Gary Judd KC: The Issue Raised by the Army Orders

Army Orders and the State’s Duty of Neutrality

This morning The Law Association of New Zealand’s LawNews published an earlier version of the following article, prompted by Alex Penk’s How Army orders sparked debate on religious freedom protections under BORA published by LawNews last Thursday. I commend Penk’s article to you, as it contains more about what the Army has been up.

The Army orders raise a serious issue under s13 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act because they appear to require personnel to engage with, or at least affirm the significance of, a particular religious or cosmological framework under threat of discipline.

Colinxy: Revolution in Uniform - How the NZ Army Became a Vehicle for Ideological Transformation

Introduction: When the Army Starts Talking Like a University Department

Michael Laws’ recent commentary on The Platform has struck a nerve — and rightly so. When senior NZ Army officers begin speaking in the language of “transformation,” “bicultural realignment,” and “intergenerational change,” we are no longer dealing with military doctrine. We are dealing with ideology.

And not just any ideology. This is the vocabulary of Critical Theory, Critical Indigenous Theory, and the Te Tiriti–centred transformation agenda that has swept through the public sector since 2019.

The Army is simply the latest institution to be captured.

John Robertson: The New Zealand Army Has Been Hijacked...

.....quietly, structurally, and without democratic consent. What should be a disciplined, secular fighting force has drifted into something else entirely: an institution requiring its personnel to participate in a belief framework they may not share. This isn’t about language or symbolism; it’s about compelled conduct.

John Robertson: Army’s Bicultural Policy

The recent spectacle involving attempts to insert “bicultural doctrine” into the New Zealand Army should have been a moment of national embarrassment—and, for many people, it was.

When a military institution whose sole purpose is the defence of a modern democratic nation begins flirting with the inclusion of mythological cosmologies and spiritual frameworks as part of its internal doctrine, sensible people are naturally going to ask a very simple question: what on earth is going on? The reported pause placed on the initiative by Defence Minister Judith Collins only underscores the fact that something had clearly gone too far.

Karl du Fresne: It's taken 32 years, but David Stewart's heroism has finally been properly recognised

On Saturday I was privileged to attend a ceremony at Linton army camp in honour of Private David Edward Whawhai Stewart.

Exactly 32 years previously, on August 13 1990, Private Stewart died in a blizzard on Mt Ruapehu in an army training exercise that went hideously wrong. He was 23. Stewart would almost certainly have survived had it not been for his selfless efforts to save the lives of his fellow soldiers.

He could have saved himself by burrowing into his sleeping bag, his only protection against the raging snowstorm. Instead he repeatedly exposed himself to the elements, moving around in near-zero visibility in an attempt to help others in the party and keep up morale. He ended up dying of exposure after his sleeping bag blew away as he attempted to share it with two comrades.

Stewart was one of six young men – five soldiers and one naval rating – who died that night. It was the worst loss of life experienced by the New Zealand Defence Force in a single event since the Second World War.