Geoffrey Palmer: 'In a free and democratic society, defaming the government is the right of every citizen.' - My Therapeutic Products Bill Submission Must be Reinstated II.

 

 This is an addendum, in the form of a further email, I have sent to the Health Committee to have my rejected submission against the Therapeutic Products Bill reinstated. A special thank you to that brave group of men and women medical professionals from New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out With Science, for posting the Geoffrey Palmer quotation used. It's a foundational free speech principle and so apt to Covid and post-Covid times.

Dear Health Committee

In my email to you of yesterday, I stated my case, based on law and principle, for why you must not reject my submission against the Therapeutic Products Bill pursuant to your stated grounds it was, quote 'possibly defamatory'.

The summation of that was simply my submission is protected by parliamentary privilege, no action can be taken for defamation, and you have, therefore, subverted my democratic right to be heard due to your own subjective opinions (and beliefs) which is not the end to which standing orders should ever be used; particularly given the content of my submission.

Moreover, I've re-read my submission and realise, out of the heat of the moment as I was angry when writing that - still am (always am) - there is no personal defamation in it, so you must be implying it was defamatory of government, that is, you've all had your sensibilities ruffled, plus my submission, if published as it has to be like any submission and available for all to read, goes against Wellington's (all parties sitting in that tyrannous Hive, including National and ACT) narrative on safe and effective for the Pfizer Covid vaccine, plus it pushes the efficacy of the early treatments, the final components of which I can still purchase, but I guarantee will be made impossible by this bill.

So, my final defence, and why you must reinstate my submission, that is, you must be bigger than yourselves as this issue concerns the very nature of our democracy, is the principle so ably stated by a former Labour leader and one of New Zealand's most respected constitutional lawyers, that  defamation of government is, indeed, my right, and an important one, thus the grounds of your rejection are wholly unjustified.

'In a free and democratic society, defaming the government is the right of every citizen. In times beset with threats of terrorism we should not close the open society. To do so would only encourage its enemies. In New Zealand, free speech and public debate must be "unihibited, robust and wide open", and it may include "vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials", as Justice Brennan of the United States Supreme Court once put it.'

Geoffrey Palmer, New Zealand Law Commission Report 96, March 2007: 'Reforming the Law of Sedition'.

That quotation, especially 'vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials', could have been the by-line of my submission.

I await the Committee's reply with anticipation of the right result.

Mark Hubbard