you censor, people get suspicious about your ideas for a start. They go, Well, why aren't they prepared to debate it? You know, and the irony is that in the LGBT. And in the LGBT, the T have tried to silence the LGB. Uh, and that's I mean, that's been interesting to watch as well. Just can't even discuss it. Well, the homosexual law reform bill was all debate. There was so much debate that happened at that time. You know, Norm Jones and all these people. I mean, like he was a pretty, pretty strident, nasty character at times. But, you know, people fronted up and um on on on both sides here and and debated. Georgina Bayer would debate, you know, when Georgina was healthier, obviously. It's it's a shame what happened and her withdrawal. But you know, uh she went to school. Interestingly, I went to school with Georgina Bayer, George Bayer. Okay. Yeah. So so that's Papa Toy, is it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. George was um George was two years ahead of me at Papatoy Thai High. Um yeah. So that's interesting. Bit of history. Bit of history, yeah. Yeah. No, uh it's I I I I think shutting down debate only only harms, you know. People think, well, if we shut down the debate, it's gonna help outside. In the short term, maybe. But I think the a lot of, you know, you're just growing resentment, you know, let it all out. You know, have that debate. It just it it's it's it's the way it's it's the way to sort of deal with polarization, really. You know, people have to be able to voice their views. We we can't be selectively silencing platforming silencing. Yeah, it's it's it's it hasn't worked. But they still want to do it, either they shut down the debate or they label. So they you know start saying, you know, it's far right or right right now is a new term, apparently, or you know, they uh or they call it Trumpian or any negative connotation that they can give it. Uh, and I just I just encourage people, uh, look, um the labels, the labels are not because they're true or valid. The the labels are designed to shut you up uh because we don't like the labels. Don't don't shut up. You need to keep on speaking up. Um, you know, it's water off a duck's back, and as I say, the Labour Party knows all about ducks, apparently. So that's right. Well, well, that's a great, that's a great gag uh to to end on, Bob. Well done. Um so yeah, well, thank you, Bob. It's been good. We've gone on for over an hour. Um and and you know, maybe I should bring you back on a panel sometime or something like that, and we can keep, you know, having these uh discussions and yeah, no, absolutely. And I love the work of the Free Speech Union. Um, yeah, I remember I think I did a little promo uh quite a few years ago now when we were opposing uh hate speech laws, etc. Matt McCartan was a part of that. Yes, Matt McCartan. And um, once again, it was the locking of arms of people on both sides of the aisle. That's right. Which is the same with the debate around the definition of man and woman. I mean, I'm locking arms. In fact, the disinformation project was most upset that Annie O'Brien was locking arms with a Christian fundamentalist at Family First. Um, I took it as a compliment that the fact that we uh were big enough and grown up enough to agree to disagree on some things, but come together and work together on those things that united us. And uh and you discover that people that you thought you wouldn't uh agree with actually are quite nice people. Yeah, I think you're quite nice now, Dane, after all those terrible things I thought. But stop, I told you, stop listening to Mohan Dutter. He's not a reliable source.

Final Thoughts And How To Connect

1:02:23

Thank you for listening to Free2Speak. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and consider sharing the podcast with others. We release new episodes regularly, and subscribing is the easiest way to stay up to date. If you have any questions, feedback or suggestions, you can contact us at podcast at fsu.nz. If you want to find out more about the New Zealand Free Speech Union, visit fsu.nz.