Free To Speak

Free Speech Union
  • 3.7 (3)
  • Politics
  • Updated Biweekly

Free to Speak is the New Zealand podcast that goes beyond headlines to explore the principles behind our most contentious debates.Produced by the New Zealand Free Speech Union, it examines freedom of expression and why it matters to a free and democratic society.Expect interviews with guests from New Zealand and around the world, plus deep dives with our Council into the cases and policy work shaping free speech today. Any questions, queries or feedback? Email: podcast@fsu.nz  www.fsu.nz

  1. 4d ago

    Juliet Moses: Artists, Donors and Who Owns the Stage | Free to Speak

    Juliet Moses is a lawyer, President of the New Zealand Jewish Council, and the author of "Biting the Hand", a Quillette essay on what happens when artists insist their work and their politics cannot be separated. Her argument is that when artists say the two are indivisible, the institutions and donors who fund them are increasingly taking them at their word. Dane and Juliet begin with concert pianist Jayson Gillham, who used a Melbourne Symphony Orchestra recital in August 2024 to condemn Israel over the killing of journalists in Gaza, had his next performance cancelled, and lost his case in the Federal Court of Australia in July. They move to the Sydney Theatre Company keffiyeh curtain call, estimated to have cost the company $1.5 million in refunded tickets and withdrawn donations, and ask whether a performer has an unfettered right to turn a stage into a political platform, or whether an institution is entitled to protect its audience, its donors and its reputation. They then turn the question around, to donors who are themselves the problem. The Sackler family and the use of arts philanthropy to launder a reputation built on OxyContin. Nan Goldin's de-naming campaign, and why Harvard broke ranks and kept the Arthur M. Sackler name. Epstein's money at MIT, accepted while he sat on the institution's own disqualified donor list. Dane's first ever funding, a $350 cheque from James Wallace, written years before Wallace's convictions and the transfer of his art collection to a trust bearing no trace of his name. The conversation closes on whether actors need to hold some public neutrality to stay convincing on screen, and on this year's Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, where a fiction finalist used his reading slot to condemn the Government over Gaza and the awards' co-founder binned his prepared speech to answer him. Juliet's argument is not that donors should get their way. It is that campaigns without clear principles collapse into purity tests, and that declining to fund, to platform or to buy a work is not the same thing as censorship. Views expressed are the guest's own. Read Juliet's essay in Quillette: https://quillette.com/2026/07/31/arts-funding-and-the-new-politics-of-patronage/ Note: this episode includes discussion of sexual offending in the context of a convicted arts patron. Free to Speak is the official podcast of the New Zealand Free Speech Union. Uncensored conversations on free speech, civil liberties, and the people defending them. Hosted by Dane Giraud. Join: https://www.fsu.nz/join Donate: https://www.fsu.nz/donate Newsletter: https://www.fsu.nz/subscribe Website: https://www.fsu.nz podcast@fsu.nz Promoted by Free Speech Union, PO Box 10423, The Terrace, Wellington 6143 Support the show https://www.fsu.nz/ https://x.com/NZFreeSpeech https://www.instagram.com/freespeechnz/ https://www.tiktok.com/@freespeechunionnz

  2. Aug 10

    Frances Widdowson: Kamloops, unmarked graves and academic freedom

    Frances Widdowson is a Canadian political scientist. She was an associate professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary until her dismissal in 2021. For several years she has examined the evidence behind the May 2021 announcement concerning the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. She joins Dane Giraud to set out what she has found. In May 2021 it was announced that the remains of 215 children had been confirmed at the site. Widdowson gives her account of what followed. She describes a ground-penetrating radar survey of an apple orchard, and a July 2021 presentation in which the figure was put at 200 targets of interest rather than confirmed remains. She explains what ground radar can detect and what it cannot, and why she argues that only excavation can settle the question. She also covers the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission volume on missing children and burials, and the difference between an unmarked grave and a clandestine one. The wider argument is about open inquiry. Widdowson says the subject has become very difficult to research in Canada, and that questioning the claim invites the label of residential school denier. Mount Royal University dismissed her in 2021. She links that dismissal to her positions on this and other contested issues, and the matter remains before the Alberta Labour Relations Board. Her claims in this episode are her own. We publish them because the question of who is permitted to ask them is a free speech question. An argument that cannot be tested in public is not an argument at all. Free to Speak is the official podcast of the New Zealand Free Speech Union. Uncensored conversations on free speech, civil liberties, and the people defending them. Hosted by Dane Giraud. Join the Free Speech Union: https://www.fsu.nz/join Support our work: https://www.fsu.nz/donate Newsletter: https://www.fsu.nz/subscribe Website: https://www.fsu.nz Got feedback or a guest suggestion? podcast@fsu.nz Promoted by Free Speech Union, PO Box 10423, The Terrace, Wellington 6143 Support the show https://www.fsu.nz/ https://x.com/NZFreeSpeech https://www.instagram.com/freespeechnz/ https://www.tiktok.com/@freespeechunionnz

  3. Aug 3

    Shubz: Called a Kūpapa for Talking to the Wrong People

    Shubz has been called a kūpapa. The word describes Māori who sided with the Crown in the New Zealand Wars, and it still gets thrown at Māori accused of betraying their own. Shubz gets it for having David Seymour on his show. Shubz hosts "Shubz Says So" on Radio Aotearoa. His method is simple: talk to people you disagree with, in public, without the gotcha. That has meant long conversations with David Seymour, Brian Tamaki, Don Brash and others, and it has cost him standing in parts of his own community. He sits down here with Dane Giraud, host of Free to Speak and a Council member of the Free Speech Union, who knows the same pressure from inside the Jewish community, where the equivalent word is Kapo. Both men arrive at the same question from different directions: what happens to free speech when the heaviest penalty for dissent comes not from the state but from your own people? They cover the gap between kaupapa and kūpapa, why Shubz argues Te Pāti Māori does not speak for all Māori, blood quantum and who gets to decide who counts, how little either side of the Treaty debate often knows about the history, and his argument that funding and self-preservation explain more about who polices the line than culture does. It also goes somewhere harder. Shubz is an advocate against sexual abuse, and he asks why a movement that filled the streets over the Treaty could not turn out for Sam Troth's hīkoi for survivors. He talks about what people brought to him on his own journey around Te Ika-a-Māui, and about being offered money to stop talking. Dane pushes back, particularly on whether a small community is ever right to keep its disagreements in-house. Neither man lands quite where you would expect. Content note: this episode includes discussion of child sexual abuse, including a survivor's account, and strong language throughout. Support is available. Safe to Talk: 0800 044 334 or text 4334. Male Survivors Aotearoa: malesurvivors.nz. Victim Support: 0800 842 846. Mentioned in this episode: Shubz Says So on Radio Aotearoa: https://shubzlive.com The Road to Healing Aotearoa (Sam Troth): https://www.theroadtohealing.co.nz Free to Speak is the official podcast of the New Zealand Free Speech Union: uncensored conversations on free speech, civil liberties, and the people defending them. Hosted by Dane Giraud. Join the Free Speech Union: https://www.fsu.nz/join Support our work: https://www.fsu.nz/donate Newsletter: https://www.fsu.nz/subscribe Website: https://www.fsu.nz Got feedback or a guest suggestion? podcast@fsu.nz Support the show https://www.fsu.nz/ https://x.com/NZFreeSpeech https://www.instagram.com/freespeechnz/ https://www.tiktok.com/@freespeechunionnz

  4. Jul 27

    Paul Moon: Killing Te Reo Māori | Free to Speak

    In 2018, historian Paul Moon published a book arguing that te reo Māori is on course to disappear as a living language, and that almost everything being done to revive it is failing. The reaction was immediate and hostile. Moon's position is that he is a friend of the language, and that a good friend does not offer false comfort. He argues that compulsory language teaching has failed in Wales, Ireland, Luxembourg and Singapore, that fluency figures are self-reported and unverifiable, that no indigenous second language anywhere has been successfully revived, and that te reo risks surviving only in ceremony, the way Latin and Old Slavonic did. Dane Giraud pushes back throughout: on Israel's revival of Hebrew, on the punishment of Māori children for speaking their language at school, and on whether hostility towards non-Māori learners is part of the problem. Moon's conclusions are disputed by many te reo scholars and revitalisation practitioners. We publish the conversation because an argument about the survival of a language is worth testing in the open. CHAPTERS 00:00 Intro 00:40 The book, and the reaction to it 02:15 Why he wrote it 03:10 Kōhanga Reo, and the smell of an oily rag 05:20 Do the politicians actually mean it? 07:45 Does compulsion work? Wales, Ireland, Luxembourg 10:50 How languages pass between generations 13:00 Language as an ecosystem 14:00 No indigenous second language has ever been revived 14:50 213,000 speakers, so where do you hear it? 16:20 The trouble with self-reported fluency 17:25 The risk of becoming a ceremonial language 19:00 Israel, Hebrew, and why it does not transfer 21:00 The 1820s, when most Pākehā spoke te reo 21:50 Solutions, and why there is no magic pill 25:05 Should non-Māori learn te reo? 27:00 The pronunciation argument 29:20 English: muscular, arrogant, invasive 34:00 Was te reo beaten out of schoolchildren? 35:55 TikTok, and the content problem 37:55 The burning marae ABOUT FREE TO SPEAK Free to Speak is the official podcast of the New Zealand Free Speech Union: uncensored conversations on free speech, civil liberties, and the people defending them. Hosted by Dane Giraud. SUPPORT THE WORK Join: https://www.fsu.nz/join Donate: https://www.fsu.nz/donate Newsletter: https://www.fsu.nz/subscribe FOLLOW THE FREE SPEECH UNION NZ Website: https://www.fsu.nz X: https://x.com/NZFreeSpeech Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/freespeechunion Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freespeechunionnz TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@freespeechunionnz Got feedback or a guest suggestion? podcast@fsu.nz Support the show https://www.fsu.nz/ https://x.com/NZFreeSpeech https://www.instagram.com/freespeechnz/ https://www.tiktok.com/@freespeechunionnz

  5. Jul 20

    Elliot Ikilei: Can a Conservative Truly Support Free Speech? | Free to Speak

    Elliot Ikilei, former New Conservative leader, key figure in Hobson's Pledge, and now New Zealand First's 2026 candidate for Takanini, joins Dane Giraud for a conversation that moves from common ground to open clash. The two grew up streets apart in Auckland's lower socio-economic suburbs, and they begin by comparing notes: absent fathers, imported gang culture, rage, and the long road back. Elliot recounts going off the rails as a young man, finding faith at 25, and how frontline youth work convinced him that family breakdown, not colonisation, was driving the alienation of our young people.  A card-carrying lefty became one of the country's most prominent social conservatives. From there, it is conservatism versus progressivism head-on. Dane and Elliot debate whether Drag Queen Story Time is a free speech issue or a child protection issue, whether the trans community is helped or ultimately hurt by censorship, why Elliot's Free Speech Union membership lasted only days, and whether a traditionalist can defend speech he finds abhorrent. They finish on Elliot's campaign to take one of New Zealand's most diverse and unpredictable swing seats off National. Support the show https://www.fsu.nz/ https://x.com/NZFreeSpeech https://www.instagram.com/freespeechnz/ https://www.tiktok.com/@freespeechunionnz

  6. Jul 13

    Douglas Brown - VPN Bans, a Banned Film and 'Trusted News'

    Erica Stanford says a VPN ban was never on the table. Barrister and Free Speech Union Council Member Douglas Brown isn't convinced. Douglas joins host Dane Giraud for a freewheeling episode on three stories that end in the same place: someone else deciding what you can see online.  The Post reported the Government had been looking at VPN restrictions as part of its under-16 social media ban. Within hours, ACT and NZ First ruled it out and the Education Minister denied it was ever considered. But the select committee report on online harm mentions VPNs 19 times and recommends them as an area for the regulator to explore.  Douglas explains what a VPN actually is, who relies on them, and why an under-16 ban cannot be enforced without imposing age verification on every New Zealander. Then Citizen Vigilante, the Uwe Boll film starring Armie Hammer that was refused classification in Germany. Elon Musk shared it, it topped the charts, and the Streisand effect did the rest. From Thomas Paine's Rights of Man to Life of Brian to Spycatcher, suppressing a work has always been the surest way to promote it.  Finally, the UK's plan to force social media platforms to give prominence to approved 'trusted news' providers, including the BBC. Who decides what counts as shared and accurate facts? Support the show https://www.fsu.nz/ https://x.com/NZFreeSpeech https://www.instagram.com/freespeechnz/ https://www.tiktok.com/@freespeechunionnz

  7. Jul 6

    Brian Boyd — Nabokov, Lolita, and a History of Censorship | Free to Speak

    New Zealand banned it. So did France, Australia and South Africa, and every American publisher who saw the manuscript in 1954 turned it down. Brian Boyd, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Auckland and the world's leading Nabokov scholar, joins Dane Giraud to trace the censorship history of the twentieth century's most contested masterpiece.  They cover Nabokov's extraordinary life in exile, why he wrote a confession narrated by a predator, the Paris press that finally published it, Graham Greene's satirical John Gordon Society, the French ban traded over Suez, the 1958 American release that outsold everything since Gone With the Wind, the Kubrick and Lyne adaptations, and what seventy years of banning Lolita teaches us: suppression sells, and the impulse to censor never learns.  https://www.fsu.nz/ https://x.com/NZFreeSpeech https://www.instagram.com/freespeechnz/ https://www.tiktok.com/@freespeechunionnz Support the show https://www.fsu.nz/ https://x.com/NZFreeSpeech https://www.instagram.com/freespeechnz/ https://www.tiktok.com/@freespeechunionnz

  8. Jun 29

    Ani O'Brien: Why NZ Needs Good Faith Yarns, Not Shouting Matches | Free to Speak

    This winter, Ani O'Brien is taking the Good Faith Yarns Tour around the country: honest, good faith conversations with locals in towns and cities across New Zealand, on the topics we usually just shout about.  She sits down with Dane Giraud to walk through the full lineup, stop by stop, and explain why she wanted conversations rather than combat. No debates, no point scoring. Just a willingness to disagree well, listen properly, and stay in the room afterwards for a drink and a yarn.  Tickets are $10. All dates, venues and booking:  https://www.fsu.nz/events  TOUR DATES  Queenstown, Tue 21 July: Mayor John Glover and Mike Casey (Rewiring Aotearoa) on growth, infrastructure and energy.  Christchurch, Wed 22 July: Professor Te Maire Tau (Ngāi Tahu) on the Treaty and partnership after the Treaty Principles Bill.  Dunedin, Thu 23 July: Sir Ian Taylor on technology, AI, ethics and identity.  Whangārei, Mon 27 July: Far North councillor Davina Smolders on co-governance and local democracy.  Hamilton, Tue 28 July: Duncan Garner on the press gallery and the state of the media.  Auckland, Wed 29 July: Rob Campbell on public service neutrality and where the line sits.  Tauranga, Thu 30 July: Dr Alistair Reese and Professor Paul Moon on faith, spirituality and the Treaty in history.  Palmerston North, Tue 4 August: Liam Hehir on politics and media beyond the Wellington bubble.  Wellington, Wed 5 August: Todd Stephenson and Simon O'Connor debate assisted dying.  More stops to be announced.  ABOUT FREE TO SPEAK  Free to Speak is the official podcast of the New Zealand Free Speech Union, uncensored conversations on free speech, civil liberties, and the people defending them. Hosted by Dane Giraud.  Join: https://www.fsu.nz/join  Donate: https://www.fsu.nz/donate  Newsletter: https://www.fsu.nz/subscribe  More from the FSU:  https://www.fsu.nz  All campaigns and links: https://t.mtrbio.com/FreeSpeechUnion  Feedback or a guest suggestion? podcast@fsu.nz Support the show https://www.fsu.nz/ https://x.com/NZFreeSpeech https://www.instagram.com/freespeechnz/ https://www.tiktok.com/@freespeechunionnz

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Ratings & Reviews

3.7
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

Free to Speak is the New Zealand podcast that goes beyond headlines to explore the principles behind our most contentious debates.Produced by the New Zealand Free Speech Union, it examines freedom of expression and why it matters to a free and democratic society.Expect interviews with guests from New Zealand and around the world, plus deep dives with our Council into the cases and policy work shaping free speech today. Any questions, queries or feedback? Email: podcast@fsu.nz  www.fsu.nz

Information

  • Creator
    Free Speech Union
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    204
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Free To Speak
  • Show Website
    Free To Speak

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