Race Commissioner keen on tougher hate speech law

Waatea Team Race Commissioner keen on tougher hate speech law

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Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon says the proposed hate speech law will be a welcome addition to the human rights toolkit.

He says the current law covers race and ethnicity, but is silent on disability, religious beliefs or sexual gender or orientation.

About half the complaints to the Human Rights Commission are about racial discrimination, and the other half allege discrimination against disabled people.

"So if I go and say stupid things about a particular religion or group of people and threaten them, that's not actually covered by law, so I think it's right and proper for these minority groups to be covered by law but the threshold still needs to remain high," Mr Foon says.

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