By: Jill Ovens - Women’s Rights Party co-leader and national secretary
18 August 2026
The revelation that Ani O’Brien is the complainant in a civil case under the Harmful Digital Communications Act (HDCA) against Martyn ‘Bomber’ Bradbury, who writes The Daily Blog, has led to allegations of hypocrisy given Ani’s role as a Free Speech Union (FSU) Councillor.
The FSU has long criticised the HDCA, and campaigned for its reform. In her recent Substack, I took Martyn Bradbury to court & still think the HDCA needs reform, Ani herself acknowledged: “Anyone looking at those two facts and thinking, well, that looks a bit bloody hypocritical, is not being unreasonable.”
However, before this case, Ani had already decided to step down from her role with FSU after the next Annual General Meeting in September.
Ani says her complaint has nothing to do with her political opinions. She and Bradbury had often previously disagreed on political issues on The Working Group podcast, but Bradbury’s attitude towards her had become more personal and more aggressive – nasty even. She says she tried to raise the subject of how he spoke about her in this manner, but he dismissed her concerns, telling her to go to Netsafe or the Police.
Subsequently, Ani did go to Netsafe, and made a civil complaint under the HDCA. In response to her application, Judge Davenport found, on an interim basis, that there was a case for interim relief. The Judge ordered Bradbury to take down specific material and to restrain from further communications about Ani until the case had been heard.
“I did not lay a criminal charge against Martyn Bradbury, nor ask the Police to prosecute him for criticising me,” Ani says. Despite this, Bradbury spoke publicly about how he was prepared to go to prison in defence of his right to free speech. But as Ani says, Bradbury would face criminal prosecution only if he failed to comply with the Judge’s order, which in this case was only an interim order.
Ani says she is not, and has never been, a ‘free speech absolutist’. “Most of us accept the role of defamation law and laws around threats, fraud, and perjury. The existence of those laws does not mean free expression is meaningless; it means the argument has always been about where legal boundaries should sit, how narrow they should be, and what protections are required to stop legitimate criticism, opinion, and public interest speech being swept up with genuinely unlawful conduct.”
However, the HDCA boundaries are unclear, and that is one of its problems, says Ani. “Defamation law, for all its faults, at least contains established defences including truth and honest opinion…The HDCA operates with much broader concepts and without equivalent protections.”
In an email to FSU supporters yesterday, Monday 17 August, FSU Chair Stephen Franks responded to media criticisms that the FSU was behind the complaint, and had been accused of hypocrisy. This is partly why Ani sought to have the suppression order lifted, naming her as the complainant, which both Ani and the FSU acknowledge was on her own initiative. She was also concerned about rumours and speculation about the mystery complainant.
Franks says in his email that the HDCA was “obviously badly drafted and open to misuse from the time it was announced over 10 years ago. But it passed because it was well-intentioned. And there are some provisions that most of us would want to see continued. The law should give remedies for lies, deep-fakes and revenge porn.”
He goes on to say that an effect of the case, whatever anyone intended, is that the FSU campaign to reform the Act now has more public attention than it has ever had. “It would not be the first time that reforms have gained momentum when reformers show their opponents how they can be caught by bad law,” he said.
The Women’s Rights Party discusses its position on the HDCA
In our round of Women’s Rights Party regional meetings earlier this year, we took out a Draft Policy Proposal in relation to the HDCA that stimulated a lot of discussion about the pros and cons of the Act. Our position aligning with the FSU was broadly supported by members.
We said that while we support the original intent of the HDCA, we agree with the FSU call on government to enact amendments to protect citizens from misuse of the Act. Our policy addresses concerns Women’s Rights Party members have at the way the HDCA has been weaponised by ‘transgender trolls’ to harass and silence women.
The FSU calls this ‘mission creep’. They say: “A law designed to protect children has become a tool routinely deployed by adults who are offended, lashing out, or unwilling to tolerate criticism.”
Women speaking about sex-based rights are at risk of breaching the Act. Rex Landy, a member of Mana Wāhine Kōrero and the Women’s Rights Party, upset a man who identifies as female, called Caitlin Spice, who complained about Rex’s social media posts. She was arrested, her home raided and her electronic devices confiscated. Rex has appeared in Court at least six times so far, and the case is not over yet. She is due to appear in Court on two more charges on 3rd and 17th December relating to failing to take down two posts on X, despite consistently providing good explanations as to why she didn’t.
As the FSU says, “Even if Rex is acquitted, she’s already been punished. The raids. The seizure of property. The legal costs. The stress of potential imprisonment. The chilling effect on every other woman watching. This is how authoritarianism works. You don’t need convictions when the process itself destroys people.”
The Act was also used by Police against a woman who complained in multiple emails about sexual abuse by one of their own. The woman who had complained was charged by Police under the HDCA, placed under very restrictive bail conditions and silenced by wide-ranging suppression orders. Publication of the case was squashed by order of the Court. See our Substack of 25th November 2025: Top cop frames his victim as the villain, and we wonder why there are women who don’t trust the Police.
The original intent of the HDCA
The Harmful Digital Communications Bill was introduced by then Minister of Justice Judith Collins in 2013, after a series of cases highlighted the damage caused by cyberbullying and revenge porn. Collins stressed the purpose was not to silence debate, but to provide remedies for those whose lives were being torn apart by digital abuse.
Lawmakers recognised online abuse could cause as much harm as physical and emotional abuse in person. The Bill followed high-profile cases such as the ‘Roast Busters’ scandal in 2013, where young men boasted online about sexual exploitation of girls and women. That case, along with reports of youth suicides linked to cyberbullying, highlighted the urgent need for new protections. After more than a year of debate and select committee review, the Bill passed its third reading in June 2015 and became law shortly afterwards.
Courts gained new powers to order harmful content to be taken down, to stop further contact with victims, to suppress identifying details and to require platforms to disclose anonymous users. It also introduced criminal penalties for sharing intimate images without consent. For many victims, these tools filled a gap in the law that had left them vulnerable.
The principles set out in the Act include not disclosing sensitive personal facts without consent, not making threats, not inciting others to harass, and not spreading false allegations. The principles also cover respect for privacy, accuracy, and fairness in digital communication. While they are not criminal laws on their own, judges can use these principles to guide decisions on whether a communication has crossed the line into harm. Doxing, revenge porn, and campaigns of abuse are considered within its scope.
Breaching a court order under the HDCA is a serious matter. If a person ignores a direction from the District Court such as refusing to remove harmful content, continuing unwanted contact, or publishing suppressed details, they can face criminal penalties. An individual who fails to comply with a court order may be fined up to $5,000, while a company can face fines of up to $20,000. In criminal cases, such as posting digital communications intended to cause harm or sharing intimate images without consent, fines can rise up to $50,000 for individuals, $200,000 for companies, or imprisonment for up to two years.
Concerns about the Act
From its introduction, concerns were raised about freedom of expression. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (BORA) protects freedom of speech and critics feared the new law might be used to silence opinion. Supporters argued the Act was carefully drafted so that judges must balance expression against the harm caused. Critics acknowledged the problem of cyberbullying and intimate image abuse was real, though they questioned whether the legislation struck the right balance with freedom of expression.
The original intent of the legislation, to address genuine concerns about online bullying, was also to provide mechanisms for immediate relief given the speed at which harassment and harmful images such as revenge porn and deep fakes can spread far and wide with the rise of social media and digital platforms. It was never intended to become a mechanism for adults to silence other adults acting in the public interest (journalists, for example) through the courts.
One of the problems with the HDCA is it defines ‘harm’ as “serious emotional distress”, a threshold that is subjective and therefore difficult to defend. In its Ministerial Briefing in 2012, the Law Commission said the new law “should not be about criminalising speech which offends people simply because it may be abusive, nasty, vulgar, untrue or inflammatory”. The Commission reached the view that when the level of emotional distress can be described as ‘significant’, the law has a role to play.¹
The Commission argued that if ‘harm’ was to be the basis for regulatory intervention in online communications, the concept must be carefully defined. “It must be grounded in demonstrable adverse effects — it must expressly exclude mere offence, disagreement, discomfort, or exposure to ideas that are controversial or unpopular.”
The FSU has supported reform of the Act, not its repeal, and in December last year welcomed a Bill in National MP Melissa Lee’s name to amend the HDCA. In its media release,² the FSU said Lee’s Bill responded directly to years of documented weaponisation of the HDCA against lawful speech.
FSU Chief Executive Jillaine Heather described what she called ‘massive mission creep’. “A law designed to protect children has become a tool routinely deployed by adults who are offended, lashing out, or unwilling to tolerate criticism. We are aware of several women who are unable to even speak about the HDCA orders taken against them by activists because they’re gagged by the court.”
The key changes in Lee’s Bill include:
Interim orders are only to be made if they are necessary to prevent or reduce ongoing harm to the applicant
Interim orders without notice must only be made in extraordinary circumstances where ongoing or imminent harm to the applicant is severe
Provides that digital communications that are in the public interest or made for a lawful purpose are not offences
Political commentary is given a higher level of protection
Final orders can’t be made on a without notice basis
“This is not a left-right issue. It is a democratic one,” Heather said. “Every party in Parliament benefits from laws that protect free political debate and prevent weaponisation by bad actors, and everyone is vulnerable when those protections are weakened.”
¹ Law Commission Ministerial Briefing Paper “Harmful Digital Communications: The adequacy of the current sanctions and remedies”. August 2012. Regulatory gaps and the new media
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