Blame the clients, not the lawyer

Robert Macculloch writes:

For all the volumes of articles written by rightist commentators about how folks like former PM Jacinda Ardern were trying to shut down personal freedoms and liberties by lockdowns and tightening laws on hate speech – and how NZ’s Universities had been taken over by groups that were inhibiting the freedom of speech of academics – where has one of the most direct full frontal attacks on free speech ever ended up coming from? From Auckland’s Big Law Firms and the Big Businesses that use those law firms to protect their interests. It has been recently reported that Chapman Tripp wrote a letter to the University of Auckland requesting they take down an article by my (just retired) colleague Emeritus Prof. Tim Hazeldine – threatening a defamation lawsuit for calling out the Supermarket Duopoly in a way it didn’t like. The article was called, “Foodstuffs Wants to Merge its Co-ops, but Consumers Need the Opposite”. BusinessDesk reports, “Foodstuffs North Island has made legal moves to silence an academic critical of its proposed merger”. I’ve already discussed – and been warned by Members of Parliament that Big Interests will come after the likes of this blog when they don’t like being exposed. But its ended up happening not to me, but to the (by contrast) gentle, mild mannered Tim Hazeldine, who wouldn’t hurt a fly. He writes opinions about subjects he knows lots about and earnestly believes to be true.

So shame on Kiwi Blog; shame on the Free Speech Union; shame on NZ Initiative, shame on you all, for critiquing Universities for being hot beds of left-wing activism trying to close down academics free speech – but not calling out Big Business for using its Big Resources and Big Money to weaponize Big Law Firms (that happily take the fee-income) to threaten one of NZ’s leading academic economists for writing what he devoutly believes to be true.

Well it is hard to call out something that you are unaware of. I don’t have a subscription to Business Desk.

Secondly the law firms aren’t the problem. They act on behalf of clients.

As to the substance, yes I agree that Foodstuffs are acting ridiculously by pressuring organisations to remove an academic article critical of them. They should write an article in response, not try to silence critics.

I’m pleased The Post has ignored the legal threat and the article is still up. I encourage people to read and share it, so the intimidation backfires. It is interesting that the University appears to have succumbed to pressure to remove it, but not the media outlet.