The ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Party will not take down our social media videos following a ruling yesterday by the Speaker of the House, Leader of the Opposition Simon Bridges says.
“Freedom of speech is of fundamental importance to our Parliamentary democracy and to New Zealanders.
“Yesterday’s Speaker’s ruling has regrettably put the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Party in the worst of all positions. The Speaker has neither referred the matter to the Privileges Committee for a definitive public hearing, nor ruled in our favour as we believe he should.
“Instead he has attempted to stop us from holding the Government to account by drawing attention to Parliamentary proceedings. He has pushed the matter to a process which effectively gags us for a significant period of time.
“After the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Party pointed out that this would also include hundreds of videos from Labour, The Greens and NZ First when they were in Opposition, he made an amended ruling that this only applies to videos posted this year, therefore this only really affects the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Party.
“We have the highest respect for the role of the Speaker and his Office. But in the interests of freedom of expression and against censorship, we will keep the videos up to decisively bring this to a head.”
