In the midst of today's historic strike action—the largest in decades—Rights Aotearoa has released a statement defending a fundamental democratic principle under direct attack by this Government: the right to withdraw labour.

Standing with Workers' Right to Stike

Today, approximately 100,000+ public sector workers are on strike across Aotearoa. Our statement doesn't take a position on the specific pay or conditions being negotiated. Instead, it addresses something more fundamental: the Government's systematic dismantling of the right to strike itself.

When Ministers threaten to remove strike rights from health workers entirely, introduce punitive pay deductions for partial strikes, and strip pay equity protections from 180,000 workers, they are not simply negotiating hard—they are attacking the structural conditions that make genuine negotiation possible. The right to strike is recognised under international law, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to which Aotearoa is a party. It is not a privilege granted by the state to be withdrawn at political convenience.

Our statement makes clear: whether one agrees with teachers, nurses, or doctors on their specific bargaining positions is immaterial to whether they possess the right to take collective action in the first place. Rights are not conditional on political approval.

Read Our Full Statement

Beyond the Binary: A Principled Framework for Hate Speech Reform

The debate over hate speech legislation in Aotearoa has become trapped in false binaries: protection versus free expression, legislation versus education, criminalisation versus impunity. Our comprehensive policy document cuts through this unhelpful framing by grounding reform in the obligations Aotearoa has already accepted under international human rights law.

Article 20(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights requires states to prohibit incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence. Yet our domestic law—Section 131 of the Human Rights Act 1993—protects only on grounds of colour, race, or ethnic or national origins. Sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, and disability receive no protection. There have been no successful prosecutions in three decades. This isn't protection of free speech; it's abandonment of communities under sustained attack.

We propose a hybrid civil-criminal model drawing on best international practice: accessible civil pathways through the Human Rights Commission for conciliation and education, alongside a high-threshold criminal offence for deliberate incitement to hatred. The Rabat Plan of Action—developed by UN experts—provides robust safeguards against misuse through a six-part contextual test ensuring only the most egregious, deliberate campaigns to dehumanise are criminalised.

This framework protects offensive political comments, theological critiques, and controversial research. What it doesn't protect is systematic vilification designed to make violence against minorities seem acceptable. Hate speech legislation isn't an attack on democracy—it's a defence of its foundations.

Read the Full Framework

New Resource: Why Universal Human Rights, Not Just Civil Liberties?

We're often asked why Rights Aotearoa frames our work around universal human rights rather than civil liberties. It's an excellent question, and our new explainer page addresses it directly.

Civil liberties organisations do vital work protecting freedoms from state interference—free speech, due process, privacy. These protections are essential. But the civil liberties framework asks a limited question: what can't the government do to me? Universal human rights ask something broader and more fundamental: what does every person need to live with dignity?

The distinction becomes concrete in our context. A civil liberties lens might ensure eviction processes follow proper legal procedures. A universal human rights lens asks whether people have adequate housing in the first place. When Māori are disproportionately imprisoned, when Pasifika children experience poverty at three times the rate of Pākehā children, when rainbow rangatahi face dramatically higher rates of self-harm—these aren't isolated procedural failures. They're symptoms of systems that perpetuate inequality, requiring structural transformation.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi itself demonstrates why universal human rights better serve Aotearoa. Te Tiriti isn't merely a civil liberties document establishing procedural protections—it's a human rights framework establishing partnership, guaranteeing tino rangatiratanga, and recognising cultural rights as fundamental. Universal human rights provide the vocabulary for collective rights, self-determination, and positive obligations that civil liberties frameworks lack.

Read Why This Distinction Matters

Revisiting: The Death of the Marketplace—Reimagining Free Speech

In light of ongoing debates about hate speech reform and platform regulation, we're highlighting again our CEO Paul Thistoll's transformative opinion piece on why the "marketplace of ideas" metaphor has failed—and what should replace it.

For over a century, we've understood free speech through market logic: ideas compete, truth naturally triumphs through rational consumer choice. But this was always convenient fiction. In our algorithmic age, it's become dangerous delusion. When YouTube's recommendation algorithm actively radicalises users for profit, when false news spreads six times faster than truth on social media, when a handful of tech executives shape global discourse—the marketplace hasn't just failed. It's been abolished by design.

Paul proposes a radically different framework: the discursive ecosystem. Not another market-based model, but recognition that human communication is organic, interdependent, and vulnerable. It requires cultivation, not just competition. Like any ecosystem, it can be poisoned, depleted, or destroyed—and it needs both diversity and balance to thrive.

This isn't abstract philosophy. The ecosystem model illuminates practical paths forward: platform regulation as environmental protection, algorithmic impact assessments, public digital infrastructure, international cooperation agreements on information pollution. From Aotearoa, we have unique opportunity to lead this transformation—small enough to experiment, democratic enough to deliberate, and scarred enough by the current system's failures to know change is necessary.

Read the Full Analysis

These are challenging times for human rights in Aotearoa, but they are also clarifying. When fundamental rights come under direct attack, the necessity of principled defence becomes undeniable. We remain committed to that defence—grounded in international law, responsive to structural inequality, and focused on the dignity of every person.

Ngā mihi nui,
Paul Thistoll
CEO, Rights Aotearoa

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Rights Aotearoa | Aotearoa's leading NGO devoted to promoting and defending universal human rights with a focus on transgender, non-binary, and intersex rights.