Haimona Gray: Attempting to cancel events usually backfires – giving one’s rivals free publicity

_{Summarised by Centrist} 

Political commentator Haimona Gray says the attempt, by Wellington politician Nikau Wi Neera, to stop a Wellington conference discussing gender has backfired badly, harming his clout while boosting Inflection Point NZ.

Wi Neera 0 Inflection Point NZ 1 

Gray writes that the controversial Unsilenced Summit at Takina Conference Centre benefited from free media coverage thanks to a protest encouraged by the Wellington councillor. 

Protests against the conference “would have been an absolute blessing for them,” Gray opines. 

No longer does cancelling an event starve it, “It actually feeds them,” Gray argues. In fact, Gray says that if he were the event’s organiser, “I would be praying for backlash. The bigger and more widespread, the better.”

Gray says that attempts to impede free speech casts Wi Neera as an “inflexible zealot.” 

“This is exactly how public debates are lost,” he writes. 

Gray adds that Wi Neera is an example of Green-flavoured politicians who pigeonhole their careers with “small party mindset.”

Read more over at Haimona Gray’s Substack