Graham Adams: Posie Parker blows apart Hipkins’ anti-woke pose

The UK activist has changed the election-year dynamic.

Chris Hipkins’ initial success as Labour’s fresh Messiah after Jacinda Ardern’s resignation in January has largely rested on the promise that his party’s focus henceforth would be on “bread-and-butter” issues such as the cost of living.

This recasting of a prominent member of Ardern’s close-knit kitchen Cabinet as a working-class hero (“I’m just Chippy from the Hutt”) was snappily summarised by the mainstream media as a shift from “woke” to “bloke”. But why journalists would promote that view is hard to understand given that even a cursory review of Hipkins’ role as Education minister makes it clear that Hipkins is an ideologue, of the intensely woke variety.

Bryce Edwards: The Astonishing Government suppression of Nash’s email

It’s truly astonishing the way that the Government has been able to suppress evidence of business donors gaining special access to Cabinet information.

Now that Stuart Nash has been fired from Cabinet for leaking sensitive information to individuals who funded his election campaign, the focus has shifted to why this information was kept from the public back in 2021. It turns out that the Prime Minister’s Office knew Nash had given privileged information to donors. Furthermore, the PM’s Office played a central role in preventing that information from being released to a journalist who specifically asked for it, and should have received it, under the provision of the Official Information Act.

Derek Mackie: Want top priority? Become a Minority!

Ever feel ignored? Just one of the crowd, crammed in at the back, stuck in the rain with a single row of portaloos and a hotdog van. Cordoned off from the standard covered seating area and the eclectic food stalls. 

That’s what being part of the vast majority is like these days. 

 It used to mean getting most of what you wanted and having governments that concentrated on meeting your needs. Not anymore. 

You pay your taxes, which are just as high, but your rights are diminished and you get less and less back in public services, but are thankful as long as you don’t get abused in the process. 

 In our modern, woke progressive era minorities have become the new majority. They’re loud and very demanding, and even when you agree with them they still bad-mouth you. 

The media, our academics and politicians adore them and can’t do enough for them. This encourages even more outlandish claims, some bordering on the ridiculous. 

Peter Dunne: Chris Hipkins' indecision and timidity

In his first two months as Prime Minister Chris Hipkins impressed for his directness, clarity and determination, and the assured way in which he transitioned into his new role. His everyman style, from the hoodie to the more than occasional meat pie, won many positive comments. The methodical but decisive way in which he dismantled or pushed to one side those aspects of Ardernism, so dear to the Labour Party, but increasingly egregious to the public, has been impressive. Taken together, they have led to speculation he could become the first Prime Minister since Peter Fraser eighty years ago to win re-election in his own right, after having taken over during a Parliamentary term.

Net Zero Watch: Net Zero is coming apart before our very eyes

 

In this newsletter:

1) Net Zero ban on petrol cars in chaos after Brussels climbdown
The Daily Telegraph, 29 March 2023
 
2) Ross Clark: The EU's Net Zero plan is in tatters - and not a moment too soon
The Daily Telegraph, 29 March 2023

Mike Hosking: Posie Parker protestor - why do we cover the attention seekers?

I reached peak despair this week with the profile of the person who tossed the soup, or paint, or juice or whatever it was at Posie Parker.

The Posie Parker debate was bad enough. We have big stuff going on right now that deserves a great deal more attention.

But it’s a human trait to become preoccupied with high drama so we had the high-drama scrap about Posie and who ended up making a bigger dick of themselves.

But we weren't satisfied with that. We then decided to make a celebrity of the offender, the juice thrower.

Cam Slater: Tell the Chinese Ambassador to STFU

Did you know that the Chinese Ambassador to New Zealand, Wang Xiaolong, has sent a 36 page, 11,300-word letter to numerous New Zealand MPs, railing against the United States? You certainly won’t have heard about it from the New Zealand media, who are strangely silent on the matter despite it making headlines in Australia.

Karl du Fresne: It's true, then - go woke, go broke

So TodayFM is buggered. A mate's cruelly calling it YesterdayFM.

I’m not going to dance on its grave. No one should rejoice when people’s livelihoods are on the line. But the station’s failure comes as no surprise.

It was conceived and born in unpropitious circumstances. Its progenitor was Magic Talk, which had grown out of Radio Live.

Rodney Hide: They all told us it was safe & effective, but the medsafe report tells a very different story

On 3 February 2021, Jacinda Ardern stated: “Medsafe’s decision is the culmination of a rigorous assessment process over many months to ensure the #Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is safe and effective to use here. It is informed by the most up-to-date medical and scientific data. We can have confidence in their decision.”

She told us all that the vaccine was safe and effective, and this was repeated by MPs, Principles of schools, business owners, CEOs, influencers and journalists. However, Medsafe's clinical assessment of the vaccine said no such thing. Rather, it found:

Point of Order: Buried beneath avalanche of new laws and bills there’s news from the Cyclone Taskforce

Whoa, there – we can’t keep up! Suddenly, the PM’s ministerial team has unleashed a slew of press statements.

Sixteen announcements have been posted on the Beehive website since our last check.

This burst of activity (we wondered) might be the result of them responding positively to having a team member red-carded.

Mike Hosking: Could Stuart Nash's mistake bring down the Government?

Here's a question for you - having brought himself down, could Stuart Nash bring the whole Government down?

The revelations that his work via email with donors disclosing cabinet decisions was known by the previous Prime Minister's office is, without question, a scandal.

Bryce Edwards: Is it time for an anti-corruption commission?

If ever there was an example of complacency about corruption and integrity in New Zealand politics it’s the fact that the Prime Minister’s Office knew back in 2021 that Cabinet Minister Stuart Nash was feeding privileged Cabinet information to business donors but did nothing about it.

This is one of the extraordinary details to come out of the Nash scandal. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins was forced to admit yesterday in Parliament that in 2021, when Jacinda Ardern was Prime Minister, her office was made aware of the incriminating 2020 email from Nash to his political donors but nothing was done about it because neither the Prime Minister nor the Chief of Staff were informed. If Ardern had been told, surely Nash would’ve been sacked then.

Kate Hawkesby: How does the Prime Minister of our country not know what’s going on inside his own government?

I miss the grown-ups. 

I’m desperate for some grown-ups, or just someone informed and engaged to be running this country, instead of the malaise and fly by night experience we’re currently having.

Like many of you, yesterday I despaired as I listened to Chris Hipkins on the Mike Hosking Breakfast. It was cringe worthy. He literally could not answer a single question, was so ill informed, offered nothing by way of answers on anything, it was depressing. 

Bob Jones: Chris Luxon

I’m staggered. Having constantly read that Chris Luxon is a dullard, for the first time ever I actually heard him speak when he popped up on the Stuff site.

The speech he delivered to a Lower Hutt audience was entirely off the cuff and was as good as I’ve ever heard from any post-war New Zealand politician.

With no notes he moved lucidly without pause, confidently from one topic to another. This was not the image the print media have enjoyed portraying him over the past year.

Lindsay Mitchell: Responding to Marama Davidson's dogma

Green's co-leader Marama Davidson just keeps digging the hole she is in deeper. First she showed her bitter antipathy towards white CIS (same gender as birth) men. Then she walked it back to all men.

Last night on TV1 News she said, “…overwhelmingly it is men who are the biggest threat to women and children when it comes to violence and I needed to make that clarification.”

Guy Hatchard: Sir Ashley Bloomfield is Incorrect

New Zealand has suffered the worst health disaster in our history and it is not over.

Is this due to miscalculation, subterfuge, or lies?

Sir Ashley Bloomfield was the Director General of Health and the public face of the government’s Covid policy. He retired last year and is now establishing a Public Policy Impact Institute (PPII) at Auckland University. PPII aims to shape the government’s future public health policy.

Point of Order: Twin blows dent confidence in ministerial ranks.....

.....so will they affect morale among party faithful?

Is the government imploding?

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has had to sack one of his more effective (and likeable) ministers, while another (from the Green Party) has insulted many of the adult population.

Garrick Tremain: Spinning in his grave

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on the Stuart Nash sacking! 

Karl du Fresne: New Zealand's most useless public servant

The man masquerading as the guardian of New Zealanders’ human rights has weighed in, from his Olympian heights, on the Posie Parker affair.

As usual, Paul Hunt’s opinion is worthless and leaves us wondering once again what we did to deserve this third-rate British import and how much longer we should be expected to put up with him.

The chief human rights commissioner writes, as if we all eagerly awaited his insights, that he wants to provide a human rights perspective on the issues raised by Parker’s visit. He adds, in Uriah Heep fashion, that he does this “from where I sit with my multiple privileges and advantages”.

Oh, please. Breast-beating liberal white guilt has rarely been more cringingly displayed. We can only hope his $365,000 salary eases the pain.

Thomas Cranmer: When Ideology Turns Violent.....

.....The Political and Media Backing Behind the Posie Parker Mob

Similar to other countries, the transgender movement in New Zealand is not a grassroots organisation but instead is an increasingly radicalised campaign led by progressive elites.

As images of the Auckland’s violent treatment of Kellie-Jay Keen continue to circulate on major international news channels and social media platforms, more details are emerging of the links between New Zealand’s political and media elite and the aggressive mob which congregated in Albert Park on Saturday morning.

Chris Trotter: An Ugly Demonstration.

WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED on Saturday morning, 25 March 2023, in Auckland’s Albert Park is easily described.

At 11:00am, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (a.k.a “Posie Parker”) a small (just 155 centimetres tall) bottle-blond mother of four from the United Kingdom, would have stood behind the microphone set up in the Albert Park band rotunda and delivered a speech.

Bryce Edwards: Nash’s sacking means a deeper probe into Cabinet “insider trading” is required

Cabinet Minister Stuart Nash was sacked last night for violating Cabinet Collective Responsibility rules, when it was revealed he disclosed sensitive Government information to business supporters who had donated money to him. The breach of the Cabinet Manual was enough to land him in trouble, but the fact that it involved leaking information to his financial backers is what makes this a truly significant scandal.

A 2020 email from Nash to two of his financial backers was leaked to the media yesterday. It detailed Cabinet decision-making on an issue relating to Nash’s business donors’ property interests – rent relief for Covid-hit businesses. Nash’s email to Wellington businessmen Troy Bowker and Greg Loveridge revealed positions ministers had taken on the matter, and stated he disagreed with the decision they reached.

Cam Slater: Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word

Marama Davidson seems to not know how to apologise for her racist and sexist attack on Saturday. She has in fact refused to apologise and has instead “clarified” what she meant as she strode down Princes Street away from Albert Park after supporting the violence against women who were just trying to speak.

Mike Hoskin: What is the point of Commerce Commission reports?

There's a small sense of satisfaction for me as the second quarterly monitoring report from the Commerce Commission came out on the petrol industry.

Do you remember the Commerce Commission and the petrol industry? We were being fleeced by them, so a market study was conducted and, for better or worse, nothing really came out of it.

NZCPR Newsletter: Tribal Takeover

Probably the most important court case of recent times was held in Wellington last month, yet it  attracted no mention in the media.

It was a Court of Appeal hearing seeking to overturn a High Court decision to grant multiple customary marine titles over a 40 km stretch of coastline near Opotiki. If the Edwards Marine and Coastal Area Act ruling stands, it will set a precedent for almost 600 yet to be determined claims, with the likely result that the ownership of virtually the entire New Zealand coastline – right out to the 12 nautical mile edge of the Territorial Sea – will pass to Maori.

Brendan O'Neill: Brendan O’Neil with an overseas perspective on the madness in our country

Brendan O'Neill chats to Shaun Plunket on The Platform about the protest to Posie Parker event in Auckland.

Karl du Fresne: Cartoonists need to realise they too could one day be at risk from the stiflers of free speech

The Wairarapa Times-Age published the cartoon [below] yesterday. I wrote the following letter in response, which the paper published this morning.

Kate Hawkesby: The balance has tilted so wildly in favour of criminals, if you’re the victim of crime why even bother reporting it?

As crime looks to be a hot election issue this year I worry about two things, well more than two things, but let’s start with these two. 

One - the lack of arrests being made and two - the top-down obsession from the police hierarchy with supporting offenders, not victims. 

David Fononga, if you don’t know the name, is the Auckland man who went on a shooting rampage in West Auckland firing at Police. They fired back and he was shot dead. But here’s the thing about him – he’d breached bail a month before this happened, and never been arrested for it.

Lindsay Perigo: Woke-Fascism Cancels Itself

The sub-set of Woke-Fascism that is Transgender-Fascism may have overplayed its iron fist.

Woke-Fascists, including terrorist groups Only Black Lives Matter and PROFA, are the modern-day version of Mussolini's Blackshirts, Hitler's Brownshirts and Mao's Red Guards. 

In New Zealand they have mostly managed to camouflage their putrid pedigree under the Orwellian guise of Jackboot Jacinda's "kindness." 

Now, the whole world has seen through the facade ... and the whole world is talking about it.

Cam Slater: Knock Me Down with a Feather: I Agree with Rachel Smalley

It is a rare day indeed that I will ever agree with Rachel Smalley. She has an intense personal dislike towards me, whereas I am ambivalent towards her. She isn’t especially bright, but likes to think she is, and isn’t slow in telling others just how brilliant she is. But, on rare occasions she does get some things right. This is one of them.

Mike Hosking: Are Marama Davidson and the Greens worth the trouble?

It's hard to know where to start with Marama Davidson.

It all came crashing down, as it was always going to, but with a number of strands as to how it played out.

Firstly, what she said was unforgivable. It is everything the Green Party should not be.

It is everything that keeps them stuck at five or six percent in the polls as it has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with mad social engineering.

Point of Order: Marama Davidson was reminded of the Maori numbers......

......maybe – before admitting mistake about who causes violence

Marama Davidson, Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, has featured in media headlines after being hit by a motorcycle near the scene of the Posie Parker protest and for sharing an inflammatory opinion about the perpetrators of violence.

On The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury reports that Davidson was caught on tape claiming …

Karl du Fresne: Let me be very clear about this

There’s one immutable rule in politics: never trust a politician who prefaces a statement with the word “frankly”.

Actually, make that two rules. You should also never trust a politician who says, “Let me be very clear”.

Anyone who begins a statement with the word “frankly” is signalling that whatever he or she is about to say (it’s usually a he) is fearless or radical.

Bob Jones: Another Maori wonderfulness absurdity

Real estate agents operate under the Real Estate Agents Act, needless to say overseen by a farcically large Wellington bureaucracy.

The Act’s expressed objectives are the regulating of real estate agents, the raising of standards and to provide a disciplinary process to deal with complaints, all plainly worthy.

By law agents must renew their licence to practise each year. Now brace yourself.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: The actions of the protesters ceded the moral high ground to Posie Parker

Tell you what surprises me today; it's the apparent lack of self-awareness from key members of that protest against Posie Parker at the weekend. 

Max Tweedie from Pride Auckland – who wasn’t one of the organisers I believe, but did support the protest – had it put to him in an interview this morning that it was an ugly scene.

And he said, no it wasn’t ugly- there was a lot of joy, a lot of celebration, support for trans communities, and this is what happens when you spread hate and division.

Cam Slater: The Curious Coincidence of Continued ACT Attacks on NZ First

On Friday in Howick, Winston Peters delivered his state of the nation speech to a packed and overflowing audience. Not long after, Newshub, the go-to media outlet for ACT Party attack pieces, was telling us that apparently Winston Peters was a liar regarding He Puapua.

Some commenters on Friday night were even running the same shabby lines without even bothering to understand the complexities of how Parliament committees operate, but they ran the lines anyway. This is the second time ACT has attacked NZ First after a key note speech.

Bob Jones: Trans-Rights mobs not just sexually confused

The shouting turnouts in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch were obsessed in their cries and placards with “rights”. The indisputable fact is that trans folk have exactly the same legal rights as everyone else. Their cry is for extra ones, such as for blokes who think they’re women, to use women’s toilets and compete with them in sport, despite their physical advantages. They can flounce and bellow all they wish but those things are never going to happen, not the least because women understandably won’t tolerate it.

Mike Hosking: NSW showed us a glimpse of our election

My working theory for this year's election was re-enforced Saturday night in New South Wales.

My working theory for the October election here is that the damage for Labour is done.

Chris Hipkins can burn as much policy as he wants and the media can write about him being more popular than the predecessor over and over. The key is, the damage is done and the rot has set in.

Bryce Edwards: The Ugly stoking of a culture war in election year

This weekend saw a showdown between two tribes of contemporary gender politics: those in favour of progressing transgender rights versus women wishing to defend their spaces. It’s a debate with huge passion, outrage and consequences.

The figure at the centre of the clash was the British “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” Posie Parker, aka Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, who attempted to hold a “Let Women Speak” rally at Albert Park in Auckland on Saturday. She was forced offstage by a counter-rally for trans rights and has fled back to the UK.

Saturday’s clash of cultures is a sign of where politics is heading in New Zealand – towards a fully-fledged culture war. This is something normally more associated with American politics – but also increasingly in places like the UK.

Thomas Cranmer: Violent Suppression of Free Speech

Kellie-Jay Keen's Assault by Transgender Activists in New Zealand Sparks Global Outrage

An unruly mob in Albert Park has catapulted New Zealand into the global headlines with ugly images that may become iconic in the debate about the dangers of transgenderism.

Bravo Kellie-Jay. You did the job that needed to be done.

Garrick Tremain: Woke wildfire

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on woke wildfire! 

Karl du Fresne: Eliana Rubashkyn tipped that bottle of tomato juice over an entire country

So. We now know the person who tipped a litre of tomato juice over Posie Parker is a refugee from Colombia.

Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Eliana Rubashkyn, who describes herself as intersex and trans, came to New Zealand from a country notorious for its violence and corruption. She has been granted residency in one of the freest, most tolerant countries on earth. She is on record herself as calling New Zealand paradise.

Ian Bradford: Speed reduction to 90 kph for all SUV’s

Recently, Len Gillman, Professor of Biogeography at the Auckland University of Technology wrote an article in which he stated that SUV’s should have a speed limit of 90kph. Biogeography is the study of the geographical distribution of plants and animals. 

He began his article by changing the name of our major city to Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland and later the name of the country to the fictional name Aotearoa.  He seems to have a mandate for doing this from somewhere.

His main point for reducing the speed limit for SUV’s was to limit “Carbon” emissions. Presumably he means Carbon Dioxide emissions as Carbon is either a black solid called soot, a grey solid called graphite, or a hard, usually clear solid, called diamond. Clearly then, Professor Gillman is a climate alarmist, who believes Carbon Dioxide is causing global warming and probably adverse weather events. 

A.E. Thompson: Our Non-White and Female Rights Commission

Tusiata Avia writes and performs hate-fuelled material such as 'poetry' stating that she and "a car full of brown girls" are going to drive around looking for "white men" or any of the descendants or incarnations of Captain Cook and 'f... them up' with a pig hunting knife.

Meng Foon's belated response to numerous complaints about this poem stands in contrast with his strong, fast public responses to even the most innocuous things that might offend non-white people. 

Alistair Boyce: A ‘Pot Of Tears’ At Rainbows End

Mainstream New Zealand will be in quiet mourning today.

We have witnessed the violent intolerance of mob rule that was countenanced from its elected government and actively supported by a compliant, fomenting media.

There are no winners here, except the forces of division and intolerance.

The tragedy is transgender rights, celebration of transgender humanity and its mainstream acceptance may always be tainted by the violent, self-congratulatory extremism on display in Auckland’s Albert Park.

Don Brash: New Zealand's foreign policy dilemma

A few weeks ago, the New Zealand media gave some coverage to the spectacle of the US President and the Prime Ministers of Australia and the UK signing an agreement whereby Australia will buy eight nuclear-powered submarines over the next two decades at a cost of some $400 billion, confirmation of the so-called AUKUS treaty between the three countries.

Reactions in Australia were varied, though there was no push-back from the Opposition Liberal Party because the AUKUS deal had first been agreed while that party was in power. However, the former Labor Prime Minister, Paul Keating, described the treaty as the worst decision Australia had made in a century.

Stuart Smith: A Minister Committed to Her Silver Bullet

A silver bullet solution is hard to resist: it is easy to promote and potentially the stuff that legacies are made of. Last week we saw Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods succumb to this, when she doubled down on the Lake Onslow Pumped Hydro Scheme, despite the expected build cost quadrupling.

The potential for pumped hydro at Lake Onslow in the event of a dry year was first identified by Waikato University Professor Earl Bardsley, in 2002. An electricity dry year usually lasts around four months and comes to a head in the colder months when most of the precipitation is locked up as snow and ice and not available to replenish our hydro lakes. Therefore, Lake Onslow was initially seen as a potential solution.

Karl du Fresne: The battle for free speech won't be won by hiding in the shadows

The rally planned for Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, aka Posie Parker, in Wellington tomorrow has been cancelled following the shameful assault on free speech in Auckland today. The threat of violence was too great and the New Zealand Police are either too gutless or too politicised to guarantee the speaker's safety.The enemies of free speech have won this round. Whether they will win the war will depend on whether the defenders of free speech have the guts and the resolve to fight back.

That means deciding whether to commit fully to the cause or to continue putting up only a half-hearted resistance.

Michael Johnston: Critical failure

For a brief moment last year, it looked as if the Ministry of Education was finally going to embrace methods of teaching literacy and numeracy supported by scientific evidence. They published a new literacy and numeracy strategy that made reference to structured teaching methods.

Structured literacy works because it takes account of the nature of human memory and attention, and its limitations. The Ministry has spent more than two decades ignoring mounting evidence in its favour.

Benjamin Macintyre: Anecdotes don't make for sound evidence - a response to the Kokirihia Report

Tokona Te Raki, an advocacy and research group for Māori issues, has recently released a report titled Kōkirihia. The report takes aim at the practice of streaming in our schools and pushes forward the bold suggestion to ban streaming by 2030.

Tokona Te Raki’s efforts are based on good intentions. Māori students are over-represented in lower streams, and in most statistics relating to poor educational outcomes. Seeking to find a solution to end this inequity and ensure that Māori students have the same opportunities as everyone else is a noble endeavour. Unfortunately, there is one major issue with this report – it isn’t very good.

Karl du Fresne: A Day of Shame

Protesters marching against the Springbok rugby tour in 1981 used to chant, “The whole world’s watching”.

I doubt that the world was watching what happened in Auckland this morning (it probably wasn’t watching in 1981 either), but anyone who witnessed what happened to Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, aka Posie Parker, saw a mortal blow being delivered to New Zealand’s reputation as a civil, liberal democracy where the rule of law applies.

A violent, angry rabble forced Parker to abandon a public meeting as the police stood by and did nothing. She was drowned out when she tried to speak and had tomato soup and food flung at her.