After spending hours researching the views of controversial Canadians Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux, Oscar Kightley says he'd rather have spent the time watching cat videos.

OPINION: The last time I recall someone being banned from entering New Zealand, it was Mike Tyson.

The former heavyweight boxing champion of the world had wanted to visit in late 2012 with a tour of his one-man show about how he turned his life around after drug dependency and spells in prison.

I would have been curious to see Tyson talk about his failings, how he went from hero to zero, and what he learned from that whole journey. But I also understand that New Zealand has laws about who gets the privilege of entering the country and Tyson's past crimes meant he failed the character test.

SUPPLIED Canadian speakers Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern have been barred from New Zealand - and rightfully so, says Oscar Kightley.

It showed that the Aotearoa is serious about the standards of past behaviour it expects from people who want to travel here and that those standards still apply, regardless of any amount of fame.

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It was interesting to see this week that the visit of two controversial Canadian speakers was canned after an Auckland Council agency cancelled their venue booking citing concerns about security and safety.

Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux were due to speak at Takapuna's Bruce Mason Theatre next month as part of an Australasian tour.

I had to look up who they were on YouTube and ended up spending a couple of hours lost down a tunnel where I was introduced to whole screeds of videos by them and others who share their views.

I learnt a term that these people use as a put-down of those who try to advocate a fairer world for all – SJWs or Social Justice Warriors. I am still struggling to see how that can be a diss.

I know that it's good to step outside your bubble and hear competing narratives, after all it can help you understand and crystalise your own views. Still, I think I would have preferred to have spent that time down a different YouTube tunnel watching cat videos, Alan Watts lectures or old Bruce Lee clips.

Southern's views on immigration had prompted the New Zealand Federation of Islam Associations to ask the Government to bar her entry into the country.

In March, she was barred from entering the United Kingdom and a Home Office spokesperson explained her presence in the UK was "not conducive to the public good". Because of this, Southern had been denied an automatic entry visa to New Zealand and set his lawyers on to securing one.

Although the Southern-Molyneux show now has no venue and those efforts to come to New Zealand have been halted, I can't help but wonder that it might have been interesting to see what sort of audience they would have attracted had they been able to come. Still, people really desperate to see them and hear their views can always just watch them on the Interweb.

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff tweeted that "views that divide rather unite are repugnant" and that venues should not be used to "stir up ethnic or religious tensions". Southern tweeted back asking whether "the 'enrichment of diversity' come at the cost of our rights to speech?"

Of course, freedom of speech is an important principle, but that isn't one way. Surely people have that same freedom to have their own reactions to any speech.

Including the freedom to say: yeah nah, you can't actually come into New Zealand and say that stuff.