The Law Commission recently put out a consultation paper on whether the law relating to 'hate crime' should be changed, and if so how. The Commission considers whether the current 'sentence aggravation' model (in which hatred may be factored into sentencing as an aggravating factor) should be replaced by a new, specific offence of 'hate crime.' But how should 'hate' (of various sorts) factor into how we think about different offences? How broad should our scope be when considering whether a particular act (or a particular person) has been 'hateful'? And is there a risk that the changes will erode expressive rights, including speech rights?

We are joined by Steph Martin of the Free Speech Union (and also Adjunct Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative) to discuss all of this, as well as Victoria University of Wellington's latest version of their academic freedom policy.

The Law Commission's 'hate crime' consultation paper: https://www.lawcom.govt.nz/our-work/hate-crime/tab/consultation-paper