An update on the campaign situation is now long overdue! This post is to update you all with where we’re at. Apologies that it has taken so long, but as you’ll hear, these things take their time.

As followers of our campaign will know, in late 2009 we hit a roadblock when NZ Bus denied us the chance to put ads that questioned belief in god on the sides of their buses. To quickly recap these events, this is what happened…

In December 2009 we were going through the process of organising bus advertising on NZ Bus buses through the agency that handles their advertising. Following initial informal agreement, and once we reached the stage of organising specific details of the campaign, we received unexpected news from NZ Bus via their ad agency. They basically said no, we wont run the ads.

This decision appeared to us to be a case of discrimination under the Human Rights Act 1993. The act states clearly that businesses are unable to discriminate in the provision of services based on certain grounds of discrimination. One of the grounds of discrimination is “ethical belief, which means the lack of a religious belief, whether in respect of a particular religion or religions or all religions.”

In response to NZ Bus’ decision we lodged a formal complaint with the Human Rights Commission (HRC). The first step in the formal process for complaints is for the HRC to try and resolve the issue with mediation between the two parties. However we didn’t get very far with this option with NZ Bus.

The next step available to us in the complaints process was to take our case to the Human Rights Review Tribunal. This now becomes a more formal legal process in that the Tribunal is able to enforce the law to prohibit companies from discriminating. Of course, taking a case to the Tribunal requires legal representation, which as expected is a costly endeavor. There is yet another organisation, the Office of Human Rights Proceedings that provides legal representation and covers all associated costs involved with bringing a case to the Tribunal. They don’t just do this for anyone however – there is a process whereby they assess the worth of cases in terms of legal value and chance of success among other criteria.

We are very pleased to report that the Office agreed to take on our case against NZ Bus. This is a huge win as without their support, it is unlikely we would have found the resources required to represent ourselves.

Now, we must wait. Tribunal cases take a long time, and proceedings are not expected to begin until 2012 at the earliest.

I wish to thank again everyone who donated initially for the bus ads and also for the later billboard campaign. Your support is very, very much appreciated! We still have a pot of money stowed away for a bus ad campaign if/when the ruling is returned in our favour.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/4315606/OMG-did-you-see-that-billboard

A few months old but still a great watch: Stephen Fry provides his very articulate and thoughtful opinion on Catholicism and the Catholic Church at the Intelligence Squared Debate.

http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2010/07/stephen_fry_on_catholicism_int.php

Hamilton and New Plymouth will feel the presence of No God this November.

Following the success of “No God” billboards in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch in July this year, billboards go up in Hamilton and New Plymouth on 1 November, funded entirely by public donations.

Although a third of New Zealanders are not religious (source: 2006 census) young people are often confused and sometimes quite upset about whether or not to believe.

The billboards display friendly atheist messages, intended to promote thought and spark discussion, and to support people worrying about whether there is a god out there (or up there).

“After the last round of billboards we received messages of gratitude and support, mostly from younger people who had been afraid to question the beliefs they had been brought up with”, says campaign spokesperson Simon Fisher. “The billboards brought some people a sense of relief. We know there is often family or social pressure to conform to a belief system, but this is hard to reconcile with modern science. We want people to know that they won’t suffer in eternity for being thoughtful and rational”.

The signs draw on an international movement supported by prominent atheist Richard Dawkins.

The last round of billboards provoked one complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority, but the Authority ruled that the billboards do not breach the advertising code, which allows for “robust expressions of opinion”.

Campaign organisers are open to sharing the canvases with more towns: “If people wants to put one of our billboards up in their area they can contact us, arrange a location, and we’ll be delighted to lend them the canvas”.

The campaign has been supported by the Humanist Society of New Zealand and the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists.
LOCATIONS FOR THE CANVASES GOING UP IN NOVEMBER:

- Claudelands Road/Grey St, Hamilton
- Tristam St Southbound, Hamilton
- St Aubyn Street, New Plymouth.

It’s the last days guys! Not in an end times kind of way, but there’s only 1 week to go for you to have your say on which city you’d like to see our billboards in next. If you have already donated towards putting billboards in other cities, thank you – we really value your contribution to this campaign.

We’re raising money to cover the costs of transportation and re-installation of our existing billboards to put them in other cities around New Zealand. It’s important that these messages reach not only the large cities, but those in smaller cities as well.

Currently the most nominated areas are:

1. Napier / Hastings
2. Hamilton
3. Nelson
4. South Auckland

Where do you want to see the billboards? Let us know by donating and then typing in the Comment field what city you’d like to see the billboards in.

We’re keen to show some billboard love to the rest of our fine country, although we need your help. This post will explain how we will handle new donations that are received from today. They will be separate from past donations and will only be used for billboards.

We will collect tax-refundable donations centrally through this website and the Givealittle service, just like before. The goal is to raise enough money to put as many billboards as possible in cities outside of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

The beauty of billboards is that for a relatively small amount of money it is possible to re-locate an existing canvas to a new site in a different city. This will be the first way we’ll use the donated money – to move existing billboards to different cities. Depending on how much we fundraise, the second way we’ll use the donated money will be to commission the printing of additional billboards so we can cover a wider range of sites and cities.

To let us know what cities are most important to you guys, please tell us through the Givealittle site. After you donate you are able to enter a Comment. In this comment write the city in which you’d like to see billboards. We will tally up each time a city is mentioned and work out a plan to bring billboards to the most requested cities. Our decision will also need to be based on the availability of sites and the costs involved, so we’ll need to reserve the right to choose the cities/towns to go to first.

I look forward to seeing which cities out there require the boards the most! Thanks for all the support guys – it’s very much appreciated.

Without further ado, here are our three awesome new billboard designs that were put up today in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch…

We now have a super sweet billboard generator set up so you can see roughly how your creations will look. Access it here: http://www.nogod.org.nz/generator/

Feel free to share the links around the net. Also, please be polite and clever – it’s the best way to get the message across. Being offensive is not persuasive and we may delete duplicate or offensive billboards.

Some great suggestions for billboards rolling in already – keep them up, and also tell us what ones you like the most!

You may have noticed that legal proceedings with NZ Bus are taking a while. We have too. The Office of Human Rights Proceedings is still reviewing our case, and we’ll update you with news on this matter as early as possible.

In the meantime, we all want to see atheist messages out there in public. To achieve this, we are spending approximately half the donated money – around $10,000 – on a billboard campaign, starting now. This amount will allow for billboards in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. There will also be funds allocated to relocation of these billboards, so that after being up in the main centres they can later be moved to smaller cities relatively cheaply. We’re pleased how the use of billboards allows us to advertise in smaller centres in this way, as so many people asked about this.

The remainder of the money will be saved (with tasty interest accruing) for either a bus campaign once the discrimination proceedings are finalised with NZ Bus, or to fund additional billboards.

We are also pleased to be able to address one of the other most discussed aspects of our campaign – the actual slogan. For the billboards we’ve decided to use new slogans, while retaining the original “No God” slogan as a logo for the campaign. The branding already built up around the “No God” slogan gives us a great opportunity to explore some other catchy phrases that express atheism and get people to stop and think.

But wait, there’s more! We want you to come up with slogans and then vote on the best ones to be used on billboards. Leave comments below on the blog, on the Facebook post, tweet us, or simply email us your ideas for new slogans.

There will also be a billboard generator set up soon so you can see a mock up of how your creation will look as a billboard. We’ll let you know when this is ready.

Here are some potential candidates to get y’all started…

• Over one-third of New Zealanders are good without God. You can be too. [or: Are you good without God? Over a million kiwis are.]
• We need God like a fish needs a bicycle.
• If there was a God, then one of his key mistakes was making me an Atheist. [paraphrased Gervais quote]
• Think Rationally. Accept Evidence. Reject Faith.
• Question everything, including pixies, leprechauns and God.
• We are all Atheists about most religions. Some of us just go one god further. Atheism
• Are you also Agnostic about the existence of Unicorns or Zeus? Get off the fence. Atheism
• When you understand why you dismiss other gods you will understand why I dismiss yours. Atheism
• To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. – Isaac Asimov
• It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible. – George W. Foote
• Question with boldness even the existence of a god – Thomas Jefferson
• Don’t believe in God? You’re not alone.
• You can be good without God.
• Why believe in God? Just be good for goodness’ sake.
• In the beginning, Man created God.

Looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with…go!