Gagged NZ editor’s ‘free speech’ case adjourned as judge warns Daily Blog over ‘contempt’ risk

Source: Asia Pacific Report

Daily Blog editor and publisher Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury’s gagging case has been adjourned until next week, with the judge warning today that latest posts defending “free speech” might be risking contempt of court.

Bradbury’s TDB article yesterday claiming that he “faced 6 months imprisonment or a $5000 fine to censor 4 blogs” along with republication of his public debate commentary last month defending free speech was removed and replaced with a heading declaring:

This blog where I say I am prepared to go to prison for free speech is now legally censored.

The page also carried a “Redacted” line.

A “secret” complainant had successfully obtained an interim court order to remove four blog posts by Bradbury that were alleged to have breached New Zealand’s Harmful Communications Digital Act (HDCA).

The news media have been denied details of the allegations about the four posts that had been ordered removed from The Daily Blog, the largest leftwing website in New Zealand.

Bradbury, 52, representing himself without a lawyer, appeared in the Auckland District Court before Judge David Sharp. The complainant, whom news media are not allowed to name due to a court order, appeared via video-link.

Legal advice urged
The judge urged Bradbury to seek legal advice.

Bradbury was quoted by The New Zealand Herald, the country’s largest daily newspaper, as saying outside the court that he would fight to have the posts reinstated and was still prepared to go to jail if necessary, in order to preserve the principle of free speech.

He also said he would not apologise to the complainant, and he told the Herald the case was a “terrible abuse of process”.

Adjourning the case until next Thursday, Judge Sharp warned Bradbury that his “public comments on legal proceedings may risk seeing him found in contempt of court”, reports The Post.

The Free Speech Union (FSU) said in a statement New Zealand’s Harmful Digital Communications Act was “bad law”.

“It was well meant but naive, and we have said so for years. Nothing has happened to soften that judgement,” FSU chair Stephen Franks said.

Franks said the act gave courts powers that could “too easily be used to shut down lawful expression, including speech about powerful people that the public has every right to hear”.

Bradbury has had a long broadcasting, media and politics career — and also as a media educator — that began in 1997 as editor of the University of Auckland student publication Craccum.

Coverage today of The Daily Blog gagging case in The Post. Image: Post screenshot APR

Host of The Bradbury Group
“According to Stuff media he became a show host on radio station Channel Z in the late-1990s, and editor of music magazine Rip It Up in the mid-2000s. Bradbury was also a producer and host on the now-defunct TV channel Alt TV.

In the 2010s, Bradbury became involved in politics and worked as a consultant with Hone Harawira’s Mana Party.

He launched The Daily Blog in 2013 and in recent years has also hosted a podcast on iwi Māori radio station Waatea and a weekly television programme The Bradbury Group, widely regarded as the country’s best political analysis panel.

Tonight’s Bradbury Group live discussion — featuring Labour leader Chris Hipkins, Green Party’s Lawrence Xu-nan, Qiulae Wong, Michael Wood and Maria Slade — is expected to raise the free speech issue.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/04/gagged-nz-editors-free-speech-case-adjourned-as-judge-warns-daily-blog-over-contempt-risk/