Free Kiwis!

Only a few days after its Senate voted down the University of Auckland's 'academic freedom' policy, Victoria University of Wellington has come out with a similar policy of its own. Here to discuss VUW's policy with us is Steph Martin from the Free Speech Union. We also discuss Steph's work to help protect New Zealanders' speech rights on a variety of fronts. 

Toby Young is the founder of the Free Speech Union and The Daily Sceptic, an associate editor of The Spectator, and a former associate editor at Quillette. We talked to him about the prospects for free speech and academic freedom in the Anglosphere, why he left Quillette and founded The Daily Sceptic, and what his experience of free (or charter) schools has been. https://freespeechunion.org/ https...

Peter Ridd was formerly head of the Physics Programme and the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Queensland. We asked him how and why he was forced out of JCU, as well as about the Great Barrier Reef and climate change in the Pacific. An article by Peter calling for greater quality assurance in 'policy-science': https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...

The morning after Victoria University of WELLINGTON's free speech event, Michael and James met to discuss the event, including both its set-up and points made by the speakers.

Jonathan Rauch is a US writer whose books include The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50 (2018); Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America (2004); Government's End: Why Washington Stopped Working (2000); and Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought   (1993). We talked to him about his latest book, The Constitution of Knowledge , and...

A conversation about Victoria University of Wellington Vice-Chancellor Nic Smith's decision to postpone his original panel on free speech and about the two new panels he's now announced. Topics we discuss include: Is the new panel more balanced or representative? Is Michael right-wing? And is Nic Smith going to be able to force his institution to respect people's basic expressive ri...

The topic of our third Free Kiwis! book club was Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay's book  Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity - And Why this Harms Everybody. We talked about its account of post-modernism and 'grievance studies,' and considered how much this has affected academia and the free speech crisis in New Zealand. Panel...

Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at the University of Buckingham. He talked to Michael about whether the Amish will inherit the earth, whether wokeness is a religion-substitute, and how we can protect liberal science and civilization. Eric's book on religious groups and population growth: https://www.amazon.com/Shall-Religiou... Eric's course on wokeness: https://www.buckingham.ac....

Graham Linehan is the co-creator of Father Ted and other popular UK comedy series. We talked to him about Ted's origins, comedy in a time of censorship, and trans issues. Graham's time in NZ was hosted by the Free Speech Union: https://www.fsu.nz/ Mia Hughes' report on 'the WPATH files': https://environmentalprogress.org/big... Graham's X:   / glinner  Free Kiwis!&apo...

Iona Italia is Managing Editor of Quillette and a former Editor-in-Chief of Areo. We talked to her about her life and career; the virtues of letter-writing; and her work with heterodox online publications like Areo and, now, Quillette. Iona' Substack: https://www.drionaitalia.com/ Jamie Palmer's long-read on the lab-leak hypothesis: https://quillette.com/2023/08/19/the-lab-leak-illusion/...

Lord Sumption is a historian and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2018. He is also a widely-respected commentator. We talked to him about our current free speech predicament in English-speaking countries, what led to it, and how to re-build a truly liberal culture. We are grateful to the NZ Free Speech Union for hosting Lord Sumption in NZ. You can supp...

Dr. Melissa Derby is Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Waikato, where she teaches at the Tauranga campus. We talked to her about why she prefers not to be introduced as a 'Māori academic'; whether the concept of 'inter-generational trauma' can bear the weight that's been placed on it; and what the future holds for the New Zealand Free Speech Union. 'Li...

Rodney Hide entered parliament in 1996, was elected leader of the ACT party in 2004, and was appointed Minister for Local government in 2008 in the fifth National government. He retired from the ACT leadership and from parliament in 2011. Rodney has studied zoology and botany, worked on an oil rig, and is a keen proponent of yellow jackets. Real Talk with Rodney Hide: https://realitycheck.radio/ho...

Prof. Te Maire Tau is Pou Whakarae at the Ngāi Tahu Centre at the University of Canterbury. We talked to him about Māori traditional knowledge and (Western) science; local traditions and New Zealand democracy; and whether Polynesians discovered Antarctica. Papers by Te Maire Tau and others that we discussed: The Death of Knowledge: https://www.nzjh.auckland.ac.nz/docs/... Mātauranga Māori as an ep...

Nadine Strossen is Professor Emerita at the New York Law School, a past national President of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a member of the advisory boards of the ACLU, the Academic Freedom Alliance, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Heterodox Academy, and the National Coalition Against Censorship. We had a wide-ranging conversation with her on free speech...

Recent events in Auckland have reminded us that a tiny minority of radical activists are determined to shut down the speech of so-called TERFs ('Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists') and stop trans issues being openly discussed. So we invited leading feminist thinker Kathleen Stock on the podcast to have a wide-ranging discussion of trans rights, women's rights, and related issues....

Dr. David Lillis is a statistician and data scientist who has worked for the Royal Society of New Zealand, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, and the New Zealand Institute for Sport. We talked to him about some recent studies of the representation of Māori and women in NZ academia. We also talked about reforms to the school curriculum and about the response to Listener letter on science. Mc...

Dr. Nick Matzke is Senior Lecturer in Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland. We talked to him about what phylogenetic biogeography is; his involvement in the debate over creationism (including 'intelligent design' theories) in the US; and to what extent Maori traditional lore can be considered science. Nick's open letter on vitalism in the NZ school science curriculum: h...

Roger Openshaw is Emeritus Professor of Education at Massey University. We drew on his rich knowledge of NZ educational history as we discussed the changing relationship between central government and NZ schools over the past century or so; the perils and promises of the new history curriculum; and how solid the evidence is for the common assertion that the NZ education system is racist. The revie...

In this second Free Kiwis! book club, we were joined by Dane Giraud of the NZ Free Speech Union to discuss our previous guest Jacob Mchangama's book Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media. The book: https://www.amazon.com/Free-Speech-History-Socrates-Social/dp/1541600495

On many American university campuses over the last few years speakers have been shouted down, students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly, and rates of anxiety and depression are rising. 'Deplatforming' is also not unknown at New Zealand universities. In this episode we review Haidt and Lukianoff's book The Coddling of the American Mind...

Dr. Eric Crampton is Chief Economist at the New Zealand Initiative. We talked to him about how much Kiwis know about their political system, and how much it matters; content regulation, on- and off-line; and why Wellington's latest regulations about smoking have made him want to join forces with pirates. Eric's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericcrampton Eric's blog: http://offsetting...

David Rozado is an Associate Professor of Information Technology at Otago Polytechnic. One of his interests is in word frequencies and word associations in large collections of texts, especially from the news media. We talked to David about our recent survey of free expression among NZ undergraduates; his work on prejudice-denoting terms in news media and in academic papers; and his work on negati...

Dame Catherine Healy is a spokesperson and founding member of the New Zealand Sex Workers' Collective. We talked to her about all aspects of sex work in New Zealand, from the legislative environment to social attitudes.  The NZ Sex Workers' Collective:  NZPC > New Zealand Prostitutes Collective

Prof. Paul Moon teaches at the Auckland University of Technology and is the author of a score of books. We talked to him about the Treaty of Waitangi, its context and reception; the evidence for cannibalism; the new New Zealand history curriculum; and the intellectual atmosphere in modern universities. Paul's latest book: https://www.routledge.com/Colonising-...