Nurses, Speech, And The Line - Todd Stephenson MP

We dig into the Nursing Council’s draft code with ACT MP Todd Stephenson, asking how far professional standards should reach into private speech. We argue for clear rules tied to patient safety, real whistleblowing paths, and strong protections for lawful off‑duty expression.

• risks in Principle 4 on social media and private views
• why vague words like offensive or ill‑informed invite misuse
• the difference between clinical context and off‑duty speech
• lessons from current complaints and past cases
• the need for clear whistleblowing and error correction
• board composition and the value of frontline voices
• regulatory review, rights under NZBORA, and reform options
• preventing chilling effects during an election year
• pluralism, open debate, and democratic health

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If you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, you can contact us at podcast@fsu.nz
If you want to find out more about the New Zealand Free Speech Union, visit fsu.nz

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stakes: New Code
• 2:15 Free Speech Risks In Principle Four
• 5:20 Nurses Speak Up And Stay Silent
• 9:10 Social Media, Context, And Boundaries
• 13:30 Vague Rules And Real-World Examples
• 17:40 Whistleblowing And Error Correction
• 21:35 Are Complaints Becoming Ideological

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to Free to Speak, the New Zealand Free Speech Union podcast. If you enjoy the show, subscribe for uncensored conversations and free speech news from New Zealand and beyond.

SPEAKER_01: 0:10

Good morning everyone. Welcome to Free to Speak, the New Zealand Free Speech Union podcast. And with me today we have Act MP Todd Stevenson, who's graciously agreed to join us to talk about the Nursing Council's code of practice and also a case we're currently taking up with Kath Simpson. Welcome, Todd.

SPEAKER_02: 0:32

Good morning, Jelaine. Thank you for having me on.

SPEAKER_01: 0:34

It's a pleasure to have you on, and um and I think it's great to great timing as well because the Nursing Council has released a proposed code of conduct where they are asking for submissions. Submissions close on the 9th of March, so we've got another three weeks to do it, but we're really concerned about some aspects of this code of conduct and how it seems to drift away from professional competency and patient safety and move more and more into the private lives, or obviously for us, the private expression of nurses. You released a media release on this last week. Please give us a rundown on this and your take on the nurses' code.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13

Yeah, I mean, I I share your your concerns. Um, I mean, I've looked at a lot of these uh healthcare professional bodies. I've actually been critical of the Nurses Council before they released uh their their competency framework um uh the year before last. Uh, but this yeah, this code of conduct, um, look, and I want to again acknowledge they are actually have asked for consultation. It is quite a large uh document. So there is actually some really good stuff in it. Um, but I think I, you know, felt that I needed to call out where, again, I had some concerns, and one of them is the issue that you raised around kind of freedom, free speech, freedom of expression, and uh, you know, what is it, what is the right balance there for a professional, a healthcare professional regulatory body uh to be kind of holding what's the standard it uh it could hold its members to, what's the appropriate balance? Because um, as you've uh the free speech union have called out a number of times, there's been some kind of cases where um professionals are being held, uh yeah, complaints are being made against their code of conduct, which you and I would kind of describe, well, actually that's a free speech issue. They were quite entitled to make those um comments in their in their private capacity. So I just really wanted the nurses um council to have another look at that particular section. We're talking this is in principle four of the draft code and and actually see if they'd got it right there.

SPEAKER_01: 2:33

Did you receive any response to your media release or sort of to the letter that you sent to the nursing council?

SPEAKER_02: 2:39

No, not yet. But I mean, again, I I wrote to them first before I did actually put out a media release and just outlined my concerns. Um the consultation is still open, so uh perhaps in the the fullness of time I'll get a response. Um, so yeah, uh, but again, I just also wanted to highlight this publicly. Again, also just so that people, you know, nurses in the profession also make sure that they have their say. And again, I've been uh you know contacted by a number of um nurses, both working for Health New Zealand and other organizations who said, Oh yep, um, you know, thanks for calling this out. And hopefully that will engage more people who are directly affected in this issue.

SPEAKER_01: 3:13

And it that that also has been brought to our attention as well by a number of people sort of saying that nurses generally is a lot, they keep their head down, you know, they they do a great job, they're hard working, they're usually swamped, and and uh other nurses who understand what this code might do actually don't think that they realize the implications that this will have on their everyday life, on the ability to have a private expression. Um, it's quite chilling when it it seems to reach directly into private lives, seven days a week, almost 24 hours a day, and some of that private expression. Now, you and I are in agreement, I think, as well, that that competency codes uh there's nothing, there's nothing wrong with code of conduct, especially in areas like healthcare. You know, they're very important. But yeah, I I think they they need to be tied to patient safety and the competency when you're off the clock, you're not talking talking as a nurse and it's lawful expression. Are you familiar with Catherine Simpson's case or or sort of read a little bit about uh the nurse currently?

SPEAKER_02: 4:17

Yes, obviously I've read um yeah what what you've uh put out around that case. And look, that does concern me. We also had the the uh case in with the teachers' council uh last year and another example of where yeah, a complaint was taken about someone, as exactly what you're saying, uh, uh expressing uh their opinion uh online social media about an issue that is is is important to them. Uh there's a couple of points I would you know want to pick up on what you've said. Nurses as a profession, and we know this at the moment, right? We've got our healthcare system, particularly our public health care system, is extremely busy under pressure. Um, you know, nurses are just getting on with their jobs, right? And so some of them may not have focused on this code of conduct and its consultation. And again, I don't know what, I'm gonna be honest, I don't know what process the nurses council went through to develop this code, but I would again be encouraging them and they actually do a proper consultation where they actually get out to the members and facilitate their um involvement, right? Um in a way that suits them, right? Because again, people are busy, um, you've actually got to go. So I think that would be a really valuable exercise for them. Uh and and the second point I would make, you know, even if you look at the way it's drafted, and you know, we're we're talking obviously about principle 4.1 and 4.2, it's very clear they're talking about kind of social media and online communication. And again, you know, the cases you you, the case you cited, for example, and and as I said, the other one at the teachers' council, you know, that's that's when people are in their kind of private time, they might have a a particular personal view um on an issue and they're just wanting to express that. But the other thing, Jelaine, is if you look at the guidance on the section, and look again, they've tried to provide guidance to their members so that it's make it a bit real, it's very, very um, I I would say brief compared to other parts of the code um draft code of conduct. Um, and and I would have thought actually they could have gone out and sought uh maybe some advice from even organizations like the Free Speech Union and said, okay, how can we get this right? Because, and again, hopefully you'd agree with me, it's not uh, you know, there's nothing wrong in trying to provide some guidance and say, okay, well, you know, in your professional life, you actually do need to, and again, you know, uh protect people's confidential private medical information, super important. Um, you know, as a nurse, you actually do need to put your patient first, uh, understand their needs, etc. Um, and and also maybe there's a maybe there's something around where you actually shouldn't be expressing a personal held view to a patient in front of you, right? Um, in making a judgment on that. That might be all entirely appropriate. It's as you say, it's when they when they step away from their work and they're maybe wanting to call out, you know, maybe it's maybe it's an unpopular um opinion about staff shortages in New Zealand, um, in the healthcare sector, or something like that. You know, that's them in their private space. I think they could have done a a bit better in um, as I said, tightening up what the what the actual code of conduct says around um, you know, personal opinions, freedom of speech, but also maybe some of the guidance.

SPEAKER_01: 7:21

I I think that you raise such a great point there, just because A first would be so open to consultation in terms of stress testing people's um proposed conducts. Does this breach the freedom of s freedom of expression in a private capacity? You know, what do we think about that? Um, you know, so absolutely would be open to that. And obviously we're going to submit on that, on that as well. But I think it's the examples, it's it's where the rubber hits the road, and you really do need to provide clear examples of what's in and what's out that you're referring to. It's these sort of woolly, subjective, and vague terms that that absolutely can be weaponized, and we have sort of seen that weaponized against nurses, against teachers, um when when someone decides that that they're offended or that you know this is ill-informed in your private life, yet they're lawful, often political statements on controversial issues.

SPEAKER_02: 8:17

That's right, and and that's and you're right. And I called out the vagueness of their words, you know, not making offensive, uh abusive, inflammatory, or ill-informed statements. Now, um, again, what I wanting to get into a big debate, uh, there are some areas of uh medicine that that are contested, right? Um, and so that if a nurse had a different um a different view or wanted to call out uh, you know, again, not uh, you know, I don't think it would be appropriate to be making these views to the to the patient in front of them when they're actually dealing with someone and they're a professional environment and they're and they're you know they've been asked to do something in that work environment in relation to a patient. But you know, if they're at home, they might be commenting on a on a post on a forum or something around a particular medical issue. That's an entirely different context. Um, and again, we actually want to have a debate of ideas. Again, I think so long as it's done in a in a respectful way, um, that's entirely appropriate.

SPEAKER_01: 9:14

We were also concerned about, I suppose, what we would term the the lack of whistleblowing pathways, or as you say, the ability to error correct, which is really important in any industry and especially healthcare, you know, there is no um um absolute ultimate truth in terms of, you know, we keep finding better medicine, better science, you know, in order to, you know, we've moved on from leeches to different different types of care. And if someone didn't speak up about it, um, and as you say, in the right forum, or at least expressing um, you know, we want the ability for for nurses to be able to talk about their staff shortages, to, to question practices that they think are are wrong and to have that sort of pathway forward. Um, now sort of a couple of other things on this. The free speech union sometimes is called sort of um, you know, uh criticized for being a little bit fear-mongering, like this will never happen, you know, this is just uh setting a standard and you know that the the standard is high. But what we're actually seeing here is that the the cases that we're seeing, uh both with Kath Simpson, I know there was an earlier case with Amanda Turner that, you know, sort of made its way through the courts, that these aren't patient complaints, these aren't related to their professional competency. These are actually sort of complaints that have been laid completely outside of their professional capacity and sort of followed through. So it it does feel a little bit like an ideological witch hunt that that's happened outside of work. And then to my first point, we're actually sort of seeing this play out a little bit in England. We often see a lot of the things play out overseas first with the Darlington nurses, even with sort of Sandy Peggy, where they had very vague um codes of conduct as well about not expressing your personal beliefs or sort of um kindness and inclusion, and that we're weaponized against these nurses for holding their own lawful political views. So I I I don't think it is unfounded to be concerned about this. And and and I I think I think you'd likely share my opinion on that, um, that this is a real concern.

SPEAKER_02: 11:22

Absolutely. And and yeah, I think that you know these things should be called out. Look, and again, Minister, Minister Brown last year actually uh ordered a review of all of the healthcare professional um you know regulatory bodies, and and again, that because you know, we're not obviously just seeing this with nurses, we're seeing this with other um other other groups as well. And again, I called out maybe some of the um cultural um competencies they were embedding in their codes of practice or and codes of conduct. So he has actually said, look, you know, we need to look at this more more broadly, and that's just in the healthcare space. So um I'm hoping, you know, we'll see some outcomes from that. And and look, we I mean, I think again, you know, what we want healthcare professionals to be focused on is patient safety, their competence in dealing with patients, um, you know, and and providing a safe healthcare um experience, right? What we don't want is these bodies policing the thoughts of individual healthcare professionals um and how they might act in their private life. It's basically the same thing as you know, forcing them to be of a particular religious belief or something else, right? That doesn't affect their work. That's their, you know, that's their private business or sexuality or whatever. You know, that, you know, that's their private business, um, and their views on particular topics is the same. So I think, you know, I think it's important to call this out. Um, I think the other thing that, you know, as a government, and again, I'm I don't have responsibility in any way for these um uh you know professional healthcare professional regulatory bodies, but I do know again, um uh, you know, Minister Seymour, for example, with the nerd uh with the pharmacy council has made sure that actually has a has actually some um you know pharmacists, you know, practicing pharmacists on the council. So they're actually getting a balanced view about what are the issues that are important if you're actually a practicing healthcare professional. And again, I think, you know, just making sure that these bodies actually have the practitioners that are actually having to deal with you know their frontline issues because uh this kind of uh principle may not be as important um as some people at the nurses council think, right? Um if you're an everyday nurse practitioner. The ones around, you know, um patient confidentiality, how you treat your patients, um, making sure you listen to them, they may be there more important.

SPEAKER_01: 13:39

I think the appointments on boards are uh incredibly important, as you've pointed out, also just because uh we don't seem to have that um uh diversity of viewpoint and and as you actually say, actual practice on the ground of what's important, what this should be tied to, and and instead of searching through, you know, as they did in Kath Simpson's, literally bulking up their complaint, searching through her private social media posts to really you know give it to her, um, you know, and actually focus on the patient's safety. Um, now on your point about government, what can we expect? Um you might have been familiar with the um Alberta have have passed a sort of a broad regulatory approach law, um, you know, which has its pluses but also its minuses, but in terms of you know trying to uh tie the regulatory codes to um the area of competence and professional competency and you know keep them out of other areas. You know, is that something that your party that you um, you know, that you mentioned Simeon Brown's review, et cetera, is that is that something that we can expect or something that you would uh be willing to support, you know, sort of as an MP or as part of your party uh campaign manifesto?

SPEAKER_02: 14:53

Yeah, I mean, I think um it's definitely an active discussion within Act. I think it's it's just how you how do you do this in the right way that doesn't um again, uh we don't want to create a whole nother kind of regulatory burden or regular bureaucracy, but I think it can be done in a way that actually says to all of all kind of professional um regulatory bodies, and again, they've been given a special right by the government, right? I mean, they have been given the right to, in this case, uh, you know, register and you call it licensed doctors, or they may have been given the the right to license real estate agents, or they may have been given, you know, the right to um license legal professionals. So, you know, with that right comes some responsibilities, and I think we would say that those, you know, that those responsibilities are to uphold um what we would call kind of universal human rights around freedom of expression, free free speech, etc. And there'd be others. Um so again, I think we're very open to that conversation because we yeah, we do think this is important. So again, you know, we're very happy to look at the ways we can achieve this, uh, not have to go through each um, you know, healthcare professional body or each regulatory body and do it, because I think that would be very burdensome, but basically just elevate um this idea around you know free speech, um freedom of expression protections.

SPEAKER_01: 16:10

There was a question about the Regulatory Standards uh Act and maybe the Regulatory Standards Board as well, given, as you say, that you know they exist and the purpose, their remit is derived from primary legislation, is this something that the regulatory standards board might look into in terms of the codes of conduct?

SPEAKER_02: 16:28

Well, potentially in time. Look, I think obviously the regulatory um, you know, the Department of Regulation and you know, uh as it implements the regulatory standards bill will be primarily focused on new legislation for a start. But again, it does have uh the ability to start to review uh acts and regulations as they're updated and changed. Um and so I again this is an area possibly it could get, you know, could get into over time. Uh it is obviously um, yeah. So again, let's not rule that out. Look, I think it, you know, as a first step, it wouldn't hurt to um update the um the healthcare professionals overarching legislation anyway. That might be a good um uh first place to start. But uh as I said, we're very open to looking how this can be kind of dealt with holistically.

SPEAKER_01: 17:15

Okay. Well, the Free Speech Union is looking to actively, you know, sort of produce some policy papers and some drafting for that, and um, you know, would be happy to look into that further for all of the parties out there, you know, etc., to to improve this. Um, just because what we are seeing, and we'll see how Kath Simpson's case plays out. We've got the next hearing with the Disney Tribune tribunal in March. Um, but you know, given the Turner decision, which sort of says, look, you're lawfully allowed to say things and and have broad private expression, but it's how you say them, which was sort of such a subjective standard on, well, I can say it, but you don't like how I'm saying it, doesn't really sort of seem to to live up to the spirit of freedom of expression in in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. So we're concerned about where that might lead and and and how many other uh people are, and as we know, there's there's not everyone like Kath Simpson who will go through this process. Most people will just shut up. They'll they'll r retire from private expression, they'll you know, they they won't comment on anything, which means that they can't participate. It's an election year. What do we want of people?

SPEAKER_02: 18:29

Well, what we want of people is actually to understand uh why kind of free speech, freedom of expression is so important to a liberal democracy like New Zealand's, uh continue to uh engage in that, you know, it's an active debate and discussion. Like I again, um a lot of the kind of human rights we have are they are a balancing act, right? Um, you know, someone's right to freely express them, yeah, it may upset people, it may impinge on others um views as well, right? So I think it's just making sure we openly debate these, but understand why they are so important. You know, things that were unpopular ideas uh, you know, a few decades ago are now mainstream today, right? I mean, um, you know, I I I'm gonna be um participating in some uh events around um pride, for example, right? I mean, you know, the the way that kind of homosexual law reform, for example, got um uh you know, got ahead of steam was people were able to discuss it and debate it. And again, you know, back yeah, you know, back back in the day that was kind of a a a fringe view, right? So today it's you know, we we we expect that, you know, every citizen, including those that are gay, are given the same rights as every other one, right? So again, I think it's just you know, I think that's why it's important to have these discussions. Um yeah, and make sure people kind of understand that we are actually trying to protect our democracy by by doing this, um, having these kinds of conversations.

SPEAKER_01: 19:58

And I think that that's such a good point and such a great example because it's about um uh having a pluralistic society, right? That that moves on and that engages with each other and that changes its views on matters. Um, you know, the the the marriage, um, you know, homosexual law reform, it it wasn't that long ago, you know. I still remember, but that's probably more about my age, and look to see where we are in society now, really moving forward together. But we do do need to give people the space to continue to question and continue to, you know, use freedom of speech to to produce a society where people can hold different beliefs, different religious beliefs, different beliefs about about specific things, and yet still be able to function and live together and not have their livelihoods threatened, which is which is definitely what what we feel like we're seeing here. Todd, thank you very much for making the time for coming on Free to Speak and um we hope to have you on again.

SPEAKER_02: 20:53

Oh, it's my pleasure and and thank you. Great conversation.

SPEAKER_00: 20:57

Thank you for listening to Free2Speak. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and consider sharing the podcast with others. We release new episodes regularly, and subscribing is the easiest way to stay up to date. If you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, you can contact us at podcast at fsu.nz. If you want to find out more about the New Zealand Free Speech Union, visit fsu.nz.