The Poor Down-Trodden Free Speech Union

and the ever silenced Pope Brian

Welcome to the Free Speech Union AGM, that brave little festival of courage where people who are never, ever off-camera gather to complain about how silenced they are.

Outside, one solitary protester stands in the cold with a Palestinian flag and a rainbow flag, filming people as they wander into the building to defend their right to absolutely dominate the conversation. Inside, several dozen warriors against “cancel culture” are assembling in a fully miked, catered venue with formal panels and afternoon tea.

One man with a phone, two flags and no PA system is, of course, the real threat.

The Church of the Perpetually Silenced

Enter Brian Tamaki, New Zealand’s least muzzled martyr, striding into the building with the air of a man who has been interviewed, photographed, platformed and prosecuted more often than most of us have caught a bus.

Brian’s line is simple: the media have been very, very mean to him. Dishonest. Poisonous. Always making him look like the sort of man who would, say, burn flags, target rainbow crossings, call other religions demonic and flirt with imported far-right cosplay.

Which is deeply unfair, because he is exactly that sort of man, and who likes to be stereotyped?

On stage, he explains that Christianity has been “pushed back” in New Zealand, while Diwali, Ramadan and Chinese New Year apparently roam the country unchecked, menacing innocent Kiwis with fairy lights and shared food. Auckland, he suggests, is now a pagan hellscape full of festivals that do not celebrate him.

His solution is refreshingly modest: ban halal, ban burqas, ban mosques, ban public expressions of any non-Christian faith. Let the other religions exist, of course – he’s not a monster – but only in private homes, like pornography and the more embarrassing cousins. New Zealand must declare itself a Christian nation again, by which he means a Brian-flavoured Christian nation again.

The crowd applauds wildly for this stirring defence of free speech.

Free Speech, But Make It One-Way

The Free Speech Union insists it is politically neutral. It will defend drag queen story time, it says, and sometimes even remembers to mention this between panel slots packed with people who think drag queens are grooming children, vaccines murdered their relatives, and mosques should be politely bulldozed out of the frame.

FSU chair Stephen Franks explains that he “honours” those who protest against drag queen story hour, calling it “grooming” and “dreadful.” Luckily, this is different from defamation because it is performed in a room full of people nodding along and calling it courage.

He dislikes protest in general, he tells us – such coarse, coercive stuff – but makes an exception for the ones he agrees with. The big Parliament camp-out? That was upsetting, yes, but also moving. The police should have cleared it, but also the protesters were noble. The law must be upheld, except when it shouldn’t, and that’s the sort of nuance you only get from a seasoned free speech warrior.

Then we have the filmmaker of River of Freedom, who describes the protest as a “civil uprising” and the vaccine as a mass murder weapon, thus turning public health policy into a Netflix conspiracy pitch. The moderator does not, it must be said, bury her in follow-up questions. He simply nods thoughtfully and pivots to a safer topic: how awful journalists are.

It is a recurring theme. Pandemic restrictions, the vaccine, mandates, public health settings – all of it treated as a crime scene. The bodies are never produced, but the feelings are, and in this room feelings are evidence.

The Moderator Who Came To Help

The moderator, a broadcaster, is there to provide balance. By “balance” we do not mean “challenge” or “fact-check,” obviously – this is a free speech event, not a cross-examination.

When Tamaki calls for bans on mosques and public non-Christian festivals, our host bravely responds by noting he recently made a video about halal burgers and they were delicious. That’s the push-back. A man just advocated state-mandated religious suppression and the counter-argument is, essentially, “mate, the kebabs slap.”

Similarly, when vaccines are described as tools of murder, the rejoinder is not “that is wild, baseless and dangerous.” It is more along the lines of “gosh, the media sure were mean to you, eh?”

It’s less a panel and more a televised support group for people who feel unfairly maligned despite having said every single thing they are accused of saying.

The Eternal Victimhood Roadshow

If you listen carefully, there’s a pattern. Everyone on stage is both hero and victim, visionary and martyr.

Tamaki talks about the Covid protests as though they were a cross between Gallipoli and a church picnic. He remembers “ordinary Kiwis” turning up with their wine and deck chairs, bravely flouting health rules so they could stand pack-tight in a giant aerosol cloud of resistance. Nurses. Teachers. Parents. People who just wanted “comfort, healing, strength” and a decent chant.

He becomes emotional as he recounts these tales, which is important. Tears are the disinfectant of inconvenient facts. If you cry hard enough, no one asks about the immunocompromised, or the hospital wards, or the people who didn’t make it to the next inspirational rally because the virus got there first.

Around him, the narrative congeals: the protesters were the real victims, the mandates were the real violence, the press were the real censors, the government was the real oppressor. Everyone else – migrants, Muslims, queer communities, anyone run over by the fallout – are background extras in the epic saga of hurt feelings.

Free Speech For Me, Shush For Thee

The Free Speech Union likes to show off its commitment to different viewpoints, so of course no trans person is on stage to respond to the international guest who believes trans rights are a threat to civilisation. No Muslim is invited to explain what it’s like hearing calls to ban their public existence at a conference dedicated to “open debate.”

There is, however, The Wizard of Christchurch: an elderly eccentric who actually did fight for literal free speech protections in Cathedral Square. He stands near the front, desperate to speak to the assembled defenders of expression, and is briskly drowned out by the MC urging everyone to go and have afternoon tea.

He bellows that “we’re on the wrong track,” which is true on so many levels it practically qualifies as a religious revelation, but the crowd is already drifting toward coffee and mini sausage rolls. His free speech, it turns out, is not on the agenda.

Meanwhile, outside, the lone protester with the flags is still being treated as the true authoritarian: the man who dares to stand in the cold and say “this is not okay” while inside a roomful of people loudly discuss which communities should be legally muzzled first.

The Comfort of Being Persecuted From the Podium

By the end of the afternoon, the pattern is set in concrete.

You can demand the banning of entire religions, describe doctors and nurses as murderers, call pride events grooming, and rewrite a public health emergency as your personal crucifixion – and still call yourself the underdog.

You can sit on a stage, with a microphone, in a plush venue, warmly applauded, and insist you are being silenced.

You can spend hours complaining about “ideological capture” while never once noticing that the ideology which has captured the room is your own.

That’s the genius of it, really. The Free Speech Union AGM is not a summit about free speech. It is a spa day for people who want the thrills of being persecuted with none of the inconvenience.

They get the catharsis of shouting “we will not be controlled” into a friendly echo chamber, the glow of being “brave” while surrounded by agreement, and the swagger of being dissidents while advocating for the state to police what other people wear, eat and worship.

And when it’s all over, they stroll out into a country where, despite everything they’ve just said, they remain exactly as free as they were before.

The only people who need to worry are those who might one day live in the New Zealand these freedom fighters say they want.

If this struck a chord, you will find more hard truths, sharp edges and the occasional laugh at www.regenerationhq.co.nz/satire. We can do better and we should expect better, starting today.