NZCPR Newsletter: Who is Actually Running the Country?

The escalating controversy over Three Waters – and an increasing realisation that the Prime Minister and senior members of Cabinet do not really know what’s going on – is leading New Zealanders to question who is actually running the country?

NZCPR Newsletter: The New Face of Authoritarianism

When Jacinda Ardern addressed the United Nations last month, the world finally began to realise just how dangerous New Zealand’s authoritarian Prime Minister really is.

The editor of the UK Spiked On-line, Brendon O’Neil wrote, “Tyranny has had a makeover. It’s no longer a boot stamping on a human face forever. Authoritarianism is well-dressed now. It’s polite. It has a broad smile and speaks in a soft voice. It is delivered not via a soldier’s boot to the cranium but with a caring liberal head-tilt. And its name is Jacinda Ardern.”

US journalist Glenn Greenwald described our PM as the new ‘face of authoritarianism’: “This is someone so inebriated by her sense of righteousness and superiority that she views dissent as an evil too dangerous to allow.”

NZCPR Newsletter: A Climate of Authoritarianism

The pandemic traffic light system has gone.

Masks have gone.

Mandates have gone.

Life is going back to normal.

Or so we have been led to believe.

But that’s not the whole truth.

NZCPR Newsletter: A Surveillance Society

“In a world of propaganda, the truth is always a conspiracy.”

Free speech used to be something we all took for granted – being able to say exactly what we thought, sharing politically incorrect jokes, watching outrageously funny and highly popular TV programmes like the Two Ronnies, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, ‘Allo ‘Allo.

Nor was it all British humour that captivated the nation – Billy T James was a Kiwi hero, as was Barry Crump.

All that is now gone – not because we have lost our sense of humour, but because someone somewhere said they were offended.

We now live in an increasingly dystopian world, where saying the wrong thing can get you ‘cancelled’ – fired, socially ostracised, even jailed.

Worse, under Jacinda Ardern’s regime, New Zealand is morphing into an Orwellian society, where things no longer mean what they say – ‘lies’ are being called the “truth”, and the real ‘truth’ is being re-classified as “misinformation” or “disinformation”.

Guy Hatchard: The pandemic was yesterday, today we have a serious problem—conformity and control.

Anthony Fauci has declared that the pandemic is over and Denmark has decided to cease their vaccination programme. New Zealand has decided to vaccinate and mask its population into the foreseeable future. Those dissenting are being shunned, reviled, excluded, and their voices stifled.

Leadership is not about telling people what to do, it involves helping people to fulfil their aspirations and being able to utilize non-conformity. Actually non-conformity is misunderstood, non-conformists are often the creatives that drive progress.

NZCPR Newsletter: The Crisis of State Overreach

“There is a threat posed to human freedom by the enormous power of the modern state. History teaches the dangers of government that overreaches – political control taking precedence over free economic growth, mindless bureaucracy, all combining to stifle individual excellence and personal freedom.” – President Ronald Reagan, Address to Members of the British Parliament, 1982. 

“Chaotic scenes erupted as hundreds of police descended, armed with riot shields, and shoving protesters out of the way. Protesters could be heard crying in pain after being pepper sprayed and police were lined several people deep to move them on… a police helicopter circled above…”

This was not reporting Russian authorities clearing demonstrators against President Putin’s attack on the Ukraine, nor French Police breaking up a violent protest after President Emmanuel Macron won re-election. It was New Zealand’s Police moving in on the men, women, and children peacefully camped on Parliament grounds on March 2nd.

Instead of talking to the anti-mandate leaders – as they had requested – Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern looked down from her 9th floor Beehive office as Police used rubber bullets, pepper spray and batons to crush the protest.  

Ross Meurant: The Red Squad Solution

In my view, Commissioner Coster is handling the situation in Wellington, commendably.

Police are the meat in the sandwich.

This not the first time in recent history that police have found themselves in the middle of civil disobedience created by politicians and which, in the case of where Red Squad found themselves in 1981, civil war.

Commissioner Coster did not create the problem in Wellington. 

The Government created the cause for the original protest in Wellington last week where former National M P Matt King was the stand out among a crowd of mostly reasonable Kiwis registering their disapproval of MANDATES.

Garrick Tremain: Protest in Parliament Grounds

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on the anti-mandate/anti-government protest in Parliament grounds! 

Leighton Smith Podcast: Anthony Willy on Marxism in Jacinda Ardern's New Zealand

Leighton Smith Podcast Episode 142 
February 9, 2022 • 81 min

On this week's podcast: Marxism could not happen here... could it? After decades on the bench, covering four different courts, retired Judge Anthony Willy expresses his concern for the future of democracy in New Zealand. 

Ross Meurant: There Is No Democracy Without Debate

Germany’s President Steinmeier, said he felt it was his duty to “call for public debate over serious questions.”  He argued that “there is no democracy without debate.”

Addressing the issue of the issue of compulsory vaccination, President Steinmeier said this applied to times of crisis as well. (1)

In a previous post, Rights Denied, (2) I raised the question of being, shut out of public debate.

In particular I focused on the issue of this Labour/Green government elevating Maori above all other ethnic communities which make up New Zealand and provided specific examples of esteemed academics being vilified and blacklisted (‘scuse the pun) from public discourse.  Hon Dr Michael Bassett and Professor Liz Rata – being two of the most profile.

Henry Armstrong: The Covid 19 Dilemma - To Vax Or Not To Vax

Let me start this article by declaring that I am double-vaccinated against Covid19, with a booster scheduled for next week. 

In my lifetime, I have seen a number of pandemics in New Zealand come and go; have been vaccinated or inoculated for all of them; and had no option but to submit to these procedures in my early years under parental guidance or military law and discipline. I carried an International Health Certificate in my passport for many years, producing it on demand in many countries I sought to enter. Yes, I had a very bad reaction to one lot - TAB, as I recall - and another from the Asian Flu in the 1950s. I brought back Malaria from South-East Asia and suffered the indignities of spasms in cinemas. In operational theatres, diseases such as Malaria, Dengue fever and Typhoid were rife. Not all prophylactics were successful - especially against Malaria (Paludrin), Scrub Typhus (DBP, now recognised as deadly as Agent Orange), glandular fever and dysentery treatments. I survived!

Henry Armstrong: China, Democracy and the New Reality

Recent comments by our neo Marxist government headed by self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” Jacinda Ardern, seem to be equivocal about our relationship(s) with China. This is interesting, given that the Ardern government prides itself on socialist/communist principles such as the centralisation of essential services and the exercise of authoritarianism, often masquerading under the guise of “for the greater/public good” or “we are all in this together”.

One of the arguments about either strengthening or weakening our relationship with China is that China is significantly increasing its economic influence in the Pacific region - but also in Africa and elsewhere. Various “Western” nations such as the US, Australia, the UK and New Zealand seem to claim that the Pacific is “their” territory and that no other entity or power has any right to intrude into this area.  Really? Is China not a Pacific nation too?

Karl du Fresne: New Zealand: where being "anti-government" results in police surveillance

Things are worse than we thought.

Blogger Cameron Slater recently learned from an OIA request that the blog he’s associated with, The BFD, was under police surveillance. An unnamed police intelligence analyst was concerned Slater would “continue to publish uncorroborated information to denigrate labour [sic] party policies and individuals linked to them”.

NZCPR Weekly: The Great Climate Reset

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

In this week’s NZCPR newsletter we examine the raft of new restrictions resulting from the UN’s COP26 climate conference and we raise awareness of an important consultation process that will have a serious impact on our economic wellbeing, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Barry Brill highlights the hypocrisy of the Glasgow climate jamboree, and our poll asks whether New Zealand should be moving faster on climate change reforms than the major emitters.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
*To register for the NZCPR Weekly mailing list, click HERE.  

Clive Bibby: Testing time for local government and media

Along with other more recognisable columnists, l have recently being predicting a backlash from voters against the Government’s recent irrational and dictatorial behaviour.

This was in spite of promises made to allow adequate consultation and the option to opt out of any moves to steal locally owned infrastucture assets worth billions that are essential components of local economies. Tragically, the opposite has happened.

It is a story of betrayal and arrogance rarely seen in a country that prides itself in being one of the few remaining true democracies where governments are elected but the power remains with the people.

Apparently, not any more.

NZCPR Weekly: The Blame Game

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

In this week’s NZCPR newsletter we outline how a ‘blame game’ is being used by the Government to justify authoritarian rule over Three Waters and Covid-19, our NZCPR Guest Commentator, leading Australian clinical immunologist Emeritus Professor Robert Clancy, explains the importance of early treatment protocols for Covid – as well as vaccinations – to prevent sickness and hospitalisation, and our poll asks whether New Zealand doctors should be free to prescribe whatever treatment and preventative remedies they choose for the treatment of the virus.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
*To register for the NZCPR Weekly mailing list, click HERE.  

NZCPR Weekly: Covid Wins

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

In this week’s NZCPR newsletter we examine the Government’s Covid-19 strategy and question the Prime Minister’s authoritarian approach, our NZCPR Guest Commentator UK journalist Ross Clark shares his Daily Telegraph critique of our PM’s performance, and our poll asks whether you think it is possible to contain the Delta outbreak.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
*To register for the NZCPR Weekly mailing list, click HERE.  

Clive Bibby: Lockdowns and Opening Up

My sense is that Kiwis are beginning to recognise the true nature of this administration - particularly the mechanisms that have become standard practice for maintaining control.

History tells us that the modern version of totalitarianism is little different to the previous ones that seized control of countries then set about dismantling all the democratic institutions that underpinned individual freedoms.

The current government has another thing in common with those abusive regimes.

It is the speed with which they have cancelled the civil liberties of any group or association that dares to challenge the validity of their authority.

Bronwyn Howell: Compulsory contact-tracing apps - the case of New Zealand

First published HERE by the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based public policy think tank, on August 25, 2021.

New Zealand, under the leadership of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, has received considerable international kudos for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

With an elimination strategy best articulated as “zero tolerance of community transmission,” the country to date has exhibited one of the world’s lowest infection and death rates. 

By August 22, it had recorded 24 deaths (0.48 per 100,000 people) — notably few compared to the United States’ 628,503 deaths (191.5 per 100,000 people). Even the best-performing US state in this statistic, Hawaii (to which New Zealand, as a small Pacific nation, could be comparable), has a death rate of 39 per 100,000 people.

The core of New Zealand’s COVID-19 strategy is twofold.

First is a draconian border closure where entry is strictly controlled. 

Hugh Perrett: A State-Controlled Press?

Over recent weeks It has been brought to my attention that newspapers now generally seem very hesitant/ reluctant to publish “letters to the editor” that they consider too confronting, critical or overly judgemental of Government‘s policies, practices, procedures or actions.

Recently a politically concerned member of my coffee club, submitted and then re-submitted 4 or 5 separate letters to the newspaper for consideration for publication as “letters to the editor,” all of which were rejected for publication. 

He claimed each letter covered a distinct, separate, political issue of significant interest to the community and more particularly, of very serious concern to many people in the community.

I saw these letters and can confirm his claim.