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    A Digital Dark Age (part 3)

    By
    Bob Day
    -
    0

    ‘We will continue to be your single source of truth.

    Unless you hear it from us, it is not the truth’.

    So said former New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. 

    Covid

    When Covid hit in 2020, people had no reason to doubt what they were being told by their political leaders. 

    However, the pandemic very quickly exposed the incompetence of many in the medical and scientific establishment, with politicians and public sector bureaucrats making up rules as they went along, and ramping up censorship.

    Suggestions that the virus might have come from a lab leak, or anything negative about masks or vaccines, soon became misinformation or disinformation and was immediately censored.

    Politicians, public sector bureaucrats, pharmaceutical company executives, all in cahoots with one another, blatantly lied to us. The early bootleggers were amateurs compared with these people.

    They were wrong on lockdowns. They were wrong on border closures. They were wrong on school closures. They were wrong on masking. They were wrong about vaccines. 

    Poor people were hurt the most. 

    Anyone, including qualified medical professionals, who said Covid vaccines were causing serious side-effects and possibly a significant number of deaths, were silenced and threatened.

    The Australian Law Reform Commission has already recommended the removal of the right for Christian schools to hire staff who share their values.

    Academics who had been studying lockdowns were also blacklisted. Dr Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at the US’s Stanford University, was one of them. ‘Censorship of scientific discussion led to policies like school closures,’ he said. ‘A generation of children were hurt.’ 

    At the behest of governments, social media platforms removed any and all content which questioned the safety or efficacy of the vaccines.

    In April 2021, the Coalition government had Instagram remove a post which claimed that ‘Covid-19 vaccine does not prevent Covid-19 infection or Covid-19 transmission’, a statement that clearly was accurate.

    Ivermectin was prohibited from being prescribed in Australia from January 2021, by which time the vaccination rate had reached 98%. Prohibition of Ivermectin was enforced right until the very end of the vaccine roll-out.

    We now know the Covid-19 vaccines were neither safe nor effective. They did not prevent infection or transmission and have been linked to blood clots, heart conditions and other ‘died suddenly’ events. 

    A peer-reviewed study published in January 2024, found that more deaths were caused by the mRNA vaccines than were saved by it. Other studies suggest the widespread use of ivermectin could have saved many lives. 

    As Thomas Sowell once said, “It is difficult to imagine a more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions into the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

    Climate Change and Renewable Energy

    Probably no other area of public debate has been more manipulated than climate change.

    What started as ‘the greenhouse effect’, soon became ‘global warming’ which morphed into the now all-encompassing ‘climate change’. 

    To up the ante even more, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stated recently, ‘The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived”. 

    Global boiling obviously hasn’t yet reached the poles, as Arctic ice is currently at its greatest extent in more than 20 years.

    Renowned quantum physics scholar Dr John Clauser, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics has stated, ‘I do not believe there is a climate crisis’.  

    More bootleggers, in the form of renewable energy merchants, have leapt on to the climate change bandwagon with unbridled zeal and are raking in billions of dollars gaming the system, raising energy prices, impoverishing consumers, destroying jobs, and fleecing taxpayers.

    Indigenous matters

    Toddlers and pre-schoolers in childcare centres across Australia are being taught that Australia was stolen from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

    Qualified medical professionals, who said Covid vaccines were causing serious side-effects and possibly a significant number of deaths, were silenced and threatened.

    More than 7,000 schools and daycare centres now have formal ‘acknowledgements of country’ in place, which includes children singing or reciting that the land on which they sit belongs to Indigenous people.

    At SDN (formerly Sydney Day Nursery) Children’s Services in the ACT, kindy kids are taught about ‘stolen land’ as they recite an acknowledgement of country each morning.

    ‘The foundation for this learning begins when the children enter the centre as infants’, the organisation says on its website.

    ‘Now older preschoolers participate in the daily ritual of acknowledging country to build on the explicit teaching about stolen land.’

    As NSW Libertarian Party MP John Ruddick said, ‘children were being indoctrinated to feel ashamed of their country’.

    The Religious Freedom Bill

    There is no doubt that any ‘religious exemptions’ in the Bill will not make life less hazardous for faith-based organisations.

    While certain religious groups which might comprise Labor’s voting base will be protected, other religious groups most likely will not. 

    As we have seen recently, clear examples of the crime of incitement to violence – perpetrated seemingly with impunity – will, undoubtedly, be given more latitude.

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    Christians, however, will not enjoy similar leniency.

    The Australian Law Reform Commission has already recommended the removal of the right for Christian schools to hire staff who share their values.

    And Christians will most certainly not be able to criticize the trans movement or ‘gender affirming’ practices.

    The world now says truth is subjective – ‘my truth, your truth, their truth …’

    However, the Good Book says, ‘You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.’

    The Rise of Citizen Journalism and Independent Media

    By
    Simon Anderson
    -
    0

    Shortly after 4pm on the 27th of March, the X account @churPanic commenced a live broadcast on a mobile phone from the streets of Gisborne, New Zealand. 

    Against a backdrop of community outrage at taxpayer-funded Rainbow Storytime in the local library, a pedestrian crossing had been whitewashed. Residents of this small North Island town were protesting at the repainting of it in the colours of the Rainbow flag. There was a heavy police presence manhandling the demonstrators and making arrests.

    Minutes earlier the livestream on Facebook from one of the protest groups had gone dark when police arrested the cameraman. It didn’t take long for the internet to discover the small @churPanic account on another platform: a link to his broadcast was rapidly shared and reshared, and hundreds of people tuned in. Two hours later tens of thousands had watched the footage. Shortly after midnight photojournalist Chris De Bruyne in Sydney published a subtitled remix of a clip someone else had cut from the original as a service to the deaf community. 75,000 people viewed De Bruyne’s version. It was one of many.

    Within a day hundreds of thousands – if not millions – had watched the footage in one form or another, most with no idea of  its origin. This is raw news, proliferating through the democratising process of the internet. 

    And it’s killing mainstream media.   

    4pm is too late in the day for the story to make the 6 o’clock news on TV channels. The first mainstream coverage was at 9 pm in online newspapers and late evening broadcasts. By the time the creaking legacy media fabricated a narrative fitting their editorial slant for consumption by a domestic New Zealand audience, the entire world had already seen @churPanic’s footage in one form or another and formulated their own interpretations. 

    Legacy media perceive the social media giants as the greatest threat to their business models.

    Blatant biases aside, the reason for the demise of the legacy media is their slavish devotion to antiquated businesses models that stymie innovation. In failing to evolve, audiences have abandoned them for more reliable sources elsewhere, and advertisers have shifted with them. 

    The legacy media isn’t going down without a fight though, and its death throes are interesting to observe. Far from reviewing their own approach, the legacy media have declared war on everyone else: social media corporations, independents, imagined disinformation programmes by shadowy international organisations, even their own audiences.

    The reality the legacy media refuses to accept is that We, The People, Are The Media Now. Where once it was said to be unwise to “quarrel with a man who buys his ink by the barrel”, the reality is that every person today has a video camera in their pocket with social media providing the capability to reach millions with the click of a button. In seeking out alternative information sources, the people changed the channel.

    Back to Chris De Bruyne. It’s mid-afternoon on the 24th of March and British author Douglas Murray is speaking in Sydney. Murray’s presence attracts a pro-Palestine demonstration, one of whom assaults a pro-Israel counter-demonstrator in full view of NSW police, who don’t intervene. The incident is caught in De Bruyne’s livestream which, as an experienced independent, he broadcasts with an embedded watermark. Realising the newsworthiness, he offers to sell the footage to the major Australian news agencies, all of whom decline. 

    Citizen journalists and independents are, after all, objects of derision amongst the great and good of legacy news desks. They are qualified to arbitrate content to the public while De Bruyne, in their opinion, is not. But they rip off his footage anyway. 

    At 9pm Rita Panahi introduces the story on Sky News with the watermarked livefeed, scraped from De Bruyne’s social media account. She’s doing him a favour; other channels broadcast his material with the watermark blurred out. 

    Against a backdrop of community outrage at taxpayer-funded Rainbow Storytime in the local library, a pedestrian crossing had been whitewashed. 

    Paying compensation for copyright infringement is relatively inexpensive on the rare occasions an independent has the financial means to sustain litigation. As a bonus, legacy media can avoid the operational costs of employing cameramen in the field while there is content to be misappropriated and independents who can be exploited.

    It happens to De Bruyne so regularly he keeps a spreadsheet.

    Legacy media perceive the social media giants as the greatest threat to their business models. Utilising their incestuous relationships with predominantly left-wing political parties, they’re forcing those platforms to pay compensation for disseminating local news content. In Australia it’s called the News Media Bargaining Code and in New Zealand, the Fair Digital News Media Bargaining Bill. 

    The irony of demanding fees to redistribute their content whilst they themselves habitually infringe the copyright of independent producers is lost on the legacy media. But the deliciousness of the irony is that it isn’t the social media platforms that are their enemy. Rather, it’s the people who utilise them. While legacy media are distracted by a war they cannot win with social media corporations, Chris in Sydney and some bloke who goes by the handle “@churPanic” in Gisborne are the people on the ground, reshaping the media landscape by delivering unvarnished news and enabling audiences to reach their own conclusions. 

    And they are one component of a much broader trend. Traditionally trained journalists such as Chris Lynch Media in Christchurch are increasingly going independent. Blogs such as The BFD in Auckland are evolving into fully-fledged media operations. Writers publish to their subscribers on sites such as Substack in the first instance and take offers from legacy media to republish. 

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    Desperate to navigate the new realities of a dying industry, NZME appointed a blogger  to head their NewstalkZB+ division. Alternative media operators have emerged with innovative business models as varied as The Platform, financed by old money, and RCR, with support from their audience. The Underground Daily provide platforms to deliver services enabling new talent. 

    Collectively these individuals and organisations comprise the new media landscape.  Legacy media no longer controls the medium. It is the independents that create the message because content is king and they produce it. Time will tell, and the market will decide, if these new players can develop revenue streams beyond advertising to sustain themselves. 

    But one thing is certain: the media landscape belongs to them and its future is theirs to determine.

    Granny Basher’s Discharge Sends the Right Message

    By
    Simon Anderson
    -
    3

    One year ago I made a young man famous. The video footage of the horrific political violence he perpetrated against a 71 year-old lady at a Women’s Rights rally shocked the world, leading to international condemnation of New Zealand. 

    Two weeks ago I was in court to witness his sentencing: he received a discharge without conviction and his name was permanently suppressed. 

    Immediately after the hearing I interviewed his distressed victim on the courthouse steps and published the unredacted version of her Victim Impact Statement. This is the original, containing the changes agreed between the prosecution and defence counsels, written in the police prosecutor’s own handwriting, before it was handed back to the victim so she could read it in open court.

    The publication of this material led to further international outrage, intensified by their sharing and re-posting on social media by celebrities as varied as Alison Moyet and Martina Navratilova. The case appeared to obviously justify a conviction and substantial sentence. The world was incredulous that such egregious political violence captured on film could be excused by a New Zealand court. 

    Freedom of expression, women and children’s rights, matter in a democracy.

    Kiwis, on the other hand, were quite unsurprised. 
    A key reason is that the Establishment was directly implicated in the violence. MPs of the two governing parties at the time, Labour and the Greens, actually participated in the mob. One Green party MPs incited her 41,000 followers that morning stating she was “So ready to fight Nazis” on her way to the demonstration. Another appeared to justify employing political violence against her perceived opponents in a subsequent television interview. Even Chris Hipkins, the Labour party Prime Minister at the time, effused about how proud he would have been to support it in person.

    New Zealand is a small country. That the government of Labour and the Greens had joined forces with Trades Union and Rainbow groups to suppress women’s rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly is widely known. If anything, the reaction from officialdom was expected.

    What followed was entirely predictable. Only two of the many perpetrators of violence that day have been charged. One has just been all-but acquitted and the other is yet to see the inside of a courtroom, a full year after the event. Victims of other assaults were told that police “were not there to protect them” by multiple police officers. In refusing to pursue several arrests and prosecutions of identified offenders, some victims were themselves blamed by police for their own assaults.

    To this day, none of the organisers who incited violence have been charged. None of the legacy media organisations which fabricated false narratives has been sanctioned by governing or government bodies.

    Instead, the people of New Zealand have been treated to political theatre. Panem et circenses without the bread.

    The case against this young man is a case in point. In my opinion police deliberately bungled the investigation and prosecution at every juncture; initially informing the victim that charges couldn’t be laid without knowing her assailant’s identity, then minimising charges when the identity was supplied. The offender could have been charged under the Terrorism Suppression Act or the lesser charge of Male Assaults Female; instead he received the minimum charge police could possibly engineer: Common Assault.

    The world was incredulous that such egregious political violence captured on film could be excused by a New Zealand court. 

    And from there it only gets worse. Diversion is a system in New Zealand where first-time offenders, typically the young, avoid conviction for minor offences. It is atypical for Diversion to be offered to an offender in a case of serious assault, particularly when opposed by the victim. Yet the police offered Diversion to the offender anyway, only retracting it with risible claims of “administrative error” in response to public uproar. 

    This has all been theatre. The people have been distracted by the ebbs and flows of this case while the broader issues remain. In my opinion the defendant at the centre of it all is almost inconsequential: a young man radicalised on campus by far-Left, extremist propaganda who committed an awful crime and has become the focus of worldwide rage because of it.

    While those who radicalised him have not been called to account.

    New Zealand prescribes puberty blockers to children at ten times the rate of the United Kingdom’s NHS, at least it did until the NHS banned such prescriptions a week ago. Attending gender training is mandatory for some employees in both the public and private sectors. New Zealand birth certificates cannot be used as a supplemental form of identification in any Western country because of the Self-Identification law, unopposed by any party in parliament. Drag queens groom children weekly in libraries, paid for by taxpayers. Midwives who use the words “woman” or “mother” risk de-registration by the Midwifery Council. The Relationships and Sexual Education program mandated by the Ministry of Education is simply rainbow indoctrination of impressionable children. 

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    Objecting to any of this invites condemnation, ostracism and even unemployment. Gender ideology has permeated New Zealand society to such an extent that Kiwis live in fear of the consequences of not adhering to its orthodoxies.

    Freedom of expression, women and children’s rights, matter in a democracy. The true battle we should be fighting is against Gender Ideology, those who promulgate it, and those who employ cancellation and political violence against those who dissent. Meanwhile the Establishment laughs at how easy it was to distract our attention by feeding us a steady diet of bread and circuses about some stupid kid.

    E-Scooters: A Two Wheeled Burden?

    By
    Meaghan Whyte
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    2

    Since approximately 2016 there has been a rapid increase in personal and for-hire electric scooters (e-scooters) in cities around the world. Over 600 cities now have e-scooter for-hire services and, globally, the electric scooter market is valued at more than AUD $49 billion and growing at 10% per year. In Australia, there was an 800% increase in e-scooters from 2016 to 2021.

    However, there are serious concerns regarding e-scooter related injuries.  

    The Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset has released figures regarding e-scooter riders seeking emergency care in hospitals: 502 in the 2022 financial year, then 958 in the 2023 financial year; nearly a twofold increase year on year. Victoria introduced its e-scooter trial with 2500 rental scooters in Melbourne, Port Phillip, and Yarra council areas in February 2022, and legalised  private e-scooters on public roads in March 2022.

    Despite the minimum riding age being 16 there have been 193 presentations by children below this age over the past 3 years. Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Victorian chair Dr Patrick Lo has stated that 3 children presented in one week with a brain haemorrhage, brain swelling and a broken neck. 42 unfortunate pedestrians have also been treated for e-scooter-related accidents.

    Mortality due to e-scooter traffic accidents was 9.2%.

    Queensland has released similar figures. In that state, e-scooter injuries admitted to hospitals were as follows: 279 in 2019, 877 in 2022, and 801 by September of 2023.

    In Western Australia there was a 386% percent increase in hospital admissions in the year July 2021 to June 2022. There was a 200% increase in injuries between 2017 and 2022.

    A study by the University of California San Francisco found that in the US, e-scooter-related injuries and hospital admissions increased by 222% from 2014 to 2018, climbing above 39,000. Hospital admissions expanded by 365%.

    Severe Injuries, Lack of Helmets

    The study “Comparison of Injuries Associated With Electric Scooters, Motorbikes, and Bicycles in France, 2019-2022”, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), looked at 5,233 e-scooter injury patients. Mortality due to e-scooter traffic accidents was 9.2%. The risk of severe traumatic brain injury, 26%.

    In a study done by University of California San Francisco, electric scooter injuries included fractures 27%, contusions/abrasions 23% and lacerations 14%. Most concerning, almost one third reported head trauma. 

    The study “Characteristics of Electric Scooter and Bicycle Injuries After Introduction of Electric Scooter Rentals in Oslo, Norway”, published in the JAMA, found that e-scooter injuries often occur at night, to young adults, who aren’t wearing helmets, and have a high blood alcohol reading. Dr Sarah Whitelaw, an emergency doctor in Victoria, echoes this sentiment. She said in addition, riders were often travelling at high speeds.

    In Australia, there was an 800% increase in e-scooters from 2016 to 2021.

    Economic Burden

    In the US, UCLA research reveals that the healthcare cost of e-scooter injuries increased from $6.6 million in 2016 to $35.5 million in 2020.

    Doctors in New Zealand reviewed data of surgeries on injured scooter riders from October 2018 to February 2019. Adding up costs including anaesthetic, theatres, staff, implants, time in hospital and lost income, each injury averaged $19,282 NZD. Over $400,000 was spent in less than five months. 

    The study “The impact of electric scooters in Melbourne: data from a major trauma service” published on Wiley, looked at e-scooter injuries admitted to Royal Melbourne Hospital from January 2022 to January 2023. 247 riders and 9 pedestrians presented for treatment. 33% of riders were wearing helmets at the time of incident. 50% reported head injuries. Hospital cost totalled $1.9 million, and median cost was $1321.66 per patient. 

    According to the hospital’s website, “The Royal Melbourne Hospital is part of Australia’s public health care system and offers hospital care to any Australian resident under Medicare arrangements.” This also applies to the 696 other public hospitals across Australia many of which would be treating e-scooter injuries, paid for by the taxpayer. 

    Solution

    The question for libertarians is not whether to restrict or ban e-scooters, which is what authoritarians prefer, but how to move the financial risk and economic burden of injuries from taxpayers to e-scooter riders.

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    One potential solution is to establish an insurance requirement for both rental and private e-scooter owners. Purchased by riders, this would function like first-party and third-party car insurance. In the event of an accident, the insurance would cover resultant medical costs. 

    Consistent with the concept of personal responsibility, this approach would shift financial liability to individual riders and decrease reliance on public healthcare funds. It might even become a model for managing other health risks.

    Part II:Programmable Money

    By
    Simon Anderson
    -
    0

    Two years ago the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, Sir John Cunliffe, spoke the most sinister sentence I’d heard in a long while. The menace was unmistakable: 

    “giving your children pocket money but programming the money so that it couldn’t be used for sweets.” 

    This statement was offered in the context of Central Bank Digital Currencies. Let me explain what these are and why Sir John’s statement is terrifying. 

    Everyone knows about cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. In January 2024 their total market capitalisation reached $US 1.77 trillion. For central banks that is an inordinate amount of money sitting outside traditional financial systems and regulatory frameworks. 

    The crypto market has evolved. Until fairly recently it was difficult to spend, so it tended to be treated more as an investment asset than as a mechanism of exchange. The time taken to process transactions was the most inhibiting factor. Unlike the near-instantaneous transactions of current electronic payment systems, cryptocurrency processing can take minutes.

    Imagine the government decides the economy requires stimulation by encouraging spending – your pay-cheque will lose 20% of its value if you don’t spend it within a month.

    That made it suitable for a making a purchase from an online retailer, but not so good for buying a coffee in the local café.

    Technology has evolved to address this limitation. Cryptocurrency exchanges (much like a brokerage) now offer a variety of financial tools and services in partnership with credit card companies. One such service is a debit card directly linked to a crypto account.  

    This resolves the usability issue. A card such as a WireX can be used wherever Visa is accepted with transactions debited from the user’s crypto account at the speed of a standard EFTPOS transaction. Spending cryptocurrency to buy an espresso has become mundane.

    And in consequence, financial technology (fintech) becomes tomorrow’s battlefield. 

    Conducting private transactions with a democratised digital currency is nirvana for libertarians but a nightmare for the state. Tax departments find it difficult to levy goods and services taxes on transactions that are opaque, while central banks can struggle to set monetary policy when sections of the populace are using a different currency. In New Zealand the Reserve Bank’s ‘Future of Money’ discussion paper identifies this as the primary risk to New Zealand’s monetary sovereignty. For a small economy, the prospect of goods and services being priced in a cryptocurrency instead of $NZD is a very real challenge to the Reserve Bank’s overarching objective of stewarding a stable anchor of value.

    What to do? For the state the answer is to co-opt and regulate, which is where Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) come in. 

    Like most central banks, the Bank of England realises digital currencies are inevitable. Their plan is to mandate a state-controlled alternative, linked to the traditional local currency. 

    As Sir John points out, CBDCs can be programmed like any other cryptocurrency. From the point of view of the state this is fantastic: improved efficiencies in the financial system generating economic benefit whilst enhancing the control that states traditionally exert over fiat currency. 

    From the point of view of the people it is not so good. Programmability has the potential to enable totalitarian micro-control over every aspect of our financial lives. When every transaction is recorded and the state can manipulate the currency with immediate effect, the people are reduced to mere economic units whose financial behaviours can be strictly monitored, manipulated and mandated.

     Cryptocurrency exchanges (much like a brokerage) now offer a variety of financial tools and services in partnership with credit card companies.

    Imagine the government decides the economy requires stimulation by encouraging spending – your pay-cheque will lose 20% of its value if you don’t spend it within a month. Imagine being automatically sent to the bottom of the queue for diabetes treatment because the health system has determined you spent too much on Coca-Cola over the last 12 months. The possibilities afforded by control of currency at this granularity are endless. 

    In New Zealand the Reserve Bank’s discussion papers are at pains to obfuscate the essence of this aspect. In response to concerns raised by the public, industry and no less than the Privacy Commissioner himself, the Reserve Bank stressed that privacy would be a consideration. It has not been elevated to the status of principle. Of perhaps greater concern is the Reserve Bank’s differentiation between the definitions of privacy and anonymity:

    “’Privacy’ means that it is possible that data was collected but has not been shared, while ‘anonymity’ means data was not collected.”

    Between the competing regulatory demands of the Privacy Act and the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act, the Reserve Bank’s view of precisely where on the spectrum New Zealand should reside certainly isn’t leaning towards privacy or the anonymity Kiwis currently enjoy with physical cash currency.

    Alongside the introduction of CBDCs will be initiatives to hobble the competition. Governments will endeavour to regulate existing cryptocurrencies out of existence and are likely to impose stiff penalties on those who trade in them, an aspect the Reserve Bank addresses with the vague and rather euphemistic intention to ‘Regulate new forms of money and payments that impact stewardship goals.’ 

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    This is already happening in China: the introduction of the Digital Renminbi CBDC in 2021 was accompanied by an outright ban on other cryptocurrencies, the Standing Committee knowing full well that control of the digital currency was essential to the long-term success of the overlying Social Credit System.

    Western governments are likely to put a friendlier face on CBDCs, arguing trust, convenience and efficiency. Despite those arguments and the fluffy, paternalistic authoritarianism espoused by technocrats such as Sir John, no-one but your mum should have the right to tell you how many sweets you can buy with your own money. 

    Because she has your best interests at heart. Sir John espouses the best interests of the state.

    Racial Friction in New Zealand

    By
    Simon Anderson
    -
    2

    For every government in New Zealand, the year commences with a focus on Maori affairs. For historical reasons most political parties undertake a pilgrimage to the Ratana Church on the 25th of January to commemorate the birthday of the congregation’s prophet, Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana. It is a reserved affair: politicians are discouraged from grandstanding and expected to listen to the concerns of the Ratana movement (by no means representative of all Maori). Marvellously, they do. 

    Waitangi Day, New Zealand’s national day, is celebrated on the 6th of February. By tradition politicians travel to the Waitangi Marae (meeting grounds), the site of the signing of the treaty between the British Empire and many Maori tribes which most New Zealanders consider the country’s founding document. 

    Democracy in New Zealand has eroded over the last six years of a radical Labour/Green regime

    Maori protocol is fairly strictly maintained within the Marae (female politicians require a dispensation in order to speak, for instance) but outside things can be rather raucous. In the past Maori and their non-Maori supporters have used the occasion to express discontent, with some protests turning confrontational and descending into violence. As recently as 2009 former Prime Minister John Key was assaulted on his way onto the Treaty Grounds. While most Waitangi Days at Waitangi are one big Kiwi picnic, confrontations between angry demonstrators and lines of police are not unknown.   

    Against the backdrop of these occasions is the culture wars. On one side are the proponents of democracy comprising the vast majority of non-Maori New Zealanders. On the other are the proponents of Maori separatism comprising the tribal elites, their progressive allies, and those ordinary Maori who agree with their point of view. The essence of the disagreement is in interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi  (Te Tiriti o Waitangi.)     

    “The Treaty” as it is known in Kiwi parlance is a relatively simple document in its original English form: ceding sovereignty to the Crown with equal rights as British subjects and property rights guaranteed. In the Maori version the language is more open to interpretation. Some doubt whether Maori ceded sovereignty at all, complicated by the fact some Maori tribes didn’t sign it. 

    The confusion surrounding interpretation has led to the development of the Principles of the Treaty. Although never defined, the Principles permeate legislation and proliferate throughout the public sector. At the core of the previous Labour/Green regime’s radical interpretation of the Principles is racial segregation: Maori at 16% of the population sharing equal authority with the 84% non-Maori population, euphemistically referred to as “co-governance.” 

    In some respects, it is reminiscent of Apartheid.

    The Waitangi Tribunal was established in the 1970s to negotiate compensation from the Crown for the various Maori tribes due to historical Treaty breaches. A programme of “full and final” settlements has been underway ever since. The majority of Kiwis support these settlements as fair and believed the end to be in sight as the number of outstanding negotiations dwindled. Their disappointment at learning this was not to be the case and that Maori were instead demanding an end to equal suffrage was a major factor in the overwhelming victory of the centre-right coalition at the November general election. 

    For every government in New Zealand, the year commences with a focus on Maori affairs.

    Both of the winning minor parties signed coalition agreements with the major National party that included Maori specific policy. The populist NZ First party promised to ensure English would be used across the public sector so the 97% of Kiwis who don’t speak te reo Maori could understand government communications. The libertarian ACT party undertook to deliver a referendum to define the Principles of the Treaty but the other two parties could only bring themselves to go as far as to support a parliamentary bill through to First Reading. For its part, National said that co-governance would be entirely removed from the delivery of public services and eligibility would be determined by need instead of by race.

    This shared policy platform enrages the Maori elite and those who benefited from the previous Labour/Green regime’s largesse, predictably leading to tiresome accusations of racism. New Zealand is perhaps the only country in the world where ‘inherently racist tyranny of the majority’ is regarded as a valid description of democracy. Indeed, variations of this sentiment regularly appear in our national discourse, espoused by the left-wing.

    Other intemperate remarks from left-wing politicians such as threats to “go to war” certainly haven’t helped, instead exacerbating tensions. Tensions that may be violently expressed outside Te Tii Waitangi marae on New Zealand’s national day.

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    Democracy in New Zealand has eroded over the last six years of a radical Labour/Green regime and the country now stands at a crossroads. Our society is confronted by fundamental challenges to our constitutional arrangements and the choice is simple: either we’re a multicultural liberal democracy or we’re a bi-cultural ethno-state.

    Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders believe we are one people, and this was the intention of the signatories to the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. Redress for past injustices is right and proper, the imposition of Apartheid is not.

    The Libertarian ACT Party’s Influence On The New Coalition Government

    By
    Simon Anderson
    -
    1

    Strange Mixture of Ethno-Nationalism And Soviet-Style Authoritarianism Is A Very Real Risk.

    The proportional representation electoral system in New Zealand encourages the formation of coalition governments. The usual outcome is a coalition featuring one of the traditional major parties, the leftist Labour party or the centrist National party, with another party, perhaps plus other sympathetic parties providing confidence and supply from outside government. 

    Only twice in the 27 years of proportional representation has this scenario not occurred. In 2020, where an electorate inexplicably grateful for the Covid response handed Jacinda Ardern’s Labour party an unprecedented absolute majority, and 2023 when the centrist National party, the populist NZ First and libertarian Act parties formed a three-way coalition. Members of all three parties will hold ministerial warrants inside and outside cabinet, and a comprehensive policy platform has been agreed amongst them.

    The libertarian influence over the new government is a lot less than it could have been

    The essential objective of the policy platform is recovery from the devastation wrought over the last six years by the Labour-led government. Every key economic and social metric is in the red, core Crown debt has tripled, infrastructure is crumbling, cost of living and inflation are crises, Stalinesque centralisation of devolved services such as health and tertiary education have been eye-wateringly expensive failures, and democracy at all levels of government has largely been supplanted by the euphemistically named “co-governance” of public services: Maori prima inter pares Apartheid.

    In six short years the far-left ideologues of the Labour party, cheered on by their fellow travellers in the corrupted media, have taken NZ’s “Rockstar Economy” to the point where the country is teetering on the verge of middle-income instead of first world nationhood, and a society where civil unrest between a coalition government seeking to reassert democratic norms and a significant proportion of the populace dedicated to replacing democracy with a strange mixture of ethno-nationalism and Soviet-style authoritarianism is a very real risk.

    The proportional representation electoral system in New Zealand encourages the
    formation of coalition governments.

    The hope of the Act and NZ First constituencies (and to a lesser extent, their National party peers) is that the two minor coalition partners can provide National with some much needed backbone. Traditionally a centre-right party representative of rural interests, business and exporters, National today has devolved into the blandest of beige centrist parties, pitching themselves as more fiscally prudent and better at delivery than their Labour party counterparts. Whilst accurate, these are not the radical characteristics needed by the incoming coalition to reverse the calamity of six years of unrestrained wokeism.

    A lack of unity amongst the parties might be the coalition’s greatest weakness, embodied by the leader of NZ First Winston Peters, whose reputation for capriciousness and venality is well-earned. Since 1996 he has entered into coalition four times, twice each with Labour and National, an experience both parties came to regret on all four occasions.

    Winston Peters

    The fear of Act and National voters is he will blow up this coalition as he has done to coalitions in the past. And much to the dismay of libertarians, that risk is largely the fault of David Seymour, leader of the Act party. As early as 2022 Act were polling around 15% and an all-time high of 20% seemed achievable, which would almost certainly propel a National/Act coalition to the treasury benches.

    Much to the chagrin of party rank and file, and grandees such as previous leader Rodney Hide, David Seymour took the inexplicable decision to broadly back Jacinda Ardern’s autocratic approach to pandemic lock-downs, vaccine mandates and the protests against them.

    Going so far as repeating Labour party agitprop against anti-mandate demonstrators in a very public refusal to meet with them, Seymour singularly alienated a large section of Act’s constituency. A constituency Winston Peters was only too glad for the opportunity to champion.

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    Embracing the disaffected constituency that Seymour repudiated was enough for Peters to re-enter parliament and coalition government. Conversely for David Seymour, abandoning Act’s libertarian principles consigned the party to a paltry 8.6% of the popular vote, and the ignominy of coalition with NZ First. Act supporters can only hope David Seymour has been suitable chastened by the experience to refrain from such a damaging strategic mistake again, and that Act and National can survive the impact of NZ First upon the coalition government.

    The libertarian influence over the new government is a lot less than it could have been, at least in its first three-year term of office.

    The Farce of NZ Ministry of Health Data Leak

    By
    Simon Anderson
    -
    0

    Dealing With A Number of Organisations Concerning These Data For More Than A Year.

    Several days ago Database Administrator Barry Young emerged as the Ministry of Health whistleblower. Mr Young had appropriated more than a terabyte of Covid vaccine data and released it to selected contacts in the vaccine sceptical community within New Zealand and overseas. The data was presented alongside excess mortality rates to draw startling conclusions.

    Subsequently it emerged that Mr. Young had been dealing with a number of organisations concerning these data for more than a year. Sacrificing whatever little credibility he might have enjoyed, Mr. Young decided to use the NZ Loyal political party as his vehicle to announce the data release.

    It is information pertinent to the health and well-being the vast majority of New Zealanders who got vaccinated against Covid.

    NZ Loyal is a party founded by the journalist Liz Gunn, with a policy agenda consisting of a typical grab bag of poorly considered responses to conspiracy theories. Garnering a mere 26,000 votes at the recent general election, NZ Loyal is the epitome of a ‘fringe political movement’ – anti-globalisation, anti-international institutions, fluoridation is a conspiracy to keeps the population docile, and vaccines turn people into WiFi terminals.

    Party leader Liz Gunn interviewed Mr. Young in the ludicrously titled Mother of All Revelations podcast. It was anything but: Mr Young squandered the opportunity to appear as a dispassionate analyst of the data and revealed himself to be a partisan acolyte of the Church of the Holy Mother of Idiotic Conspiracies. Compounding his error, Mr. Young issued a variety of highly suspect pronouncements concerning the causality (conflated with correlation) between the vaccine and excess mortality rates in New Zealand; pronouncements simply unsupported by the data and so tenuous and tangential as to be laughed at by anyone who cared to look.

    Barry Young

    Which of course the conspiracist community, revelling in confirmation bias, refrained from doing. Mr Young became the overnight sensation of vaccine sceptics worldwide, conducting interviews with such bastions of empirical evidence, the scientific method and dispassionate enquiry as Alex Jones of InfoWars and Steve Kirsch. Even Russell Brand got in on the action as the news of the leak spread around the world, amplified and exacerbated with salacious detail.

    Three days after the disclosure Mr. Young was arrested by New Zealand police and charged with accessing a computer system for dishonest purposes, an offence which carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison. He had his home ransacked and electronic equipment seized and, doubtless to keep him in communicado, was remanded in custody for several days.

    (Such is the New Zealand justice system: murderers awaiting trial typically do so on home detention and serial rapists have been sentenced to home detention instead of prison. Potentially embarrassing the state through misappropriating information is a far more serious offence.)
    The data itself was subject to injunction and many websites complied with the New Zealand court’s ruling notwithstanding it was ultra vires, further piquing the curiosity of the conspiracist community.

    The data was presented alongside excess mortality rates to draw startling conclusions.

    New Zealand’s whistleblower protection laws are weak. To enjoy their protections (such as they are), a whistleblower must follow the disclosure policies of the organisation concerned in the first instance and subsequently, a suitable authority such as the office of the ombudsman. Mr. Young maintains that he followed this procedure, raising concerns with the Ministry of Health and then the Deputy Prime Minister. He has not so far released any documentation to provide corroboration, as he will require if he is to mount a robust defence against the charge he now faces.

    One would hope he mounts such a defence. Losing his employment and gaining the opprobrium of those capable of critical thinking ought to be punishment enough for this fantasist who, in the final analysis, is little more than a distraction from the real issues.

    Because he is, fundamentally if accidentally, correct.

    There was an unexplained increase in excess mortality rates in New Zealand during the pandemic response and vaccine roll-out. The New Zealand authorities should be releasing the data they hold for independent analysis, suitably anonymised. Hiding behind commercial relationships with pharmaceutical companies and spurious interpretations of privacy provisions is improper, bordering upon malfeasance.

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    These data should be the property of the New Zealand people. It is information pertinent to the health and well-being the vast majority of New Zealanders who got vaccinated against Covid, and to the decisions taken by the authorities on our collective behalf. In the interests of both public health and the democratic body politic it should be available for scrutiny.

    Never mind the distraction of useful idiots, the data must be released.

    Citizen Journalist Videos Police Collusion With A Violent Mob

    By
    Simon Anderson
    -
    1

    I was flattered to receive an invitation from Liberty Itch to join the team of writers.

    They asked that my début article be something of an introduction: explaining how I came to notoriety, so here it is.

    On 25th March I filmed trans activists rioting in Auckland’s Albert Park, preventing British women’s rights campaigner Posie Parker from speaking. I used a 360° camera attached to a three-metre-long selfie-stick so the footage is overhead, from the middle of the crowd. These cameras film in all directions concurrently and from it, flat clips can be exported.

    That evening on the nightly news and over the next two days the ruling Labour/Greens regime and their media allies began to concoct a narrative that the protest had been peaceful. They used sound bites such as “peaceful protest,” “pure trans joy” and “an outpouring of aroha [love.]”

    I knew the footage I had directly contradicted this false narrative so I started publishing it.

    The following day my life changed.

    Numerous women fleeing the attack were told by multiple officers words to the effect of “we are not here to protect you.”

    I know these things to be true because the footage I have depicts it!

    I used Twitter to post infrequently about my interests, stuff people weren’t particularly interested in. But oh boy, were they interested in this. On the morning of the 28th I woke to twenty notifications per second, requests from major news organisations for syndication (accepted) and for interview (declined.)  By the end of the week millions of people around the world had viewed the material.

    Then I started receiving requests. Primarily from assault victims, some of whom remain traumatised. With a 360° camera I’m seldom looking in the direction of pertinent material. People came to me with requests for flat exports at a certain time in a certain direction so the footage could be evidential in police complaints and subsequently prosecutions. 

    Of course, I agreed. And kept publishing, clip after clip, each more damning of the official narrative than the last. This didn’t endear me much to the authorities or the rainbow community, nor their left-wing supporters and the domestic mainstream media. In a small country I’m no longer a private citizen.

    People came to trust in my integrity. And I’ve become something of a clearing house for information: witness statements, responses to Official Information Act requests, footage from other photographers wishing to remain anonymous and so on. Publishing this material helps to keep the pressure on the authorities (who very much want all of this to go away) to do the right thing.

    Which brings me to the New Zealand Police.

    On the day of the riot the police withdrew to the outskirts of Albert Park, allowing the rainbow community to get stuck into the women who were there to speak or listen. In a frenzy the rioters broke through metal barriers to get to them. Whilst this was occurring the police were in constant contact with the rainbow organisers. Numerous women fleeing the attack were told by multiple officers words to the effect of “we are not here to protect you.”

    I know these things to be true because the footage I have depicts it, and I’m in possession of the OIA responses and independent witness accounts that corroborate it.

    This was -at best- a significant operational failure on the part of the police. Some might go so far as to say collusion with a violent mob. It is contentious enough for the Independent Police Conduct Authority to launch an investigation. At the insistence of several victims the IPCA interviewed me two weeks ago, which of course I published, and you can listen to the testimony at my YouTube channel.

    To coincide with a court hearing concerning one of her alleged assailants, Posie Parker was due to attend another speaking event in Auckland on 20th September. She cancelled because the New Zealand authorities refused to guarantee her safety. It offends me greatly that anyone is prevented from speaking in public and I am ashamed that my country is not a safe place for her to visit. The event went ahead in her absence.

    Which brings me to the power of photography.

    The ruling Labour/Greens regime and their media allies began to concoct a narrative that the protest had been peaceful.

    The police and the rainbow community are deeply cognizant of the damage the Albert Park footage has done respectively to their reputation and their cause. To discourage violence, hold police accountable and above all keep women safe I formed a team of volunteers to film the event. We achieved these objectives.

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    Other photographers regularly hit me up to back them up in tricky situations, typically demonstrations. Pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, anti-co-governance, whatever. I do so because I want to prevent harm coming to anyone and for the truth to be told.

    Now I’m notorious, these are increasingly dangerous situations. Demonstrators, counter-demonstrators, media, police. People I’ve never met address me by name.

    Some are not fans.

    FREEDOM! The Daughter of Davos Resigns.

    By
    Kenelm Tonkin
    -
    0

    Two extraordinary things happened yesterday.

    First, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced her resignation effective, at the latest, early in February 2023. (Yes, New Zealanders need to endure her for a few weeks more!)

    Second, I put out this short tweet yesterday together with a video of the Prime Minister, and it went viral. In a mere 180 minutes, it was seen by 67,400 people and was still swishing around the globe as I wrote this. After 8 hours, 165,000+!

    You have to ask ‘WHY?’

    https://twitter.com/KenelmTonkin/status/1615875921638219778?s=20

    Jacinda Ardern set a couple of records. She was the youngest female prime minister ever in 2017. Further, she gave birth whilst in office.

    Of course, neither of these have anything to do with political achievement.

    To be fair, we can probably agree that Jacinda Ardern is expressive.

    Some went so far as to say she showed great empathy.

    I think it more accurate to say any apparent empathy was self-consciously dispensed and exclusively to beneficiaries of her bias.

    Any praise for expressiveness and empathy needs much closer scrutiny. It’s what she expresses that so confounds civil libertarians like you and me. And, if you don’t mind me expressing myself here dear reader, she showed a distinct lack of empathy for many during covid lockdowns, victims of which are generations not yet born as you’ll see. So read on.

    Instead, what we observed was a smiling socialist, a Daughter of Davos, instinct over intellect, all feeling and no financial finesse. In short, she was a classical liberal’s nightmare.

    Just look at the legacy she leaves after six reckless years in office:

    • Frequent meddling with the free market. The results: distortions in housing prices and a generation of first home buyers shut-out of their ownership aspirations;
    • A backlash against over-zealous covid restrictions and loss of personal freedoms, including creating a medical-apartheid defined by vaccination-status. See the video tweet above;
    • Conscientious objectors and the vaccine-hesitant were shunned socially, denied mobility, prevented from earning a living and targeted by government in ways the Stasi would have relished in Soviet-era East Germany;
    • Consequential increasing crime rates in the island nation;
    • Inflation sitting at 7.2%;
    • Food prices spiking 8.3% compared with the same time a year earlier;
    • Successive interest rate increases from New Zealand’s central bank;
    • A monstrous public debt! When she took office, the public debt was approximately $60 billion USD. Projections are that, based on all data currently available reflecting the decisions of her government, that the national debt will balloon to $151 billion USD by 2027. If the figure proves higher or lower than that, it will be the result of her successor’s policies, but you can see the economic vandalism on her watch. Put it this way, she led a government which racked-up triple the debt of all previous New Zealand governments combined. She went way over the credit card limit and left someone else to pick up the bill. Funny, right?;
    • For a country with a population the size of Boston, it will take three generations at least to bring that debt to heel. We are talking inter-generational theft which will crush Zoomer Kiwis’ standard of living, their children and their grandchildren. That is to say, on the day after you, I and Jacinda Ardern meet our Lord and Maker, New Zealanders will be dealing with the Ardern Economic Catastrophe for another two generations thereafter;
    • Many of them will flee New Zealand and hollow this beautiful jewel of the South Pacific. They have been emigrating anyway, mainly to Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States;
    • A strategic flirtation with the Chinese Communist Party. Her Labour Party has long shunned our liberal democratic ally, America. It was a natural progression from that to openly calling for greater integration with the communists, a weak-kneed strategy in favour of firebrand authoritarianism with a chequebook over the cleansing-balm of liberty;
    • Consistent with that predisposition towards authoritarianism, civil liberties in New Zealand were shattered under her Governments. Emergency powers poised to be invoked again at any time are left in place;
    • Chinese Communist Party infiltration of New Zealand consulates and banks;
    • She openly lied about the efficacy of covid vaccines. “If you take the vaccine, you’ll still get covid but you won’t get sick and you won’t die” was a claim she made during the height of an hysteria of her own making, and contradicted by the science and the manufacturer. Don’t believe me? Watch this …

      https://twitter.com/KenelmTonkin/status/1616211090882592768?s=20


    • More government restrictions on the access and use of water;
    • Crushing regulations on agricultural emissions;
    • Further shifting of the goal posts with hate speech laws without any safeguards as to who adjudicates what ‘hate speech’ actually is.

    The adulation and applause had faded about a year ago. The shadowy World Economic Forum’s simping seemed impossibly distant now. Jacinda Ardern had to face the people of New Zealand imminently and the prospects weren’t promising.

    With polling numbers in decline and the sparkle now tarnished, the Prime Minister did what all faithful authoritarians and central-planners do when their number is up. She spoke sweetly, smiled nervously, then scurried to the nearest exit hoping that the rule of law she undermined holds firm for her.

    I was shocked my tweet went viral. I shouldn’t have been. Countless everyday people across the West, people like you and I, have had a gutful.

    The Daughter of Davos was a symbol of all that has gone wrong over the last 3 years. So of course you cheered her departure.

    I don’t think we’ll have to wait long before she re-emerges with an ostentatious job title and global brief somewhere in the world. “Poverty Ambassador-At-Large, World Economic Forum”, on $820,000 per annum, Davos chalet and chauffeur the obligatory perks on top sounds about right.

    And when that happens, you and I can both smile knowingly that at least here she won’t have harmed anyone further. On her departure from the Land of the Long White Cloud, she will increase the average IQ of New Zealand, and not decrease that of the World Economic Forum.

    Pardon me if I shed not a solitary tear.

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