Jonathan Ayling: Free Speech Union Chief Executive on NZ universities implementation of free speech policies

Following Otago University’s implementation of a free speech and academic freedom policy earlier this year, universities countrywide are following suit. 

The Free Speech Union has engaged with most New Zealand universities and says it has held high-level talks. 

Chief Executive Jonathan Ayling tells Mike Hosking the Free Speech Union is concerned about the state of free speech and academic freedom across the university sector.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Changes coming to a campus near you. This could be
good news. After implementing a free speech and academic freedom
policy earlier this year at a Tiger university, more looking
to follow suit. Apparently. Free Speech Union has been engaged
with the major universities and majority of the universities around
the country. The chief executive, Jonathan aliens with us on
this Jonathan, very good morning to you, Good morning to now.

(00:20):
This is a result of the new government, right, so
they're wanting people to put a free speech So you're
going around, what's the vibe you're getting off campus?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
That's not exactly right. Actually, like a lot of universities,
most of the universe actually were already working on free
speech policies of some kind. They has got their am
to do really around the Coalition agreement statement, and what
they're doing now is trying to get out ahead of
any government agreement requirements. And so as we've been going
around for the most part, actually a lot of universities

(00:51):
feel a bit annoyed really as a government would have
the audacity to try and require them to defend free
speech on the campuses. They insist there's no problem at
all and there's no requirement for this. If that were
the case, I would suggest there would be no problem
with requiring it. And the Freefeudge Union has worked on
this issue for over three years now and we're really
concerned about the same of free speech and academic freem

(01:13):
across the university sector or eight universities. But there are
some universities in particular that seem to be really dragging
the chain. And of course a Victoria University earlier this
year gave a pretty poor showing for the defense of
free speech, and Massive University is another that kind of
consistently seems to let the team down, Which is.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Why I was going to ask you, is everyone on
the same page on free speech or it's your interpretation
of what free speech might be.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Well, no one ever says they don't like free speech.
But of course there's that famous nome Chompsky quote Stalin
all in favor of free speech, you know, so was Gebels,
as long as the speech they agreed with, And unfortunately
our vice chancellor around the country they seem to have
a similar interpretation, and so they say, of course free
speech matters, but not people who are sharing disinformation and

(01:59):
cert whatever death knew one of that and they're not
those that are. You know, even VIC has in its
draft principles those who reduce the manna of someone. You know,
it's vague stuff like that. What does that even mean?

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Are we going to get there?

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Well, if the Free Speech Union has anything to say
about it, we will look international examples in Germany and
in Quebec and up until recently in the UK gave
us a bit of a pass forward. It's a bumpy
one and so we're going to continue to work with
government and with the vice chancellors. Our ideal solution would
be that universities would identify the fact that without free
speech they actually have no purpose in existing. Free speech

(02:36):
is intrinsic in the idea of education and research and
the development of knowledge. Unfortunately, I'm not convinced that they
are actually going to reform themselves, and we will meet
external influence, and by that I mean the government coming
in and putting in some requirements in order to remain
eligible for their funding.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Good stuff. Jonathan, go well with it, Jonathan Ling, who's
the pre Speech Union chief executive, and having just threaten
the ban chlube from the program, of course, I could
probably learn less about free speech to Whom Couldn't I.
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