Articles in ‘Current Affairs’

Lady Deborah Chambers is a New Zealand Queen's Counsel specialising in relationship property and trusts law. The emergency legislation in response to Covid-19 giving our Government the right to control our freedom of movement is no longer demonstrably justified in removing the fundamental rights to which New Zealanders are entitled. · The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 provides in section 18 that everyone lawfully in New Zealand has the…

Mat, a Steel Mill worker and father of three talks about vaccine mandates, and making a stand to protect his children's future. Is free-choice free when it jeopardises the life that your family have and the future that you dream of? · Trueworks is a collaboration of filmmakers scattered around New Zealand, dedicated to capturing and sharing the true stories of real New Zealanders living courageously in these challenging times.

Despite the misinformation spread by the nation's media, the Freedom movement is not an anti-vax movement. It is a pro-choice, anti-authoritarian movement. And as New Zealand's freedom fighters descended on Wellington on December 16, 2021, their message could not have been clearer – It's time the government of our country takes its hands off our freedoms. · Trueworks is a collaboration of filmmakers scattered around New Zealand, dedicated to…

Groundswell NZs main focus continues to be on the unworkable regulations impacting the rural sector. Like increasing numbers of New Zealanders, farmers have felt badly maligned by this current government and its policies. Like the protestors in Wellington we also have been ignored by the Government and called denigrating names. We can empathize with their frustration. · Whether you agree or not with the people protesting on parliament grounds…

Disturbing images from Parliament, where protestors are being arrested, strike a frightening tone for Kiwis' free speech, says Jonathan Ayling, Free Speech Union Spokesperson. “Convoy 2022, which gathered on the lawn of Parliament in opposition to the Government's vaccine mandates on Tuesday has been clearly out of line in many ways, and beyond the pale of free speech. Yet, their right to peacefully gather in front of their House of…

Last October, Free to Be Church, a group of NZ Church leaders, announced that they would be challenging the NZ government in the courts regarding religious freedom and COVID restrictions. With the implementation of the traffic light regime, things have become worse and the need to address this matter more pressing. “The government has not made the process easy so far,” says spokesperson Logan Hagoort. “Our lawyers reached out to the Hon. Chris…

Dr Garth Cooper has devoted his career to helping fellow Māori but he now finds himself in the gun over his opinions about science and indigenous knowledge. Graham Adams reports from the front lines of the culture wars. New Zealanders like their heroes talented and modest and preferably devoted to public service as well. Sir Edmund Hillary is the exemplar of that breed and very few have the mana he enjoys in our collective consciousness. ·…

A Government that ignores reasoned opposition from local government by imposing 50/50 iwi-council co-governance through its Three Waters Plan is yet another step closer to a dictatorship, Hobson’s Pledge spokesman Don Brash said today. A Government that ignores reasoned opposition from local government by imposing 50/50 iwi-council co-governance through its Three Waters Plan is yet another step closer to a dictatorship, Hobson’s Pledge…

New Zealand is shifting to a new period in our Covid response. We are no longer pursuing a strategy of elimination. We need to rethink our economic strategy. National has today released ‘Back in Business’ – the plan that we believe the Government should be implementing immediately, given the unwelcome return of Covid into the community. · National believes the business sector should play a much bigger role in our Covid response. As we head…

You may have missed it but the Water Services Act that became law a week ago quietly added to legislation water “partnership” while establishing a framework “to provide transparency about the performance of drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater networks and network operators”. · Water “partnership” was legalised by a “Te Mana o te Wai” clause, that functions like a Treaty clause in other legislation, to enable the “Treaty partner” to…