‘Bethlehem, surrounded by walls and settlements, already feels like an open prison.’

An important lesson from the present Gaza crisis is that the callous indifference of Christian Zionists in the West for Christian communities in Palestine appears to be absolute. This indifference is often expressed as downright denial of their existence. 

One of these communities is Bethlehem. Soon after the occupation of 1967 Israel annexed over 2,000 hectares of land in the northern parts of Bethlehem for the construction of illegal colonial settlements. Bethlehem was separated from Jerusalem for the first time in its 2000 year history.

In 2020 the Christian clergy in the Bethlehem area tried to raise concern over Israel’s proposal to build new settlements, confiscating largely private land that families had owned, inherited and farmed for hundreds of years, thus encouraging further emigration of Christian Palestinians, and endangering the long-term survival of Bethlehem as a Christian community. In July 7, 2020 they published this open letter in Global Ministries.

‘An Open Letter from Christian Clergy from the Bethlehem Area

Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed (Jeremiah 22:3)

We are writing this letter in our capacity as spiritual leaders of various Christian communities in the Bethlehem Area. The Israeli Government is planning to annex more occupied Palestinian land. According to the information they have released, this process could begin on July 1st. For Palestine, Bethlehem and particularly for its Christian population, this new process of annexation will be particularly catastrophic.

Soon after the occupation of 1967 Israel annexed over 20,000 dunums of land in the northern parts of Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour, for the construction of illegal colonial settlements. This severely hindered our capacity to grow as communities. They have already annexed one of the most important Christian religious sites of Bethlehem, the Mar Elias Monastery, and separated Bethlehem from Jerusalem for the first time in the two-thousand years of Christian history in Holy Land.

One of the only areas left for our expansion, as well as for agriculture and simply for families to enjoy nature, are the valleys of Cremisan and Makhrour, both located to the west of our urban areas and are under the current threat of annexation by Israeli authorities. This will affect the private property of hundreds of our parishioners. In the Cremisan Valley we also conduct spiritual activities. There is a school run by Salesian Nuns in addition to a historic monastery. The western Bethlehem countryside is also in danger, where some of our parishioners have been farming for generations, and this includes the Tent of Nations in Nahhalin. At the same time, and in accordance to the original maps of the US Plan, there are threats against the eastern part of Bethlehem, including the Ush Ughrab area of Beit Sahour, where there has been plans for years to build a children hospital to serve the local community.

Our biggest concern is that the annexation of those areas will push more people to emigrate. Bethlehem, surrounded by walls and settlements, already feels like an open prison. Annexation means the prison becomes even smaller, with no hopes for a better future.

This is land theft! We are talking about land that is largely privately owned and that our families have owned, inherited and farmed for hundreds of years. Most of our parishioners have lost hope in earthly powers. They feel hopeless and helpless, evident in the words a parishioner this month as he watched his land devoured by Israeli bulldozers preparing the way for more wall expansion: “It is devastating. You see bulldozers destroying your land and you can do nothing. No one is stopping them.”

Our parishioners no longer believe that anyone will stand courageously for justice and peace and stop this tremendous injustice that is taking place in front of your eyes. The human rights of Palestinians have been violated for decades. Hope is a pillar of our faith, yet is being challenged due to the actions of those who claim to care about the Christians in the Middle East. In practice, annexation could be the final straw when it comes to a viable Christian presence in Palestine, as well as the national aspirations to live in freedom, independence, dignity and equality in our homeland in accordance with international law.

Nobody can claim that they did not know the consequences of annexation for Palestine in general and Bethlehem in particular. We feel the burden of history upon our shoulders to keep the Christian presence in the land where it all started. As we continue to put our hope and trust in God, we call upon the leaders of this world to stop this severe injustice. We remain committed to peace with justice, and find strength in the support of many around the world, specially the support of many churches. We hope that the world takes decisive and concrete actions to stop this injustice and provide the conditions to restore hope for a future of justice and peace that this land deserves. 

Fr. Yacoub Abu Sada – ‘The Theotokos’ Melkite Church Bethlehem
Fr. Issa Musleh – Forefathers Greek Orthodox Church Beit Sahour
Fr. Hanna Salem – Catholic Church of the Annunciation Beit Jala
Fr. Bolous Al Alam – St. Mary Greek Orthodox Church Beit Jala
Rev. Ashraf Tannous – The Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Reformation Beit Jala
Fr. Suheil Fakhouri – Our Lady of the Shepherds Melkite Church Beit Sahour
Rev. Munther Isaac – The Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church Bethlehem and The Evangelical Lutheran Church Beit Sahour’

See also:

The Little Town of Bethlehem is Slowly Getting Smaller Because of Expanding Israeli Settlements .

‘At the tail end of the summer harvest season, Palestinian farmer Nakleh Abu Eid, 80, walked through what remained of his fruit orchard in the Al Makhrour area of the largely Christian village of Beit Jalla, filling a basket with figs and green grapes.

‘From the porch of the small stone cottage used during harvests, Mr. Abu Eid, who is a member of the Greek Orthodox church, can look out in front of him and see the Israeli settlement of Har Gilo—considered by Israel a neighborhood of Jerusalem. Out the back, construction work on the tunnel road that will connect Jerusalem and settlements in the Bethlehem area, known as the Gush Etzion block, continues, and beyond that are more settlements in the Southern Hebron area.

‘Before much of the land around him was confiscated by Israel for settlement construction and the tunnel road, Mr. Abu Eid said, he had almost four acres (15 dunams) of agricultural land in the valley. Now he has only one left.

‘Still, every day he comes to tend his orchards. In the past the cottage, and others like it belonging to other families dotting the Al Makhrour valley, was used mostly during harvest times or as a weekend gathering place for the family. But now Mr. Abu Eid’s adult children do not like to come here even for that, he said. It is too depressing for them […].

‘The go-ahead for the new Israeli settlement along the southern border in al-Nahla does not come as a big surprise, said Dr. Jad Isaac, general director of the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem, based in Bethlehem.

‘Israel has been intent on encircling Bethlehem since 1967, he said. In June of that year, Israel gained control over Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank from Jordan in the Six-Day War. Since then Israel has been encroaching on the Bethlehem core with strategically located settlements, said Dr. Isaac. Now it is aiming to connect the west and east Gush Etzion settlements, preventing any possibility for the natural expansion of Bethlehem and separating the Bethlehem core from its surroundings, leaving the area “one big prison.”

“There has been a slow strangulation of Bethlehem, but it has increased over the past few years since Trump came into power,” Dr. Isaac said. “They are just filling in the gaps.”’

‘Vote for the political party which is going to completely abandon (not partly abandon) co-governance, scrap the Waitangi Tribunal, repeal the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, and all race-based legislation’ (Stop Co-governance booklet).

New Zealand’s Labour/Green government has spent the last three years implementing He Puapua, a plan to convert New Zealand from a well-respected modern democracy to an ethnostate ruled over by tribal elites.  The plan is disingenuously labelled co-governance, and the pretext is a bogus interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Those on the Taxpayers’ Union mailing list were startled to receive an email warning of the possibility of NZ First forming part of the next government, while openly preferring  a National/ACT government.  This is in complete conflict with its professed opposition to co-governance, evidenced in its Three Waters and Stop Central Committees campaigns.

Of all parties NZ First has been the most uncompromising in its opposition to racial separatism and preference in any form,  and to associated policies such as replacing the English language with Maori.  At this year’s annual conference, NZ First voted to scrap the Waitangi Tribunal, supported by both Winston Peters and Deputy Leader Shane Jones.  The National Party, on the other hand, has played a major role in paving the way for co-governance and is still ambiguous at best on the issue.

Casey Costello, who was until recently a spokesperson for the pro-democracy organisation Hobson’s Pledge and a board member (and former chair) of the Taxpayers’ Union, resigned from both positions to stand for NZ First, being ranked third on the party list.

The Road to Co-governance: National versus Winston

• In 2004 Winston Peters was responsible for the Labour/NZ First coalition government acting to ensure that the foreshore and seabed remained in public hands, in the face of Waitangi Tribunal claims.  In 2011 this was overturned when John Key’s National government passed the Marine And Coastal Area Act 2011,which has seen claims of 600 thus far (costing the tax payer $300,000 per claim). 
•  Winston Peters stopped Helen Clark signing up to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), subsequently signed by the John Key government in 2010.  The Labour / NZ First coalition of 2017-2020 agreed that a report should be drafted to make recommendations on how this commitment should be met: there was no brief to propose co-governance.  Minister for Māori Development Willy Jackson has admitted that He Puapua was deliberately kept from NZ First in the lead-up to the 2020 election.
• In 2015 John Key tried to put through reform of the RMA giving it a strong racial bias.  However it needed the support of the NZ First, who would only support it if the race-based clauses were removed.  John Key refused and the reform failed, only to be tabled again under urgency by Labour this year.
• The response of the National Party to the publishing of the He Pua Pua report, which provided a blueprint for the implementation of iwi rule, was to amend its constitution to include ‘Recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi as the founding document of New Zealand’, now cited as its second value.
• Former Attorney-General and Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Christopher Finlayson, still active in the National Party, is an ardent supporter of co-governance, and still promoting it.
• Whereas Winston Peters is determined that all racial bias be removed from NZ law books, National in general avoids the issue, however National leader Chris Luxon openly favours co-governance in terms of co-management of assets.
• 2023 Election: there is no mention of democracy or the co-governance issue in ‘National’s plan to get our country back on track’.
• Luxon in a recent interview said he would not support a referendum on the Treaty, as proposed by ACT, describing the idea as ‘divisive’ (According to 1News, David Seymour  termed the referendum a bottom line if forming a Government with National).

NZ ACT Party

The ACT party, a rival for the place of coalition partner, has been running a negative, highly personalised campaign against Winston Peters, with huge hoardings with Winston’s image and the words ‘Don’t get fooled again’; David Seymour consistently shows marked hostility to Winston at meetings. Current polls suggest that this tactic is rebounding against ACT, as their election campaign appears to have stalled, while NZ First support continues to grow:  the latest Taxpayers’ Union – Curia Poll: October 2023 has ACT dropping by 5.2 points to 9.1% with NZ First on 6.9% (+3 points); for preferred prime minister Winston is on 4.3% to David Seymour’s 4%.

ACT is also campaigning against co-governance, though where NZ First wants to stop co-governance dead, ACT plans a referendum before any action is taken.   ACT has yet to adopt NZ First’s policy of scrapping the  Waitangi Tribunal (Julian Batchelor points out at Stop Co-Governance public meetings that only one party is prepared to scrap the Tribunal, which he sees as essential).

ACT does not appear to have policies on the language replacement programme, whereby the country and its places are renamed, government departments dot their texts with unfamiliar Maori terms, and TV announcers introduce in Maori.  All this is part of a ruthless drive to replace English as the national language Maori, in all probability presently spoken by no one in New Zealand as a mother tongue (see ACT’s Rebuilding Democracy).

In 2020 the Maori Party proposed that New Zealand be renamed Aotearoa.  The responses of political leaders, according to the Herald, are telling: Winston Peters criticised the move on several fronts; David Seymour said now was not the time to argue about a name change, ‘I don’t care if we call it Timbuktu right now’; the National Party declined to comment on the policy; Jacinda Ardern disingenuously ‘did not say whether she supported an official name change, but told media at today’s 1pm briefing she was seeing “Aotearoa” used more often’, implying that this was nothing to do with government policy.

NZ’s best chance to stop co-governance in all its forms is to have a NZ First government; more realistically, a strong presence of both NZ First and ACT will increase the chances of stopping the rot.  There are those who will never vote ACT because of its association with Rogernomics and its right-wing economic policies; some will never vote NZ First.  ACT and its supporters need to stop undermining its partner (however unwanted) in the campaign against co-governance and ethnic division, if they are really concerned about the future of our country.

See also:

Can you trust the woke Mr Luxon? (video)

The trend is for organisations whose theoretical brief is wholly or partially the support of women, to actually prioritise the interests of biological men over women, where those interests are in conflict.  A salient example is the National Council of Women NZ (NCWNZ), which describes itself as ‘an umbrella organisation working towards true gender equality in Aotearoa New Zealand’.

Last year the National Council of Women first invited me to participate in a mayoral debate for women candidates then deplatformed me, writing in an email:

‘NCWNZ is an organisation which aims to empower all women – this includes trans women, disabled and uncompromising women, women of colour, Black and Indigenous women, and the rainbow community. Our team has been made aware of statements that you have made publicly which do not align with NCWNZ’s views.’

‘In order to guarantee the safety of our members and wider attendees of Annual Women’s Debate 2022, we have made the decision to uninvite you from the panel. We cannot justifiably provide a platform for the views we’ve seen you support, whilst simultaneously fostering a safe and inclusive environment for the communities we aim to protect and represent.’

The NZWNZ has failed to reply to requests for clarification.  However, given the preeminence given to ‘trans women’, reinforced by a separate reference to the ‘rainbow’ community, it would seem that the issue of concern was my ‘views’ relating to transgender.  This could be based on my opposition to the Ministry of Education’s genderisation policy, which unashamedly and relentlessly forces young children to question their gender.

Cancel Culture

The NCWNZ would not of course have been providing a platform for my alleged views on transgender extremism, unless they had chosen to make transgenderism the focus of their debate.

Note that the issue was my ‘views’.  The actions of the National Council of Women are a classic example of cancel culture. Anyone who has the temerity to express, no matter how objectively, different views to the woke ideology promoted by the government and the media, must be negated and denied access to any platform, regardless of topic.

Never mind that I was standing on a platform of fiscal responsibility, democracy and transparency, transport and parking, and private property rights.  My right as a woman and a citizen to promote these policies, and myself for that matter, was cancelled. All of these issues affect women.  Elderly women have approached me with their concerns about parking, e.g. outside the Thorndon Eye Clinic.   Forcing them to pay for a taxi is not only an expense, it is disempowering them.  However the disempowerment of women is what the fake National Council of Women is all about.

Forget that stuff about ‘hate speech’, at least as we know it.  Hate speech is a general category which includes expression of racism, homophobia etc. One definition could be: negative, highly emotive and often inaccurate generalisations, perhaps used to target individuals.  This type of hate speech is now acceptable: take Marama Davidson and her tirades against CIS white men and white supremacy (the Auckland ‘Vigil’ in the wake of the Christchurch shooting saw Muslim families walking out, after the event was hijacked by the likes of Marama Davidson who ranted about white supremacy and colonialism.)  Verbal and physical violence are acceptable, as long as they conform to woke ideology: ‘stomp terfs’; ‘suck my trans dick’ attract no condemnation from the so-called ‘mainstream media’, or organisations like NZWNZ.

‘Trans women are women’: cancelling women in the name of feminism

‘The National Council of Women of New Zealand supports the rights of transgender women to access services as women – including women’s gyms and other spaces – because trans women are women’, NCWNZ: Feminism and trans rights must go hand-in-hand.

Woke ideology is that a man has to do little more than say ‘I identify as a woman’, and he is.  Thus after three years as a male swimmer in events organised by the US’s National Collegiate Athletic Association, and a period of hormone treatment, the ‘transitioned’ Lia Thomas was eligible to take part in women’s events. This means he can deprive women of deserved success, due to the biological advantages from developing as a male,  and use their changing rooms, with the full support of ‘women’s’ groups like NCWNZ:

‘We were not forewarned beforehand that we would be sharing a locker room with Lia. We did not give our consent, they did not ask for our consent, but in that locker room we turned around and there’s a 6-foot-4 biological man dropping his pants and watching us undress, and we were exposed to male genitalia’, Riley Gaines.

NCWNZ’s mission statement is  ‘Making Gender Equality a Reality:  Old ideas about gender roles are limiting all of us.’  Of course trans activism is actually all about reinforcing gender roles: a boy who likes sewing, or a girl who likes playing with trucks, is supposed to reconsider their gender.  Gender stereotypes are an essential part of the Ministry of Education transition grooming programme.

Who represents the rainbow community?

Last year I was approached by a woman who decribed herself as a lesbian concerned about the trend to erase women’s rights. I replied thus:

I chose not to attend the debate, a decision which looks wise in hindsight given the increase in violence from trans activists (transgender or not).

Extremist groups like this do not represent all the rainbow community.  There is an increasing trend internationally for groups representing lesbians, gay men and bisexuals to form and disassociate themselves from trans activism, such as the LGB Alliance:

‘We recognise that sex is binary, female and male, and that (for the vast majority of people) sex is determined at conception, observed at birth (or in utero), and recorded. We reject the co-opting of rare medical Differences in Sexual Development (DSDs/intersex conditions) in order to cast doubt on the binary nature of sex […].  We stand with lesbians in rejecting pressure to accept as sexual partners, or admit into lesbian spaces, males who define themselves as women. We stand with gay men in rejecting pressure to accept as sexual partners, or admit into gay men’s spaces, females who define themselves as men.’

and Gays Against Groomers:

‘We are a coalition of gays against the sexualization, indoctrination and medicalization of children under the guise of LGBTQIA+. ‘

New Zealand sport abandons women

New Zealand has been at the forefront in terms of policies to replace women with biological men in the sporting field.   In 2021 the New Zealand Olympic Committee announced the addition of ‘transwoman’ Laurel Hubbard to the national women’s team, making her the first transgender athlete to participate in the Olympics.

Sports NZ likewise has an ‘inclusiveness’ policy. which makes the nonsense claim that this will ensure that everyone, including women, will feel comfortable:

 ‘We are encouraging sport and physical activity to be provided in an inclusive way that ensures that everyone is able to, and feels comfortable, undertaking physical activity. An inclusive approach allows transgender individuals to take part in their self-determined gender and not the sex they were assigned at birth. It does not ask people to prove or otherwise justify their gender, sex or gender identity.’

However World Athletics has recently banned transgender women from competing in female world ranking events.  New Zealand organisations, from the National Council of Women NZ to the NZ Olympic Committee, are going to be in a difficult place as more and more international bodies ban biological men from competing in women’s events.

See also:

The Ministry of Education’s genderisation programme, one of its essential success markers, is working: it seems that 16% of 12 year olds don’t know whether they’re Arthur or Martha.

Transgender runner known for dominating women’s track disqualified from US Olympic trials: As a male student at Franklin Pierce University, Craig Telfer attempted to compete in track but performed poorly every single time. Then suddenly in 2018 he transitioned to a “transgender woman” and quickly became a track champion:

Amy Brooke, Laurel Hubbard is just a symptom of new chilling attacks on free speech in New Zealand

Gays Against Groomer, The Transgender Bill of Rights: Gay Erasure and the End of Childhood Innocence

NZ Ministry of Education guidance is that every single subject, from maths to PE, should be permeated with radical gender ideology:

The First Goal of NZ Education Is To Teach Children to Change Gender

With the school curriculum dominated by radical gender ideology and critical race theory, and every class a Maori language lesson, small wonder there’s no time to teach numeracy and literacy.

Achievement in NZ education is plummeting, with very poor results for the core basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic, traditionally considered the markers of educational success.  However, it is painfully clear that the NZ Ministry of Education no longer sees educating students in these subjects as an essential part of its brief.

The Ministry’s curriculum resources show that its overriding concern is to ensure that every single subject from mathematics to physical education is permeated with extremist gender theory, Maori language, and the nurturing of racial hatred, not to mention barefaced lies about climate change wiping out polar bears. Meanwhile facts, objective and disciplined thinking, and time honoured values are to be despised.

A prime example of this policy is the Ministry’s guide to ‘Relationships and Sexuality Education’ (Years 1–8), which decrees that:

Quality RSE policies and programmes enable young people to:

• challenge homophobia, transphobia, sexism, and gender-based violence
• interrogate the ongoing effects of colonisation
• study the environmental impacts of changes in population growth [sic] and of related issues such as people’s use and disposal of menstrual products
• engage with mātauranga Māori
• gain knowledge about the diversity of cultures in Aotearoa New Zealand – including religious diversity
• gain understandings about the strengths of sexual and gender diversity.

‘Relationships and Sexuality Education’ (RSE): how to ensure radical gender theory permeates every aspect of school life

The function of the Ministry of Education’s ‘Relationships and Sexuality Education: Years 1 to 8’ guide is to promote radical gender theory (the word gender appears 209 times).  It proposes ‘a whole-school approach to relationships and sexuality education‘ (ie gender theory). 

The plan is to ensure that gender theory is a self-fulfilling prophesy.   Children are taught that while all babies are ‘assigned’ a sex at birth, ‘a person’s gender may or may not align with their sex assigned at birth‘ (my emphasis).

‘Many ākonga at primary and intermediate schools are thinking about their gender identities, and some are aware of their sexual orientation. Ākonga with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities have a right to inclusive RSE.  Ākonga are likely to have whānau or family members who are sexually and gender diverse
 • Programmes should acknowledge gender and sexual diversity and make sure that a range of identities is visible in resources.
 • Ākonga should be addressed by their preferred name and pronouns.’  

The impression is created that changing gender is common, natural and desirable. However Stats NZ found in 2021 that, despite the determined efforts of the education system and a subsequent increase in messed-up children, only 0.8% of the population is transgender].

The resources referred to would include books such as It Feels Good to be Yourself (A Book About Gender Identity) by Theresa Thorn, which strongly promotes the concept of misgendering, ie doctors and parents ‘guessing wrong’ after a birth.

The RSE Guide gives detailed advice on how gender theory should be taught, not only taught in dedicated health education classes, but as a part of every other subject:  physical education; English, science, technology, social sciences, the arts, mathematics and statistics. Technology classes, for example, can include gender theory by exploring ‘symbols linked to the gay and transgender rights movements’. In science:

[…] ākonga can:

• consider how biological sex has been constructed and measured over time and what this means in relation to people who have variations in sex characteristics
• consider variations in puberty, including the role of hormone blockers
• explore the role of genetics in constructing debates about gender and sexuality
• challenge gender stereotypes about careers in science
• identify famous male and female scientists and their contributions
• explore what “male” and “female” mean in relation to various living things, for example, plants, sea creatures, and fungi

Gender stereotypes are a pervading theme: the relentless examination, reinforcement and creation of gender stereotypes is a vital weapon in transition grooming.

Every subject must be a lesson in Maori language and Maori culture

The bizarre position that the Maori language can only, and must, survive as a parasite on English is now well established. It seems that the goal is to eventually hybridise NZ English out of existence. All government departments have a Maori name usually promoted over, or instead of, the original English name; documents supposedly in English are dotted with large numbers of unfamiliar Maori words. There is now a policy of universally replacing common English words like family or child with the Maori equivalent, practiced rigorously by government departments.

The Ministry of Education requires schools to apply this language policy throughout the curriculum, so every class is in effect a Maori language class. This is in tandem with the position that every field must convey the Maori world view, including mathematics. As part of its ‘inclusion policy’ the Ministry’s guide to the ‘Mathematics and Statistics’ curriculum advises schools to ‘Integrate te reo Māori and tikanga Māori into your classroom programme‘.

‘New Zealand’s foundations are bicultural, so tikanga Māori should be at the centre of learning and all teaching should be informed by the kaupapa Māori principles […]

As a resource, the webpage links to a review of Robin Averill (ed): Mathematics and Statistics in the Middle Years: Evidence and Practice (2016), which comments:

‘There is a notable commitment throughout the book to te reo, tikanga and mātauranga Māori, through the use of whakataukı¯, bi-lingual labelling of all sections of the chapters, with the Māori text first, and the inclusion of chapters explaining the teaching and learning of transformation geometry and spatial thinking from a te ao Māori perspective. 

The Ministry recently released Phase 1 of its ‘Common Practice Model’ (CPM), described as ‘an important part of the Literacy & Communication and Maths Strategy, which aims to lift educational outcomes for all ākonga in Aotearoa New Zealand‘. Needless to say the document itself is a manifestation of the language hybridisation policy, filled with terms perhaps never before seen in an English text: ‘Supporting ākonga relationships with maths is kaiako supporting ākonga to respond to challenge and be adaptable as well as providing opportunities for reflection.’

Academic and former statistician Dr Michael Johnson comments:

‘The CPM should have contained a detailed description of structured literacy and numeracy teaching and nothing else. Instead, the methods we so badly need our teachers to adopt are swamped by such things as ‘critical pedagogies’, ‘culturally responsive pedagogies’ and ‘multiliteracies’.  All of these are distractions and some will actively undermine any attempt to use a structured approach alongside them.’There isn’t the space here to describe all the ways in which these ‘pedagogies’ will harm, rather than foster, sound learning. I will confine myself to one highlight – that of ‘critical maths’.

‘The CPM asserts that “Ākonga [students] are encouraged to interrogate dominant discourses and assumptions, including that maths is benign, neutral, and culture-free”.’

‘All this before they even know what mathematics is.  There is little enough time as it is during the school years for young people to develop basic mathematical proficiency. I would like to suggest to the Ministry that loading this kind of nonsense on top of that task guarantees further educational failure.  But, once again, the Ministry has shown that it simply isn’t listening.’

The Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) programme has similar priorities:

The Treaty guides schools to recognise the partnership between Māori and the Crown in the
context of RSE in the following ways:

• by partnering with Māori communities (whānau, hapū, iwi) to develop and evaluate RSE programmes
• by explicit recognition and inclusion of te reo Māori, mātauranga Māori, and te ao Māori in
RSE programmes

Students are expected to be able to name body parts, including genitals, ‘in te reo Māori and in English’.  Likewise, the sexuality teaching resource that Family Planning provides for the Ministry, ‘Navigating the Journey’, has been designed to serve concurrently as a Maori language teaching resource, with children encouraged to dot their speech with Maori terms, stressing that Maori words for parts of the body parts should be used in preference to English ones.

Critical Race Theory (CRT)

Critical Race Theory is an off shoot of critical theory which seeks to divide everyone in society into classes of oppressed and oppressors; it is racism and bigotry disguised as their opposite.

The NZ Ministry of Education has a conscious policy of applying critical race theory:

‘People who demonstrate a ‘critical’ understanding of racism, discrimination, white privilege and power in education, are capable of influencing change across the education system and in the fabric of wider society.’

Tactics include making children stand up in class and say what they have done to acknowledge their white privilege. The ostensible justification for this is that if you make Maori children feel they are disempowered victims, it will somehow inspire them to achieve, and if you bury other NZ children in guilt, it will somehow make them better people. In fact, it is just another strategy to create racial hatred and division, in the classroom and in the community.

One manifestation is the widely criticised New Zealand Histories curriculum, which presents New Zealand history purely and unashamedly through the lens of Maori radicalism, with no respect for historical fact.  The intention is to impress on small children the evils of colonialism, while deliberately perverting history.

One can assume that CRT pervades the currriculum. In the case of ‘Relationships and Sexuality’: ‘Quality RSE policies and programmes enable young people to […] interrogate the ongoing effects of colonisation […]‘.

‘Climate change’

The NZ Climate Change Curriculum is a callous, exploitative and dishonest project whose undisguised aim is to frighten children to death and turn them into activists for the government/UN climate agenda (see The NZ Climate Change Curriculum is Cult Indoctrination and Child Abuse). Climate ideology will be taken as a given throughout the curriculum, with even the RSE programme teaching children to ‘study the environmental impacts of changes in population growth’.

The New Zealand school curriculum is dominated by ideologies. Children are being indoctrinated instead of getting a balanced education: basic subjects are given low priority, and any attempt to teach them is polluted by the agenda. Is it any wonder that children are failing core competencies?

Having ensured that our young people are ignorant, illiterate and screwed up, NZ’s Labour/Green government is hellbent on lowering the voting age to 16. The reason can only be that those parties hope to make sure of support for their radical agenda, and to secure power.

See also:

Relationships and sexuality education: A guide for teachers, leaders and boards of trustee: links to pdfs for RSE guides for years 1–8, and for years 9–13.

‘4,000% Explosion in Kids Identifying as Transgender, Docs Perform Double Mastectomies on Healthy Teen Girls’ (US)

New Zealand students record worst results in maths and science (2020): ‘New Zealand’s 13-year-olds have recorded their worst-ever results in a major international maths and science test.‘

Cultural Marxism and the NZ Sexuality Education Curriculum

The NZ Histories Curriculum: More Child Abuse From the Ministry of Indoctrination

****

Changing the electoral act to allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote is the policy of both the Labour and Green parties.  They could follow the normal procedure for changes to electoral rights, with a referendum followed by a vote in parliament.  The problem for the government parties is that there is widespread public opposition, so a referendum is unlikely to succeed and even if it did, a constitutional change requires 75% support in parliament – with National and Act in opposition it would never get through.

Instead it appears that a more convoluted route to lowering the voting age is being followed through courts and legislation, which may enable the government to bypass both a referendum and the requirement of 75% support in parliament.

The government is relying on a claim of an inconsistency between the Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the provisions of the Electoral Acts, when in fact stated intention of the Bill is to affirm 18 years as the minimum voting age, and any conflict lies within the Human Rights Act 1993, which however defers to the Bill of Rights.

The Supreme Court Judgement

In November 2022  the NZ Supreme Court upheld the appeal of the lobby group Make It 16 and passed down the following Judgement.

‘A declaration is made that the provisions of the Electoral Act 1993 and of the Local Electoral Act 2001 which provide for a minimum voting age of 18 years are inconsistent with the right in s 19 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 to be free from discrimination on the basis of age; these inconsistencies have not been justified in terms of s 5 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

There is No Conflict Between the NZ Electoral Acts and the Bill of Rights

S 12 of the Bill of Rights Act specifically provides for protection of the voting rights in general elections for  ‘Every New Zealand citizen who is of or over the age of 18 years’.

Any legislative discrepancy lies between s12 of the Bill of Rights Act 1990 and s 19 of the same Act, which says that everyone has the right to freedom from discrimination, on the grounds of discrimination set out in the Human Rights Act 1993, and in turn between s12 of the Bill of Rights and s 21 of the Human Rights Act which generally prohibits discrimination on the basis of age. The Human Rights act states that “age” refers to 16 plus. At the age of 16 NZ children are able to leave school and look for fulltime employment, and it is clearly the intent of the Human Rights Act to protect their rights at this stage of their lives, giving as specific examples employment conditions and accommodation.  There is no mention of voting age.

The Human Rights Act 1993 makes it clear that it defers to the Bill of Rights, which specifies a minimum voting age of 18 years.

21 B  Relationship between this Part and other law

(2) Nothing in this Part affects the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

Given that the Bill of Rights clearly affirms the voting rights in general elections for those aged at least 18 years, and that there is no clear intent in either the Bill of Rights Act 1990 or the Human Rights Act 1993 to legislate for voting from the age of 16, and furthermore the Human Rights Act clearly states that the Bill of Rights takes precedence in any conflict, what is needed is clarification in the Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the Human Rights Act 1993 of the intention to legislate a minimum voting age of 18 years.

Judge John Kós, in dissent (Judgement, 74):

‘[…] I do not consider the provisions of the Electoral Act 1993, setting a minimum voting age of 18 years in parliamentary elections, are inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (the Bill of Rights). Rather, I consider the explicit right to vote in parliamentary elections at 18 years, affirmed by s 12 of the Bill of Rights (and prescribed in the Electoral Act), prevails over the generalised right to freedom from discrimination affirmed by s 19 […].’

The Supreme Court Judgement overturned the ruling of the High Court (and before that the Court of Appeal), and is contrary to the opinion of Attorney General David Parker, who argued that the issue was ‘out of the Court’s purview.’  Parker’s view as quoted [27] was:

 ‘First, the argument is that through the entrenched provisions Parliament has set out the process for changing the law in this area. That, as we have seen, requires broad support for change either through a super majority in Parliament or with a referendum of eligible voters. This democratic process should be followed first.  Second, […] Parliament has not yet considered lowering the voting age and it should be able to consider the issues before the Court releases a decision that potentially skews public and political debate on the matter. In other words, the Court should not pre-emptively enter the debate when the matter is one to be determined not only by Parliament but also the electorate in general.’

A Declaration of Inconsistency: Voting age in the Electoral Act 1993 and the Local Electoral Act 2001

Public submissions are now being called for A Declaration of Inconsistency: Voting age in the Electoral Act 1993 and the Local Electoral Act 2001. The associated parliamentary press release claims that the inconsistency is between the Bill of Rights and the two electoral acts: it does not admit that the discrepancy is within the Bill of Rights. It baldly quotes the Judgement of the Supreme Court without advancing a solution in the form of lowering the voting age to 16, but nor does it suggest the more obvious option of clarifying the intent of the Bill of Rights, support for a minimum voting age of 18.

Pursuant to the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Declarations of Inconsistency) Amendment Act 2022, the government must take action within six months of a Declaration, though events might proceed faster.  Presumably this ‘action’ means changing the electoral law.

Five steps by which the voting age might be changed without a referendum or a 75% majority in parliament

1) Bill of Rights (Declarations of Inconsistency) Amendment Act 2022, introduced in 2020, but for some reason not passed until 29 Aug 2022 (Make It 16’s appeal to the Supreme Court commenced 12 July).

2) Supreme Court ‘inconsistency’ ruling, November 2022, with a suggestion that the only way to resolve this is by lowering the voting age to 16.

3) Parliament’s proposed Declaration of Inconsistency: Voting age in the Electoral Act 1993 and the Local Electoral Act 2001

Then hypothetically:

4) The same Supreme Court court rules that changing the electoral act is now purely rubber stamping and therefore doesn’t require a referendum or 75% majority in parliament.

5) Action by Parliament to change electoral law.

The idea that ’18 year olds vote so therefore 16 year olds should too’ is patently nonsense

• The Bill of Rights 1990 affirms a minimum voting age of 18.  It is pure opportunism to interpret the conflict with the very general reference to 16 years in s 21(1) in the Human Rights Act 1993 as a requirement to lower the voting age, when the Human Rights Act makes no specific reference to voting rights, and in any case gives precedence to the Bill of Rights.
• Constitutional changes such as electoral reform should be made only after a well publicised referendum and a super majority in parliament.
• Polls show that the public is adamantly opposed.
• The move shifts the bar of adulthood from 18 to 16, with implications for criminal responsibility, jury service, military service abroad.
• Society accept that rights and responsibilities increase with age as appropriate: from the age of five or six, when children are allowed to walk to school on their own, to eligibility for National Superannuation.  Former MP Barry Brill has submitted:

‘There should be no difference in voting age, the drinking age, the age of contractual capacity, the age for an arms licence, and the age when subject to adult criminal procedures; or military service.

All require a sufficient degree of maturity (on average) to justify a school child being treated as an adult. The issue is essentially a biologic and neurologic question, but I would consider 18 years to be a minimum.’

• There is no reason to believe that modern school children are more mature than those in the past, and therefore equipped to make decisions relating to the running of the country at local or national level.  On the contrary, education levels are plummeting, critical thinking and respect for facts is discouraged, and the school curriculum is focused on Critical Race Theory, grooming for gender transition, and the teaching of questionable claims relating to climate change and New Zealand history.
• It is clear that the only reason for taking this course is self-interest on the part of the parties in government who stand to gain from giving the vote to school children.

MAKE A SUBMISSION BY 15 March 2023

HAVE YOUR SAY about a A Declaration of Inconsistency on the voting age in the Electoral Act 1993 and the Local Electoral Act 2001

Make a submission by 11.59pm on 15 March 2023 (submissions opened 2 March)

The Review into the Future for Local Government aspires to implement at the local government level He Puapua, Nanaia Mahuta’s blueprint for an ethnocracy

In 2021 an Official Information Request forced publication of He Puapua, a report commissioned by former Minister of Maori Affairs Nanaia Mahuta (often referred to as Mahuta the Looter) but kept under wraps since 2019.  It has been termed ‘the political statement of Nanaia Mahuta and her iwi’. Michael Bassett has described He Puapua thus:

‘It is a plan to introduce racial segregation into every aspect of our public service. It would divide our society into Maori who form 16% of the population on which 50% of political power would devolve by 2040, while the other 170 ethnicities in this country who constitute 84% of the population would share the rest. The 16% would enjoy their privileged position because they possess a drop or more of Maori blood. Without that drop, the rest of us are destined to become a rather crowded group of second-class citizens. 

Despite its early denials, the government is on track to implement He Puapua, having already passed legislation to bring into effect proposals for race based reforms relating to health and water management (‘Three Waters’).

The Review into the Future for Local Government was established by the same Nanaia Mahuta as Minister for Local Government, and is an implementation of He Puapua at the local government level. 

‘Co-governance’ instead of democracy

The function of the Review is to further the government’s objective to transfer power, rights and assets to tribal elites, relegate non–Maori to second class citizens and transform New Zealand from a modern, highly respected democracy, which has always aspired to equality, to a third world ethnostate, run by a small privileged elite.  It is notable that just the word ‘Maori’ occurs 534 times (along with ‘iwi’, ‘mana whenua’ etc).

Last October former broadcaster Peter Williams revealed that a confidential document obtained by the Taxpayers Union showed that the Review includes:

• Transferring a laundry list of powers that currently fall before elected council directly to hapū/iwi and other Māori organisations;
• Appointing unelected positions by mana whenua to be given equal status as elected members (including voting rights). But unlike the councillors, the mana whenua representatives cannot be removed at the ballot box;
• Requiring council staff to conform with ‘te ao Māori values’ by law;
• Funding of ‘Tiriti-based partnership in local governance’ (no matter the cost to ratepayers, apparently);
• Lowering the local voting age to 16.

The Review refers repeatedly to democracy in conjunction with the Treaty of Waitangi, which in context is nonsense: the idea is to subvert democracy.  The Review takes as read a dishonest interpretation of the Treaty as promising a partnership between Crown and Maori, ie governance rights based on race.

An example of co-governance in action is demonstrated by the Playcentre Assocation

‘[…] a recent vote to change the constitution, that was supported by 366 out of 400 branches was overturned, because only 4 out of six Maori branches agreed to the change, and five out of six were needed for a consensus. Effectively, this means that under their co-governance arrangement, those two Maori votes in opposition, were able to veto 366 votes in favour.’

‘Wellbeing’: The New Age Agenda

The report claims for local government the responsibility of looking after our ‘wellbeing’.  Local government’s ‘narrow focus on delivering services and infrastructure’ needs to go, it seems: instead they will be planning how we live our lives.

 ‘The wellbeing challenges facing Aotearoa New Zealand are too big for central government to address alone – local government has an important role to play. We need to see shifts in mindsets and approaches with greater collaboration and innovation so that communities and local and central government have the tools, funding, and resilience to face the challenges ahead.’

It’s patently obvious that the Review is nothing to do with wellbeing, and all about the creation of racial privilege, division and disharmony, and the disempowerment of the majority.   ‘Greater collaboration’ is simply a euphemism for giving councils the right to seize the land of individuals and cancel the rights of the community at large.

Lowering the voting age (without a referendum)

Lowering the voting age is Labour and Green policy, no matter that the public is adamantly opposed.  It is an idea completely without merit.  The argument that preventing 16 year olds from voting is somehow ageist is on a par with arguing that 14 year olds should be allowed to get married.  It is a fact of life that everywhere there is a definition of adulthood applying to important rights and responsibilities such as voting and fighting in wars, normally 18, and that the young acquire rights and responsibilities gradually as they mature.  That five year olds are allowed to walk to school without adult supervision, and 12 year olds to have a paper round, does not mean they should be allowed to get married, vote or go off to war.

The proposal is completely self serving.  By the age of 16 New Zealand children have gone through a system of wall–to–wall child abuse and disempowerment.  The mission of the modern teacher is not to teach NZ children essential skills, respect for facts, or critical thinking, but to assign gender, create racial division, peddle untruths on issues from NZ history to the status of polar bears, and turn children into activists for government agendas.  School children are in no way equipped to make mature decisions about town planning, climate change, or who should be running councils or the country. They have no understanding of the balance between what Councils do and the costs they must pay as ratepayers.

Citizens’ Assemblies

Introducing (ostensibly) randomly selected ‘citizens’ assemblies’ that have status but you cannot vote out is another device for manipulating democracy, which would be better served with more use of referenda.

Maori language as a parasite on English

The Review is of course a manifestation of the extraordinary idea, unique to New Zealand, that the Maori language can only be, and must be, preserved as a parasite on the English language, thereby showing contempt for both.

Submissions criteria

The submission criteria laid down by the Future for Local Government Review board are another cause for concern.  The Review board will redact information from a response that:

‘Uses language or content that is defamatory, racist, sexist or discriminatory, insulting, offensive (including swearing and obscene or vulgar comments), or potentially harmful.’

The Free Speech Union has suggested that you disagree with 16 year-olds being given the right to vote in local council elections (which by definition is discriminating on the basis of age), or you oppose racist policies, your submission can be moderated at the discretion of the Review board.

HOW TO MAKE A SUBMISSION

The last day for submissions is Tuesday 28 February. The draft report can be viewed, and submissions made, here.

Protect Local Democracy has created a submission tool.

See also:

On 8 February this year, Auckland University’s Professor Elizabeth Rata and three senior colleagues sent an open letter to the Prime Minister Christopher Hitchens, asking that the Curriculum Refresh and the associated NCEA qualification reforms be halted. Their objections include traditional knowledge (mātauranga Māori) being inserted everywhere in the curriculum and being given equivalence with modern knowledge, including science and maths; the division of students by race into Māori and non-Māori; and the creation of what they describe as a “racialised curriculum”.

Hawkes Bay residents are blocking off their streets to stop gangs coming in and looting, but Prime Minister Chris Hipkins insists everything is under control, and the media have shown little interest

A friend received the following email (my emphasis):

 ‘GISBORNE & HAWKES BAY CRIPPLED We are getting reports MSM are ignoring the worst stories. There are 5,600 registered as missing. Hawkes Bay residents are saying: “Dead animals are building up and rotting & Napier residents have been without power, hot water, internet & phone signal since Mon night/Tues morning.” “A lot of people have lost their houses, everything.” “We were totally cut off from Napier in Hastings with many people being turned away from the only crossing available even though they were essential.”

‘”Looting, shooting, stabbing, killing, stealing, and hostage situations are going on. Gangs are out of control, holding people hostage and at gun point for their supplies.” “The devastation has all but destroyed from what we hear 50% or more of Hawkes Bay’s horticulture.” Locals have started road blocks. Why were police raiding Shooters Saloon on Thursday instead of helping in these affected areas?

‘My son is with the Navy and is helping in HB and I grew up there and have a number of friends and family there. We are being fed so much bullshit via MSM. My son orchestrated help to three different areas yesterday. He is only 21 and has been in less than three years. He said most of the superiors are either contradictory, indifferent or blissfully unaware. Most of the ship haven’t even disembarked. He has taken leave today to go and help friends in Twyford who have had the flood waters go through their house. He went to Bayview yesterday and the knob running the Civil Defence site out there sent them back to ship as there was nothing to do. He drove out to EskValley with family and said that the devastation is heartbreaking. He also said that everything that has been done there has been done by civilians and not one Government department has done a thing to aid them.

‘I know of a police woman who was retrieving bodies from the water in Esk Valley on the Wednesday and was so overwhelmed by everything that she couldn’t work on the Thursday. A friend whose sons are cops have said that it’s so bad and they will be retrieving bodies from the debris for months and then there will be many lost forever as they have been wept out to sea. Another friend works for a funeral director and they normally deal with all the Coroners work. This has been taken over by identification specialists from both NZ and Australia. My cousin is a cop and says that we only ever ask for international help when we need help to identify a large number of bodies. By Wednesday HB had run out of body bags. My son traveled down on Te Mana and they were bringing a heap more with them.

The 21000 litres of water delivered to Gisborne by the Manawanui on Wednesday is being on sold to locals. It’s an absolute shit show and I have a close friend with Army contacts and they also have their hands tied. They were deploying a heap but were then stood down at the eleventh hour.

The gang violence after dark in areas without power is out of control. The Navy have 50 assault rifles on board but have been told that they will not be out doing patrols as not everyone knows how to use them. We are being set up to implode.’

From another source:

‘Others are getting the same story out with very limited i-phone coverage. Gangs are openly going around with guns stealing food and petrol and generally looting valuables etc. The Media have been instructed to play it down and they are not telling the full story to the outside world.‘

While little has been said in the mainstream media to confirm these personal testimonies, news outlet MSN reported: ‘”It’s despicable”: Tensions escalate in Hawke’s Bay as thieves and looters target vulnerable’.

We’ve heard first-hand accounts of people witnessing the theft of food and nappies given to hard-hit communities. Others say generators and prized possessions are being taken from flood-damaged homes. And it didn’t take us long to find people who are angry and scared. [One street was] already ransacked by Cyclone Gabrielle but now they have another foe to face[,] thieves.

‘”The vulnerable are now getting their stuff stolen. The gangs are coming in, or looters in general. They’re threatening people, stealing their stuff. We are very scared, people are very scared,” said Napier local Grant Porter.’

Wellington’s Dominion Post made only a passing reference to the crime problem yesterday morning, in its article ‘Testing Our Resilience Resilience’, while its sister organisation, the major online outlet NZ Stuff, reported this disclaimer from the government: ‘Chris Hipkins denies outbreak of lawlessness in Hawke’s Bay’.  The PM insists that the police have the matter under control, and accused opponents of amplifying the extent of the crime .

In line with the policy of romantising New Zealand’s  criminal gangs whenever possible, the government is appealing to their better natures.  Minister of Police Stuart Nash, responding to a report of gang members taking advantage of the disaster, has said:

‘You know what I’d say to the gangs, get your bloody patches off, go and get a whole lot of wheelbarrows and shovels, and start helping people as opposed to just adding to already super high levels of stress.’

And again on Newstalk ZB:

‘my plea to those – no, no, not my plea – my request to those [gang] leaders is pull your bloody head in, get your animals off the streets and out of the cars, and stop doing this.

Interestingly, a Stuff article entitled ‘Get your bloody patches off’: Police Minister Stuart Nash […]’ (https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/131277480/get-your-bloody-patches-off-police-minister-stuart-nash-urges-gangs-to-help-not-loot-amid-cyclone-recovery) now diverts to the above article, possibly the same piece but with a less inflammatory title.   Presumably Stuff wished to downplay any criticism of the gangs.

Is the NZ government (and the media) right to downplay the extent of the crime faced by those deeply affected by the flooding, thus compounding an already tragic situation? Will Hawkes Bay residents draw comfort from the level of support offered by the government, and remove their barricades?

The New Zealand Supreme Court has ruled in favour of lowering the voting age to 16.

‘Justice France told the court it was inconsistent with the Bill of Rights to not allow 16-year-olds to vote, and the decision of the Court of Appeal was overturned.’

Jacinda Ardern announced the same day, 21 November, that the Cabinet had decided ‘to draft a piece of legislation with a proposal to lower the age to 16 for the whole of Parliament to consider’.   While the required 75% majority makes its success unlikely, Labour’s present majority means this may be its best chance for a long time, and if the Bill does gets through, it will be very difficult to reverse.  However it comes at an interesting time:

Education standards are plummeting

Nearly two-thirds of students failed the writing standard in the latest NCEA literacy and numeracy pilot, released in October.  The highest pass rate was the reading standard, with 64% of students scoring an achieved or higher.  That was followed by numeracy at 56% and writing at 34%.  Those pass rates were even lower than the results in 2021, which themselves were a matter of concern for educators.

At the same time, truancy is skyrocketing. Earlier this month Education Review Office warned that NZ has worse school attendance than other English-speaking countries and many parents don’t care if their children miss classes.  Children failing in the 3Rs, and their reluctance to attend school, can in part be put down to the destructive pandemic measures, ranging from disruption to schooling to enforced mask wearing.  Another factor could be:

NZ education consists of wall to wall indoctrination, manipulation and abuse

The New Zealand school curriculum exposes children to every kind of damaging wokery, including:

•  Critical race theory, whereby children have imposed upon them colonial guilt if of European descent, and victimhood and inferiority if Maori.  The capacity for bullying in the classroom of racial minorities of Maori or European descent is huge.
• Conscious grooming for gender transition (leading to counselling, puberty blockers, mutilation, sterility, and more counselling);
• Endless lies about ‘climate change’, with children consciously indoctrinated to become activists for the pseudoscience ‘climate change’ narrative, and no room for critical thinking.

This last is especially significant, as it is expected that giving children the vote will ensure support for the climate change agenda and indeed it is often cited as a good reason: it is assumed that because they are most effected (they’ll live longer), therefore they care the most, so they will make the right decisions.  Make It 16, who took the case to the Supreme Court, argue that:

Next year is election year, and Labour is set to lose

Polls show that support for Labour is evaporating (the Newshub Reid Research Poll for November being particularly unfavourable), and there is a good chance that after the 2023 election National will be able to form a government with the support of ACT and maybe NZ First.  Having 100,000 or so children voting as instructed by their teachers could only benefit the Hard Left, if not this election then future ones.

There is huge opposition

The public is adamantly opposed to lowering the voting age.   As Bryce Edwards points out: ‘Poll after poll shows that about three-quarters of the public is not yet convinced that it’s a good idea.  In recent years there have been several polls on lowering the voting age, in 2020 at least three showing 70%, 85% and 88% respectively in favour of the status quo. The online community group Neighbourly ran a poll finishing today (23 November), with the final figures being 79.2 against the change.

Of the current opposition parties, Chris Luxon says the National Party does not see a need for change, confirmed by Justice spokesman Paul Goldsmith, in a press release which typically shifted the focus to other priorities (also typical is Deputy Nicola Willis continuing to post on social media about inflation rates while ignoring the issue of the voting age).  ACT leader David Seymour is more forthright:

‘ACT rejects calls to lower the voting age to 16 following the Supreme Court’s ruling. […] “We don’t want 120,000 more voters who pay no tax voting for lots more spending. The Supreme Court needs to stick to its knitting and quit the judicial activism.’

Who wants it?

The case was taken to the Supreme Court by a group called Make It 16, formed in September 2019 as ‘a non-partisan youth-led campaign advocating for the vote to be extended to 16 and 17-year-olds in Aotearoa’.  The group is the likely  stimulus for all the polls in 2020 onward.   In April 2022 the group was granted leave for its case to be heard in the Supreme Court after it failed in the High Court and Court of Appeal in 2020 and 2021.

Lowering the voting age is official Green policy, and Make It 16’s launching event in 2020 was hosted by Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick.  Coincidentally, or not, the Greens have the most to gain, with a generation of brainwashed school kids, convinced that they will be failing if they don’t convince the government to act NOW on climate change, and encouraged to vote by their (very often) equally brainwashed teachers.  Labour has had no explicit policy, though Ohariu MP Greg O’Connor also spoke at Make It 16’s launch.  Jacinda Ardern, who appears to be in lockstep with Green policy on every other issue, has signified support for the change.

The Maori Party / Te Pāti Māori have also expressed support.

Last election a National MP fed me the line that it was ‘good to let young people vote, as it gets them in the habit’.  Given the Labour /  Greens’ huge majority, it will only take a few Nats to think the same way to get it through.

So why now?

Only Parliament can decide if the law will change, 75% support in the House is needed and the opposition from National and ACT should be enough:  90 out of 120 seats are required, and  Labour /Greens / Maori Party currently have 77.  Ardern has indicated support for a conscious vote: ‘I accept different politicians will have different views.  Mine is one of 120’.  She may be hoping that enough National voters will cross the floor and support the change (like turkeys voting for Christmas) and indeed one National MP (now former) expressed support to me last election for lowering the vote because ‘it would get them in the habit of voting’.  However, she has said that the legislation will not be passed before the coming election.

Given the huge level of opposition to the proposal, and the unlikelihood that any change will affect the next, crucial, election, the decision to go ahead now seems hard to justify.  Whether or not it is passed, it will almost certainly damage Labour’s election chances.  One would have expected Labour to wait until safely after the coming election, as they did with gender self-identification,.

Bryce Edwards has confirmed that: ‘The general convention – which Jacinda Ardern reiterated yesterday – is for the implementation of significant electoral law changes to only take place for the election after the next one’.  He doesn’t say that it is law, however.  Some likely reasons for the decision to plough ahead:

• In October 2021 Jacinda Ardern introduced mandatory vaccinations, accepting (rather gleefully) the  creation of a two tier society, despite having on numerous occasions denied that was the intention, even claiming that the idea was a conspiracy theory.  Her stated intentions cannot therefore be considered reliable. In the context of lowering the voting age, I will stick my neck out and say that there is a strong possibility that, given her penchant for fast tracking legislation, with few complaints from the public, Ardern is not necessarily committed to this conventional delay, and may be hoping to push through the change in voting age in time for it to be in effect for the 2023 election.
• If Jacinda does manage to get the Bill through, it will be almost impossible to reverse by subsequent governments, so Labour and the Greens will reap the benefit in subsequent elections.
• In any case, the idea will grow: already opponents are being vilified as ‘right-wing’ or ‘selfish old people’.

Given that Labour is on track to being voted out this election, maybe the punt is not so silly after all.

STOP PRESS:  Last night the NZ Parliament went into urgency to last to Friday or maybe Saturday.  This was 22 November, the day after the ruling from the Supreme Court on the the voting age and Jacinda Ardern’s announcement that legislation would be drafted to give effect to the ruling.   According to Simon O’Connor, in a piece to camera they are hoping to action 29 pieces of legislation, including the controversial Water Services Entities Bill.

See also:

Guy Hatchard, The Five Deadly Lies of Jacinda Ardern and Her Government

and

Today they’re announcing mandatory vaccination. Just so you know, this is what Ardern, Hipkins and Bloomfield said earlier this year, calling mandatory vaccination "social media misinformation". pic.twitter.com/KTwztwMcbo

— 〽️🅰️©️☪️🔼 (@_MaccaNZ) October 11, 2021

Intimidation, expropriation of private property, turning greenery into a liability, dismantling democracy, forced medical interventions,  persecution of minorities, disempowerment of humanity on every possible front: what’s not to love?

Intimidation as conscious political tactic

In August 2022 Wellington mayoral candidate Tory Whanau, along with other Green and Labour candidates and sitting councillors, attended a counter-demonstration organised by the Wellington section of Antifa, a world wide organisation known for its chosen strategy of intimidation in order to achieve its ends.  It hardly seems a coincidence that the toxic NZ Green Party subsequently fought a toxic local election campaign in Wellington.  Wellington Antifa self-describes as opposing ‘fascism and anti-vax ideology’ thus correlating the two, and in line with Antifa philosophy the Greens insisted on a vaccine election, demonised the unvaccinated and made great use of intimidatory tactics.  This achieved two things: it successfully ‘othered’ rival candidates while frightening candidates who might have been more nuanced on the issue of Covid mandates, and it also reinforced the government’s message.

The media outlet NZ Stuff also provided inspiration for the Green campaign when Stuff seized on an odd reference by a leader of one anti-mandate group to making the country ungovernable, to create a sensationalist documentary called Fire and Fury, critiqued here. The documentary suggested that everyone within five degrees of separation from the anti-mandate protest was involved in planning violent insurrection, even though it was supported by former MPs from three parties and Dame Tariana Turia (‘ungovernable’ seems to be all about growing your own vegetables.)

The group that followed Tory Whanau round the election meetings actively set out to undermine, disempower and intimidate candidates.  Tactics included loaded questions, jeering at candidates, screaming ‘she’s an antivaxxer’, and whooping for their own candidate while not clapping for any other. The manipulative questions made it hard for candidates to actually clarify their position, let alone justify their views.  I was jeered at for denying that I was ‘affiliated with a group that wants to make the country ungovernable’, and for saying that I was opposed to any policies, including the move towards co-governance, that cause division. Others were treated similarly for opposing Wellington’s aggressive cycle network plan or the voting age being lowered to 16 years (lowering the voting age is an important Green policy – I wonder why?)

There were micro-aggressions and reinforcement of the message in the form of announcing vaccination status on introduction.  This practice was followed by at least two candidates, official Green candidate Tamatha Paul, and ‘independent’ but bright green Ellen Blake: ‘I am so and so and I’m triple vaccinated’.  Similarly the twitter bio of successful mayoral candidate Tory Whanau’s proudly affirmed that that she was ‘fully vaccinated and a proud mask wearer’.

When supporters of other candidates decided to push back and heckle too, the Greens cried rape, with the full support of the corporate media who had somehow missed the antics of Whanau’s supporters.

If you’re free at 2pm today and want to show your support, please come to my final meet and greet. The hecklers are probably going to show and it would be great to drown out their aggression with relentless positivity 💚 https://t.co/EhBX24ePrW

— Mayor Whanau (@MissWhanau) October 1, 2022

At this last meeting in Hataitai, local residents decided they’d had enough of the Greens’ ‘relentless positivity’, and told Whanau’s whoopers to either shut up or go home.

Green Policy: It’s All About Disempowerment

Was there ever a narrative promoted by trillionaire nutjobs and restricting the rights of citizens that the Greens haven’t backed to the hilt?

Making New Zealand unlivable on the back of junk science

During the evolutionary burst of life forms that was the Cambrian Explosion, both global temperatures and atmospheric CO2 were far higher than they are today.  Both have been in a trough, but as CO2 has crawled upwards recently, there had been a greening of the planet, with retreating deserts and higher crop yields.  ‘Can’t have that’, says the Green Party.  So they have reformulated the theory of the carbon cycle whereby while CO2 is brilliant when rebreathed by small masked children, it is otherwise harmful for the planet.  No matter that there is no science whatsoever to back up their claims of dangerous warming caused by CO2, to be exact the 4% or so produced by humanity (the NZ Climate Commission, when asked to provide proof of their claims, could only hum and haw and admit that they were relying on the nonexistent ‘consensus).

Regardless, the Green Party, along with the Labour Party, are determined to use the nonsense narrative of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming to make New Zealand unlivable by, eg:

• Confiscating private property for the purposes of rewilding (when the fake biodiversity line is exposed, we can always claim emission offsetting);
• Numerous measures to make farming nonviable and encourage its replacement with monoculture pine. This has serious implications for the food supply, export income and the environment (NB: in 2019 Green MP and Land Information Minister Eugenie Sage  gave a free pass to Japanese company PanPac to buy up to 20,000 hectares of productive farmland);
• Rezoning coastal property;
• Making cities like Wellington hostile to cars by putting in cycleways everywhere, impeding traffic flow and removing car parks with huge inconvenience to residents and negative impact on businesses;
• Imposing apartment living to replace our house and garden lifestyle which, with its flowers, vege gardens and composts heaps, is now deemed ‘unsustainable’, along with houses that have withstood earthquakes for 100 years.

Wellington’s own ‘Wildland’s’ project

The American Wildlands Project, now termed the Wildlands Network, proposes the designation of more than 50% of the United States as core wilderness areas with little or no human use, while humanity is forced into high density living.  Exposure of the Wildlands Project was responsible for the United States not ratifying the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity in 1994.

Bizarrely, the Labour/Green faction of Wellington City Council decided to apply this scheme to our capital city, expanding the city’s reserves at the expense of private property.  In 2022 WCC applied its ‘Significant Natural Areas’ policy to a substantial amount of land formerly zoned rural within the city boundaries, mostly gorse and scrub, and thereby taking the land out of the housing equation.  The scheme has no legal basis, turns native bush into a liability and is fraudulent, as it is applied to land of no special value at all, at best regenerating bush, but also garden shrubbery, agapanthus, pine, lawn etc.  Now that the election is over, it is almost inevitable that it will be applied to the 1500 or so residential properties, and presumably many more later on.

Eliminating democracy in favour of rule by tribal elites

At a Wellington election meeting, Green mayoral candidate Tory Whanau and Labour’s Paul Eagle affirmed that they supported 50:50 cogovernance with iwi.  This is the policy of both parties, and the Green Party manifesto is full of references to ‘tino rangitiratanga’, ie Maori sovereignty.  The concept is based on a modern interpretation of the Treaty Of Waitangi which asserts that the Crown agreed, not to democracy and equal right for all, but to an equal partnership between the Crown and Maori elites, in perpetuity.

In 2018 there was leaked and then released a report called He Puapua, which sets out how co-governance in every sphere of NZ life could be achieved.  Needless to say, the Greens fully support the aims of the He Puapua report, whose intent has been described as:

‘[…] a coup designed to dismantle our democracy and the Rule of Law and replace it with the worst form of tribalism coupled with the greed of those who want what they have not earned.’ (Anthony Willy, former Judge and Law Lecturer)

The Mandates

As with ‘climate’ so with ‘Covid’, with the Green Party even more gung ho than Labour when it came to restricting people’s liberty.  When the PM announced the end of the COVID-19 Protection Framework in September, the Greens accused the government of ‘giving up’.

The visible symbol of subjection which is enforced masking is especially dear to the hearts of the Green Party.  After the government removed most mask mandates, the Green MPs turned up at Parliament masked in protest.  Mask wearing was a Green Party badge during the local election campaign on the part of both candidates and supporters, with meetings well attended by Greens a sea of masked faces, even after the mandates were eased.  Green MP Julie Anne Genter came to one meeting with a mask and a scarf wrapped round her face, making a performance of unwinding her scarf when people complained they couldn’t hear her question.

War and mass migration

Green parties everywhere are big supporters of mass migration, including into heavily populated countries like the UK, regardless of the impact on the environment and social fabric of target countries.  This includes NZ, where the Greens have a policy of taking 5,000 refugees (or econonic migrants) per annum, and wishes to grant visa waiver status to all Pacific countries, which will inevitably lead to a huge increase in immigration and population, and have environmental impact.

The Greens claim humanitarianism, which apparently trumps environmental concerns in this one context.  However a major factor in migration is war, and the Greens attitude to the West’s immoral warmongering is at best ambiguous.  In 2017 I asked candidates at an election meeting about their stance on NZ sponsoring the most vicious ISIS-aligned group in Syria, ie the child murdering Al Zinki gang, via their front group the White Helmets.   The Green candidate declared that his party saw them (ie ISIS-aligned gangs) as the modern day equivalent of the International Brigades who fought Franco.  It wasn’t certain that the candidate could find Syria on a map; rather it seemed to be a message that was passed down from on high.

The intervention in Libya with the approval of a ‘no-fly zone’ by the UN on the questionable grounds of ‘responsibility to protect’ was an absolute disaster, leading to the destruction of Africa’s most successful country and the ruin of millions of lives.  The Greens’ Global Policy, however, asserts that  ‘Aotearoa New Zealand should promote the “responsibility to protect” in cases of genocide or gross and systematic violations of human rights’ (thus endorsing the destruction of Libya), when we all know that ‘violations’ tend to be in the eye of the beholder.  Former MP Kennedy Graham was a strong proponent of removing the Security Council veto, citing Russia’s use of the veto to prevent the West doing a Libya on Syria.  Likewise, a glance at the social media posts of present leader James Shaw shows that he has often wrung his hands about the failure to ‘act’ in (destroy) Syria.

Conclusion

One could be forgiven for attributing to the Greens a philosophy of ‘I love not Man the less, but Nature more’,  and certainly their grass roots will believe it.    Except that it doesn’t wash, as many of the measures they support have negative consequences for the environment and biodiversity: making greenery a liability; getting rid of home gardens along with flowers, bees and butterflies and replacing them with NZ ‘s most common natives; covering the landscape with pinus radiata, the penchant for the most toxic energy renewable systems such as batteries, not to mention the obsessive support for the mass movement of people.  The Greens exist to serve anti-people agendas imposed by overseas interests.  It’s not about loving the environment: it’s all about people, just not in a good way.

Continue reading “NZ Greens: Nazi Party or Simply Nasty Party?” →

The Victoria University of Wellington Students Association (VUWSA) recently issued a defamatory press statement to the effect that they were ‘uninviting’ me from their mayoral debate, due to my ‘racist and transphobic views’, while also being concerned about the danger of students being infected with Covid scepticism (or any scepticism, one suspects). 

‘The views that Barbara McKenzie brings encroach upon the safety of all of our students and staff here on campus. Her spread of misinformation, disinformation and mal-information around COVID-19 and vaccinations, as well as her racist and transphobic comments, are dangerous and harmful.’

No evidence was provided of ‘racist and transphobic comments’, and VUWSA has not replied to my inquiry for details, but it is apparent that such charges are based solely on my political views, not on any offensive wording.

Clearly the statement from VUWSA, and subsequent attention from the media, will make me the target of hate from ideologues, the disaffected and the bored; in short the world has become a more dangerous place.  The issue is therefore relevant to the mayoral campaign.   In the interest of transparency:

I confess to the following

I confess to a reluctance to speak on any issue without studying it carefully.

I confess that I adamantly oppose NZ’s abusive school programme, which bullies small children into feeling insecure about their gender (‘Imagine waking up one morning and discovering that your gender has changed‘), seeks to create racial hatred through critical race theory, and lies about the demographic status of polar bears.

I confess that I oppose allowing men who’ve declared that they’re women to ruin women’s sport.

I confess to being disgusted by the spiteful shaming by Wellington City Council of a pro-women’s group, by lighting up in rainbow colours the venue where they were holding a public meeting.

I confess that I oppose WCC’s undemocratic policy of progressing towards co-governance without input from voters.

As someone with knowledge of many languages and who has travelled widely, I confess to being totally mystified by the policy, unique to New Zealand, of promoting the Maori language by consciously and artificially hybridising English.

On 29 March 2020 Ashleigh Bloomfield told a press conference that ‘As we have seen around the world, Covid-19 CAN be a deadly disease – particularly for older people, and those with underlying pre-existing health issues’, a description echoed by Jacinda Ardern and others.  I confess to scepticism that such a disease justifies measures that impact severely and in multiple ways on the economy, jobs and businesses, the health system, human rights and children’s welfare, or justifies the ostracism of vaccine refusers.

In 2010 Glaxo Smith Kline pulled its Swine Flu Vaccine after a few month because of the injuries.   I confess to agreeing with GSK, many health professionals, and the facts of science, that vaccines are not always safe, effective and justified, and thus are open to scrutiny.  I maintain that denial of this fact is anti-intellectual cultism.

I confess to being gobsmacked by the wacky conspiracy theory, developed by Stuff and promoted by other media, that the bunch of women who ruled the Freedom Village at Parliament with a rod of iron and kept it immaculate, are somehow involved in plotting violent revolution.

I confess to opposing NZ and Wellington’s Zero Carbon by 2050 policy, given that: costs for NZ are estimated to exceed $550 billion, and assume huge sacrifices in terms of our economy, environment and quality of life; it will achieve nothing in view of the coal-fired power stations being built in Asia and elsewhere, and global activity generally; and Rod Carr has admitted that the Climate Commission has no convincing evidence that CO2 causes dangerous global warming other than a touching faith in the (debunked) ‘consensus of climate scientists’.

I confess to believing that WCC’s Significant Natural Area policy of expanding the city’s reserves at the expense of private land (regardless of significance) signifies an intention to expand the city’s reserves at the expense of private land.

I confess to be deeply concerned at the division and hatred created by pandering to the demands of the extremist elements of minority groups.  While minorities may benefit from measures that favour them, overall it makes the world a less safe place for them.  Virtue-signalers love the division; I hate it.

I confess to a suspicion that what VUWSA and other players find dangerous is dissent backed by facts and rational argument.

It will be up to courts, and the voters, to decide whether any of these sins amount to racism or transphobia.

See also:

VUWSA’s statement was smartly picked up Wellington Scoop, where it has attracted much comment. VUWSA excludes mayoral candidate from election debate