David Farrar: Govt defunds anti-extremism centre run by an extremist!

1 News reports:

The Government has pulled funding from the country’s flagship research centre into white supremacy and violent extremism. …

He Whenua Taurikura research centre in Wellington received a letter from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) on Friday, saying funding would end in December. It has been run under a trust since 2022.

“Members of the trust are disappointed with the sudden change in direction by government, done in the name of cost savings,” a trust spokesperson told RNZ.

“The $2m the government saves by cutting this research will almost certainly increase the risk of significant loss of innocent life in vulnerable communities at the hands of extremists.”

The only people impacted will be the consultants and contractors. The reality is this taxpayer-funded so called anti-extremism centre was run by extremists.

The co-director called the Government a death cult recently. That is about as extreme as you can get.

They funded hard left activists such as Emma Rakete, Byron Clark, Kate Hannah and Kyle Matthews.

Now I’m all for all of the above people saying what they want, and researching what they want. But I’m not for their activism being funded by the taxpayer under the guise of fighting extremism, especially when their own politics are to the extreme left.

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.