Was Tonkin + Taylor right to apologise to Winston Peters for the employee heckling him?

Of course they were! They don't want to be associated with this kind of behaviour. The guy was wearing their work lanyard, it clearly identified him as a staffer and I had his name and photo land in my inbox at 4:41 yesterday afternoon.

Which is to say - people had already figured out who he is and who he works for. And if Tonkin + Taylor said nothing, rightly or wrongly, - there would be people who would assume they were fine with his behaviour or shared his views.

So it was a reputational risk for them to remain quiet. And they were right to publicly distance themselves from him - and an apology to Winston Peters seems like a perfectly reasonable way of doing it.

Also, it’s perfectly reasonable for them to call Mr Bollocks into the office and remind him not to embarrass them while he’s wearing a work lanyard. I think that seems fair.

But I think that’s where it has to end. The Free Speech Union raises some decent points - he should not be punished or fired for it, he's entitled to his views and he’s entitled to make a dick of himself in his own time if he wants to, which he clearly does.

His free speech should be defended, but so should the free speech of his chief executive, who didn’t like what she saw and wanted to say she was sorry on behalf of her company.

Free speech cuts both ways.

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