Hear from Josie Pagani, Paul Moon, Marcus Roberts, and Jonathan Ayling on a panel discussion and Q+A on speech rights and the ability to pursue tolerant debate on conflict in the Middle East. This discussion is about our ability to deal with complex and competing ideas, not the substance of the conflict itself.  Support the show ..read more

Paul Thistoll is a dedicated trans-rights activist and outspoken opponent of the Free Speech Union. But he was willing to sit down with Jonathan Ayling, the Chief Executive of the Union, to discuss hate speech, trans-rights, preferred pronouns, professional deregistration, and more.  There are two very different views on free speech on display in this podcast. So rarely do we have the opportunity to hear two so very different perspectives engage respectfully. And in the end, it's you who gets to decide which view is right.  Support the show ..read more

More than any other one thing, COVID-19 has defined our past 3 years. But are we starting to thinking about it, or talk about it in fresh ways?  Our lives have been impacted in unprecedented ways by COVID-19; but this virus has also been weaponised by our would-be-censors to corral us into one position on this issue, and a host of others.  In this episode, Jonathan Ayling sits down with the director of River of Freedom, a recently released documentary film on the 2022 occupation of Parliament.  Support the show ..read more

Speaking to the recently published Addressing the Challenges to Social Cohesion, Sir Peter Gluckman (former Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister and Director of Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures) sits down with Jonathan Ayling to discuss what's happening to fraying public discourse, and what we can do to address it.   Support the show ..read more

Free speech across our universities is under fire- but many academics are also working to address this. After 3 years, a working group established at the University of Auckland to consider how to preserve academic freedom and free speech has reported back, making a bold stand in a hostile environment. Free Speech Union member and UoA Professor, Kendall Clements, sits down with Jonathan to give an insider's view to why free speech is under fire, and what needs to be done about it.    Support the show ..read more

Academic freedom and free speech can appear to be nebulous subjects at times, which wonky intellectuals pontificate on. Yet the real world implications for a university that fails to preserve academic freedom are far-reaching. In this episode, Jonathan Ayling sits down with Dr. James Kierstead and Dr. Michael Johnston to discuss the opposition we’ve faced to our academic freedom research, why certain arguments have been made, and what this tells us about the debate for free thought and belief in general. Let’s just say, the stakes are fairly high for all of us.  Support the show ..read more

Jonatha sits does with Paul Brennan on Reality Check Radio to discuss the FSU announcement that we are supporting a tender-bid for a DPMC contract to research disinformation.   Support the show ..read more

Free Speech Union Chief Executive Jonathan Ayling sat down with Prof. Grant Schofield who recently authored a  'A falling out of love letter to the university'- which reflects on his over 30 years in academia. Prof. Schofield questions whether the contemporary New Zealand university can any longer claim to be the 'conscious and critic of society' and in an in-depth discussion, comments on the health of free speech within our universities, the problem of self-censorship (especially among young academics), whether withholding funds to anti-free speech universities would work, and how a refu ..read more

Join Free Speech Union Chief Executive Jonathan Ayling, FSU council member Stephen Franks and Left-wing commentator Josie Pagani and Connor Molloy for a debrief on former ACLU president Nadine Strossen's recent tour of Aotearoa. The team discuss some of the high-profile members Strossen attended, why rationalism wins the argument, and what lessons we should take from her into our ongoing free speech battles. It's then a gearshift to discuss the disturbing 'Disinformation Project' report released in the wake of the Posie Parker visit in which the shadowy group warns of an imminent genocide agai ..read more

"For me this is the recognition of the linking of free speech with the right for civil disobedience because the public square is never cool and rational and only ‘discursive’ – except when constrained and imposed to be so by the privileging and power of ‘the rational’." This provocative paragraph was written by Canterbury-based sociologist and former Free Speech Union podcast guest Mike Grimshaw. In the original piece, published on plainsight.nz, Mike defended some of the civil disobedience from the counter-protesters witnessed at the aborted Posie Parker appearance at Albert Park ..read more