Key notspeech at the Countering Foreign Interference & Safeguarding Democracy, Sovereignty and Open Societies Symposium – 21 February 2026, Auckland
Good afternoon, everyone.
I’d like to extend a warm and heartfelt welcome to this international symposium focused on Countering Foreign Interference and Safeguarding Democracy, Sovereignty & Open Societies.
My name is Jillaine Heather. I am the Chief Executive of the Free Speech Union New Zealand, and the Free Speech Union is proud and honoured to be co- hosting alongside the Tasman Alliance of New Zealand.
I’d like to acknowledge the Tasman Alliance and “Lao Chen “/ Chen Weijian for organising this conference. It takes courage to build a pro-democracy organisation in any country. It takes particular courage when the regime you are standing up to has a very long reach.
I’d also like to welcome and thank all the speakers who have come from across New Zealand and overseas, and extend a warm welcome to our distinguished guests and speakers from Taiwan, and finally to extend a welcome and thank you to everyone here for showing up today to listen and participate.
Look around this room. You are not alone. Every person here has made a choice to be present, to stand up, to refuse to be silent. That is not a small thing. And the fact that we are here together, from different countries, different communities, different experiences, matters. Because the forces that want to silence us count on us feeling isolated, scared and divided. Today is proof that we are not.
Today you will hear from academics, politicians, journalists, experts, and fellow civil liberty advocates – who have all stood up for democratic freedoms.
But I am not here today as an academic or a policy expert. I am here because Portia Mao reached out to the Free Speech Union a few years ago – and her case is a powerful reminder of why freedom of speech – the ability to criticize, ask questions and disagree – is so important in a functioning democracy – and her case demonstrates how quickly that foundation can be attacked.
WHY FREE SPEECH IS THE FIRST TARGET
Foreign interference does not begin with spies or cyberattacks. It begins with silence.It begins with making speech expensive, risky, and exhausting – until people decide it is easier to say nothing.
Every authoritarian regime in history has understood this. The first thing they go after is not the army, the economy or the courts. It is the right to speak, it is communication. Because if you control what people can say, and the information they have access to, you don’t need to control much else.
That is why free speech is not just one freedom among many. It is the freedom that makes all the others possible.
Without it, you cannot organise.
You cannot protest.
You cannot hold power to account.
You cannot even name what is happening to you.
Every other right – democracy, rule of law, freedom of association – depends on the ability to speak.
Two weeks ago, two investigative journalists in China published an article on WeChat exposing local corruption. Three days later, both were arrested. The charge? “making false accusations” – essentially for writing a news article.
Then the article is deleted. Posts supporting the journalists were removed. And the message is clear: speak, and bear the personal cost. Only silence is tolerated
That is China in 2026. But as everyone in this room knows – some of those tactics are here as well.
PORTIA MAO’S STORY
Many of you know Portia Mao. She emigrated from China over two decades ago, became a journalist, and worked with the Stuff Circuit team on the documentary The Long Game, which exposed CCP interference in New Zealand. By putting her name in those credits, she put a target on her back.
Now what happened next should alarm every person in this room. A man she had investigated – Morgan Xiao, an aspiring politician and ardent CCP supporter – used the Harmful Digital Communications Act to obtain a court order barring Portia from criticising him. The application and court order was made without her knowledge.
The court sent one email – it bounced. Nobody tried again. Portia found out because Xiao was bragging about his victory on a Chinese-language chat forum.
Let me say that again. A journalist in New Zealand was gagged by a court order she never knew about, obtained by a man using a New Zealand law to silence scrutiny of his political activities.
Honestly, you could not make this up.
WHAT THE FSU DID
So, Portia reached out to the Free Speech Union for help. The FSU funded a barrister (her lawyer) to represent her.
In June last year, the judge ruled in Portia’s favour. He found her commentary did not amount to harmful digital communications. He found Morgan Xiao was – and I am quoting the court – “not a vulnerable person.” He warned against the weaponisation of legal tools to silence political criticism.
But Xiao was not finished. He tried the same thing against Justin Wong, a journalist for Stuff. Justin’s crime?
He had reposted one of Portia’s articles on LinkedIn.
He had also sent Xiao an email asking questions for a story.
The judge dismissed this case, and in her decision, she cited Portia’s case – the precedent the Free Speech Union helped set. The earlier victory directly protected the next journalist.
That is how this works. You fight for one person’s right to speak, and you slowly but surely build a wall that protects everyone who comes after.
And that is why gathering like this matters. Every case we win, every person who stands up, every room like this one – it makes the next act of courage, or defiance a little less lonely and a little less costly.
THE PATTERN
Now, these cases are part of a pattern – and many of you know it far better than I. Within the Chinese community in New Zealand, people who criticise the CCP get labelled “anti-China.” They are abused on Chinese-language social media.Their families back in China are contacted. They are surveilled. They are photographed at events like this one.
I want to be very clear: this should not be happening in New Zealand. New Zealand is not part of China. The political standards of the Chinese Communist Party have no authority here. Every person in this country has the right to criticise any government, any party, and any leader.
That is not a privilege. It is the baseline of a functioning democracy.
The NZ Security Intelligence Service’s 2025 threat report named the People’s Republic of China as the most active state conducting foreign interference in New Zealand. The Director-General said the public would often notice threats before the intelligence services did. – He was talking about you.
And it is not just Chinese born individuals. Three weeks ago, the Chinese Embassy in Wellington publicly condemned the New Zealand Herald for publishing an opinion piece about Taiwan – written by Jonathan Ayling.
A foreign embassy – telling a New Zealand newspaper what it is and is not allowed to print. We issued a media release emphasizing that our media exists to serve a New Zealand audience, not to reflect the sensitivities of overseas states.
WHY THE FSU MATTERS – WHO WE ARE
I want to speak directly about why the Free Speech Union’s work matters so deeply – particularly for diaspora and minority communities.
Portia’s case was not just about one journalist. It was about whether the Chinese community in New Zealand would be allowed to have independent voices, an independent press, and independent thought.
The outcome of the judge’s ruling matters beyond the courtroom. It helps shape how members of the community understand and choose between different values.
It says: in New Zealand, you are free to speak and free to criticise. And if someone tries to silence you, there are people who will stand with you.
Free speech is not a luxury for the comfortable majority nor just a privilege of the powerful (as we so often hear these days). It is the enabling right – the foundational right that makes all other rights usable. And the people who need it most are often the minority cowant to speak directly about why the Free Speech Union’s work matters so deeply – particularly for diaspora and minority communities.
Portia’s case was not just about one journalist. It was about whether the Chinese community in New Zealand would be allowed to have independent voices, an independent press, and independent thought.
The outcome of the judge’s ruling matters beyond the courtroom. It helps shape how members of the community understand and choose between different values.
It says: in New Zealand, you are free to speak and free to criticise. And if someone tries to silence you, there are people who will stand with you.
Free speech is not a luxury for the comfortable majority nor just a privilege of the powerful (as we so often hear these days). It is the enabling right – the foundational right that makes all other rights usable. And the people who need it most are often the minority communities with the least institutional support.
For those who do not know us – the Free Speech Union exists to defend the right to speak, to think, and to question, freedom of speech, conscience and intellectual inquiry
mmunities with the least institutional support.
For those who do not know us – the Free Speech Union exists to defend the right to speak, to think, and to question, freedom of speech, conscience and intellectual inquiry
We are a registered trade union, which means that we can represent members in workplace freedom of speech disputes.
We are non-partisan. We don’t care where you sit politically.
We care whether you can speak.
We have written over 120 letters to ministers, regulators, and institutions. We have filed more than 100 submissions. We have supported people who have lost their jobs, faced disciplinary action, or been dragged through the courts for saying what they believe. And it has worked.
We funded Portia’s legal defence and won, setting a precedent that protected the next journalist targeted by the same complainant.
We backed a 15-year-old student excluded from his school speech finals for the content of his speech, and the school apologised and invited us in to deliver free speech training.
We exposed unlawful police training that treated ordinary opinions as hate incidents
We fought hate speech laws and won.
We advocated for academic freedom legislation, and the Select Committee adopted most of our recommendations.
These are not abstract wins,
They are people who kept their voices, their jobs, and their dignity.
If you are facing pressure for speaking out – legal threats, workplace consequences, community intimidation – contact us. Become a member, we are a grass roots donor funded organization, support us, refer cases to us.
Every case we are able to take on makes the next person’s voice a little easier.
CHANGING THE LAW
And the good news is that the legal landscape is shifting – and the FSU has been part of making that happen.
The Harmful Digital Communications Act was meant to protect vulnerable people from online bullying. Portia’s case proved it can be weaponised to silence political speech.
In December, Melissa Lee, a Member of Parliament, lodged an amendment bill, developed in close consultation with the FSU, to fix exactly that:
stronger protection for political commentary,
a public interest defence, and
no more gagging people who do not even know they are in court.
And in November last year, Parliament passed the Crimes (Countering Foreign Interference) Amendment Act, creating new offences for covert, deceptive, or coercive actions on behalf of a foreign state. You will hear more about this from the speakers directly involved.
These changes signal something important: New Zealand is beginning to take foreign interference seriously, not just as an intelligence problem, but as a threat to democracy (whicThese changes signal something important: New Zealand is beginning to take foreign interference seriously, not just as an intelligence problem, but as a threat to democracy (which is fragile and needs protection), and as a threat to the rights of people in communities like yours.h is fragile and needs protection), and as a threat to the rights of people in communities like yours.
REMOVING THE FEAR
I want to close with something simple. This conference exists because people refused to be silent.
Portia published her journalism because the public had a right to know. She was gagged. She fought back. She won. She is still here.
Justin Wong asked questions for a story. He was taken to court. The case was thrown out. He is still reporting.
Every person in this room who has chosen to speak – despite the risk, despite the cost, despite the pressure – is doing something profoundly important.
Because free speech does not survive on its own. It survives because people insist on using it.
Foreign interference depends on silence. It depends on fear. Every time someone in this room speaks, that silence cracks a little more.
And every time we gather like this – across borders, across communities, across languages – we prove something the authoritarians do not want proved: that the people who believe in freedom outnumber the people who fear it.
You are not alone in this fight. The person sitting next to you is not alone. And neither are we.
Free speech is not given to us by governments. Free speech is the natural condition of a free people. It is what happens when fear is removed.
Our job – the Free Speech Union’s job, your job, all of our jobs – are to speak up individually and collectively to remove the fear.
2月20日，美国最高法院就Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump 和Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc.案件做出判决。这两起上诉案均涉及特朗普总统依据《国际紧急经济权力法》（IEEPA）对外国征收的关税。最高法院以6比3的裁决推翻了IEEPA关税。
虽然IEEPA关税被宣布无效，但这并不意味着特朗普向他国加征的关税必然会被退回、取消或者降低。首先，最高法院的判决并未涉及IEEPA关税该如何被退还给进口商。特朗普政府是否退还或者如何退还，最高法院采取了回避的处理方法。与此相关的案件很可能会由下级法院或美国国际贸易法院（Court of International Trade）受理。
其次，这次判决不能阻止特朗普总统使用其他途径或美国现有的其他法律对他国加征关税。特朗普自己也明确表明将加征其他的“合法关税”（legal tariffs）。除了IEEPA 之外，特朗普还可援引的法律为：《1930年关税法》（Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of 1930）第338条款（简称338条）、《1962年贸易扩展法》（The Trade Expansion Act of 1962）第232条款（简称232条）以及《1974 年贸易法》第301条款（简称301条）和122条款（简称122条）。
《1974年贸易法》301条款则主要针对外国的不公平贸易行为。其宗旨是使总统能对外国的进口限制、出口补贴、低价竞争等其他不公平贸易行为或政策采取迅速的反应和措施。与232调查类似，301调查也需要调查。调查由美国贸易代表办公室（United States Trade Representative）在12个月内完成。
曾任美国副贸易代表的John K. Veroneau 的研究表明，自1949年艾奇逊电报发出以来，还未发现任何与338条相关的公开记录。美国关税委员会1942-1943年的报告指出，由于战时贸易管制，第338条的使用受到限制。随后的年度报告讨论了委员会根据《1930年关税法》其他条款采取的行动，但再未提及第338条。
川普一般不读助理们写的稿子（有人怀疑他有阅读障碍症，哈哈）。他在推特X上随便发（现在是Truth Social），他骂主流媒体是”假新闻”，他说华盛顿是个沼泽，需要清理，他承诺”让美国再次伟大”（Make America Great Again）。这些话听起来粗糙吗？当然。但恰恰是这种粗糙，让他的支持者觉得真实。
法国思想家勒庞在《乌合之众》里说过，群体心理不需要理性，需要的是简单、重复、情绪化的口号。川普深谙此道。“Build the Wall”（建墙）、“Lock Her Up”（关她进监狱）、“Drain the Swamp”（清理沼泽）等等，这些口号简单、有力、情绪饱满，完美契合了社交媒体时代的传播逻辑。
In my column on 29 January, Taiwan and China: Speech is the front line, I concluded: “We must recover the ability to say what is true, even if it carries consequences. Democracy is better than dictatorship. Freedom is better than oppression. Taiwan does not belong to China.”
In response, the Chinese Embassy issued an official statement and contacted my editor, calling on The Herald to act as a “responsible media outlet”, rather than “mislead the public or do harm to others without benefitting itself”. It added: “This is not a matter of freedom of expression, but a fundamental question of principle and a clear issue of right and wrong.”
Such faux outrage from the Chinese Communist Party was not surprising. What was surprising was that Carl Worker, New Zealand’s former ambassador to China (2009 to 2015), retweeted the statement, highlighted its call to “responsibility”, and dismissed my column as “China bashing”.
Does this show how far New Zealand has already been bent by fear of displeasing Beijing, or how normalised deference has become?
Former Judge Dr David Harvey, a regular columnist for The Listener, warned in response: “We must be vigilant to identify interference with our domestic sovereignty by any foreign power and especially the PRC. Failure to do so will result in the erosion of our democratic institutions into an Orwellian environment of Groupthink and adherence to ‘The Party Line.’”
That is exactly what the Tasman Union (NZ) seeks to confront this Saturday at an international symposium in Auckland. Hosted alongside the New Zealand Values Alliance, and other civil society groups such as the Free Speech Union, it will feature speakers including prominent China expert Professor Anne-Marie Brady, Stuff journalist Paula Penfold, PILLAR NZ co-founder Nick Hanne, and MPs from across Parliament, including Helen White and Todd Stephenson.
This symposium is a sign that New Zealand is waking up to the slow normalisation of foreign interference.
Part of its programme will consider a proposed Foreign Influence Transparency Bill, drafted legislation intended to improve transparency around activities in New Zealand carried out at the direction of foreign powers. It would complement the Crimes (Countering Foreign Interference) Amendment Act 2025, and move New Zealand closer to approaches adopted in comparable democracies such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
Another issue the symposium will address, and more Kiwis should understand, is the influence and access the Chinese Communist Party maintains within New Zealand’s universities, including through Confucius Institute partnerships at Auckland University, Victoria University, and Canterbury University.
Overseas, New Zealand is out of step with our international partners. In the United States under the Biden presidency, the number of Confucius Institutes went from over 100 to fewer than five. Likewise, European nations like Sweden have shut all Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms (the high school level equivalent). While several still function in Canada and Australia, universities like the universities of Melbourne, Queensland, New South Wales, and Western Australia have each quietly opted to not renew contracts, with State and Federal governments expressing concern regarding foreign influence.
In the United Kingdom, debate has revived over whether universities should be required to disclose foreign government funding. The Times has reported on MI5 guidance warning universities about interference from “hostile states”, naming China explicitly, and cautioning about attempts to shape teaching on “sensitive subjects” and certain research. Think Tiananmen Square, the oppression of Uyghurs, Tibet, and, evidently, Taiwan.
New Zealand benefits from trade with the Chinese people; long may that continue. But our public square is not for sale.
It is time New Zealand took sovereignty more seriously, and even more importantly, the values that underpin it. I studied Chinese at university and have visited China on several occasions. It saddens me to admit it may now be unsafe for me to visit again. Does that basic admission not tell us almost everything we need to know about this regime?
I say “regime” deliberately, because that is what should be challenged. New Zealanders have nothing to fear, or oppose, in Chinese culture or in Chinese people. But the Chinese Communist Party is an interfering, oppressive bully, a state that has shown blatant disregard for the basic rights and dignity of its own people, and that seeks to extend its red lines outward.
New Zealand cannot change that reality alone. But we can, and must, protect our own public square. We have a duty to defend the rights of Kiwis, the wishes of the CCP be damned. If we cannot defend the right of columnists, journalists, academics, researchers, politicians, and NGO leaders to state the basic claim that people have a right to civil, political,
