The Herald reports:

A cross-sector group of concerned citizens is urging the Government to reconsider its position on the proposed Gene Technology Bill.

Thousands are calling for a complete halt as the agricultural industry approaches the contentious bill with caution, warning there’s only one chance to get the legislation right. 

A petition by Lisa Er, founder of Lisa’s Hummus, was presented to Labour MP Deborah Russell at Parliament yesterday requesting work on the bill be paused.

Signed by at least 6058 people – including scientists, health professionals, and organic producers – the petition seeks to create a Royal Commission of Inquiry “into the health and safety of people and the environment on behalf of citizens”.

We have already had a Royal Commission into genetic engineering. It found it was safe, but the opponents ignored it. 30 years of actual deployment has not once turned up a safety issue. Those seeking another Royal Commission will ignore it if it doesn’t say what they want – it is just a delaying tactic.

Organic Aotearoa NZ commissioned the NZ Institute of Economic Research to conduct economic modelling on the bill’s effects in November last year.

The study estimated primary sector exports could lose up to $10-20 billion in value – roughly 40% of the agricultural export economy – from dropping NZ’s GMO-free status if the bill was passed.

LOL. Sure.

Has Australia suffered a 40% drop in earnings because of its regime? No.

The Herald reports:

Women should be prosecuted for having sex with monks, Thai politicians have proposed, after a nationwide scandal over an alleged “blackmailing seductress”.

At least nine monks have been disrobed for allegedly having sex with a woman accused of subsequently extorting them for millions.

A committee in the Senate has proposed amending the law to allow for the criminal prosecution of women who engage in sexual relations with monks.

The women are not the ones who take vows of chastity. Consensual sexual relations should rarely be criminalised, and if they are it should be the person breaching some duty of care. Prosecuting women who sleep with monks is like prosecuting students who sleep with their teachers!

Professor Phil Shane writes:

In 1972, Donella Meadows and a group of fellow Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists used a then-powerful computer to generate a global systems model of human activity. Using decades of global data, and trying alternative scenarios, they reached a simple conclusion: “If the present growth trends in world population, industrialisation, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next 100 years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.”

The work was published as the book Limits to Growth, which became a bestseller and was translated into many languages. Though widely dismissed in mainstream economics, subsequent analysis of the past 50 years of global data by independent researchers such as econometrician and sustainability researcher Gaya Herrington has shown the original study is robust.

It is not just dismissed by economists, but by reality. The book predicted a huge scarcity of resources, and that this would of course lead to massive price increases. It’s the same idea as peak oil. The Simon-Ehrlich wager in 1980 was on whether the prices of copper, chromium, nickel, tin and tungsten would increase or decrease. The book would have you believe they would all increase. Here’s what happened:

• Nickel feel by 7%
• Copper fell by 18%
• Chromium fell. by 49%
• Tin fell by 55%
• Tungsten fell by 65%

This is what you call reality.

The good news is that our economy requiring constant growth to avoid collapse is a social construct and is not based on the biophysical reality. We could find an alternative. It is time for governments, education and communities to have an adult conversation about the future.

The notion of a world without economic growth appeals to rich privileged people. What it actually means is hundreds of millions not lifted from absolute poverty. There are countries in the world that don’t have economic growth. Their citizens are desperate to get out.

Radio NZ reports:

Universities and legal experts say there is no need for a bill protecting free speech on campus.

But the legislation’s supporters say universities can’t be trusted to uphold freedom of expression. …

Whenever I hear an academic insist there are no problems with free speech on campuses, what they mean is that they personally don’t have any issues because their progressive views are in the majority. They remind me of white southerners in the US who insist there is no racism in the south because they have never experienced racism. Try being an academic who doesn’t hold majority views on campus, and you’ll have a vastly different view.

So academics who insist there is no free speech issue on campuses should be given as much regard as Europeans who insist there is no racism in New Zealand.

Tertiary Education Union co-president Julie Douglas told the committee there was a lack of evidence that universities were limiting free speech.

That is because the universities and the TEU go out of their way to prevent any evidence being gathered.

If the TEU really believed there was no evidence, then they would support the universities surveying all staff and students and asking them how free they feel to speak openly on campus. No university has ever ever done this, because it would be a disaster if the wrong results eventuated.

Canterbury University biological sciences professor Tammy Steeves told the committee should not be required to host any event or speaker. She said academics could judge whether ideas were robust and evidence-based.

They’re not. That is a misrepresentation. It is about whether universities should be able to veto or withdraw an invite made by an academic or a campus club. Massey tried to ban a politics club from hearing from Don Brash, for those who need a memory boost. And the arrogance of the idea that academics are the only ones who can judge if ideas are robust shows you why the law is so badly needed.

Geddis said maintaining a culture of free speech would be more effective than making laws.

If there was a culture of free speech, then I would agree with Geddis. But I disagree that there is, so a law change is needed.

If you wish to persuade me there is a culture of free speech, then again I challenge any university to survey their entire staff and student population on whether they do feel free to speak freely on campus. I’d love to see those results, and would be delighted if I was wrong and in fact only a minuscule proportion of academics and students don’t feel they can speak freely.

Radio NZ have managed to do what feels like a dozen stories about something which is totally benign, but they are trying to manufacture as a conspiracy.

All their articles push the lines that powerful alcohol lobbyists stopped a review of the safe drinking guidelines. The latest is here. They also use deceptive language to mislead such as:

Outdated alcohol guidelines put New Zealand out of step with modern research, but our health authorities are in no hurry to update them.

Who says they are outdated? An assertion reported as a fact.

In Canada, proposed guidelines for low-risk drinking set the weekly limit at two drinks.

Note the word I have bolded. The guidelines in Canada have not actually changed. They are insisting we change our guidelines based on what has been proposed (but not accepted) in Canada. They no doubt hope people don’t notice that key word. The guidelines they refer to were basically rejected by the Canadian Government.

Through documents he received through the Official Information Act (OIA), he found that Health NZ commissioned a review of the low-risk guidelines. But in October 2024, a lobbyist emailed Ross Bell, who is a manager in the Ministry of Health’s Public Health Agency, asking why Health NZ’s website said the guidelines were under review.

In December, following a second email which again asked about the review and also complained about mention of the Canadian guidelines on Health NZ-run website ‘alcohol.org.nz’, Bell emailed Health NZ saying “All work on this project will now pause. You will update relevant Health NZ websites to remove references to the review and also to other jurisdictions’ guidelines (including the Canadian one).”

I also have copies of the e-mails, and they are quite mundane. And Radio NZ fail to mention that the issue around mention of the Canadian guidelines is because they are not guidelines. They are proposed, not accepted. A correct description would be rejected.

Here is the initial e-mail from the staffer at the Brewers Association:

I was just on the alcohol.org.nz website and I noted there is an update stating the NZ Alcohol Guidelines are under review. Do you have any information on this process such as when was this work commissioned, a timeline and who is undertaking the review. 

Any information would be appreciated.

That was it? A government website said there was a review, and they knew nothing about it. So they simply just asked about the process, the timeline and who is doing the review? This is what Radio NZ would have you believe was inappropriate.

The MOH manager replied:

Let me follow up with Health NZ – this isn’t something on our work programme, and it’s probably a responsibility that should sit with the Ministry/Public Health Agency.

So the MOH manager said a review is their responsibility and it is not on their work programme. That was it. Health NZ is the delivery arm, and MOH the policy arm, so this is not a conspiracy, or some lobbying. It is just how the Government is organised.

The MOH manager further e-mailed to say:

I’ve talked with Health NZ (Health Promotion). They are undertaking a piece of work on Screening and Brief Interventions. To support this piece of work, they had thought that a refresh of the guidelines was in order.

I’ve advised them that it’s the Ministry’s responsibility to lead on any technical/clinical public health guidelines, so they are pausing that specific piece of work on the guidelines but are continuing the important SBI work, using current guidelines.

A refresh of the guidelines is not on our current alcohol levy-related work programme, which is something we would need to agree with relevant ministers anyway. I’ll let you know at future meetings if this changes.

So the MOH manager said he had followed up with Health NZ, any review would be done by the Ministry, and it is not on their work programme which would need to be agreed by Ministers.

Nowhere did the Brewers Association demand there be no review. Nowhere does MOH say they won’t do a review at some stage. They simply say it is not on their current work programme, which is agreed to by Ministers.

Perhaps Radio NZ thinks the Ministry of Health should be independent of government, and set a work programme based on what Radio NZ thinks they should be doing?

And the final e-mail from the Brewers Association to MOH was:

I just wanted to follow up on your email below as well as our previous discussions on the levy framework piece you were undertaking.

Firstly I know you mentioned we’d likely see something of the levy framework around now. I understand how these things can push out. Is that still a timeline we can expect or even prior to Christmas?

Asking a timeframe for a levy (which they pay!) review.

It was raised with me by one of our stakeholders that the Alcohol.org.nz website which hosts the NZ guidelines is still stating that they are under review. Given what you have noted below I was wondering why this was still stated as the case online.

So they noted that the website was still incorrect. Does Radio NZ think the website should state something that is false? They think it is bad that the MOH asked Health NZ to remove false information from their website?

Also, I see there is reference and a link to the recent CCSA publication, Which the site states “the following are more recent guidelines from other jurisdictions: ‘Canada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health’ “. While this information had been widely publicised. The Canadian official advise has not changed, nor does it reference this advice. I’m concerned the way it is presented on the Alcohol.org.nz site is somewhat misleading.

And again asking for the website to contain accurate information – that the Canadian proposed guidelines are not officially adopted, and shouldn’t be referred to as such.

In Canada there is an outfit called the Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse and Addiction. They have proposed new guidelines but the Government of Canada has not accepted their proposed guidelines.

This story shows the significant controversy over the CCSA proposed guidelines. They state:

While the CCSA is a federally-funded research organization, it is not a branch of the civil service. As such, its work does not automatically come with an official imprimatur. Rather, its reports have to be adopted by Health Canada or another department to become government policy. This was the case with its 2011 guidance. It is not the case with CCSA’s new report.

In response to a query from C2C, Yuval Daniel, director of communications for Ya’ara Saks, the federal minister of Mental Health and Addictions, stated that, “The Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse and Addiction’s proposed guidelines have not been adopted by the Government of Canada. Canada’s 2011 low-risk alcohol drinking guidelines remain the official guidance.”

Note of this has been mentioned by Radio NZ. Top the contrary they have falsely reported the CCSA proposed guidelines as official guidance.

I have quoted all the e-mails in full, except for salutations etc. Unlike Radio NZ, I don’t selectively edit them to appear conspirational.

The every useful Rates Report from NZTU shows how much rates have increased for each Council in the last three years, and the numbers are staggering. The 10 worst offenders are:

• West Coast Regional Council – 66%
• Greater Wellington Regional Council – 56%
• Taranaki Regional Council – 51%
• Queenstown-Lakes District Council – 50%
• Hastings District Council – 49%
• Central Otago District Council – 48%
• Wellington City Council – 47%
• Upper Hutt City Council – 47%
• Gore District Council – 47%
• Otago Regional Council – 46%

The breakdown by size of increase is:

• Over 50%: 4
• 40% to 50%: 15
• 30% to 30%: 35
• 20% to 30%: 21
• Under 20%: 3

Inflation over this period was 13.7%.

Here’s how the major cities compare:

• Auckland 21%
• Christchurch 24%
• Wellington 47%

Thanks Tory!

Curia recently did a poll in Christchurch. We asked four local questions:

1. Do residents think Christchurch is going in the right or the wrong direction
2. How they assess the performance of the Council
3. How they assess the performance of the Mayor
4. Who they would vote for in the Mayoral election

The results are on my paywalled Patreon.

Newsroom reports:

Tomorrow, Newsroom unveils the first story in Who Benefits, a year-long project, supported financially by a grant from The Integrity Institute, tracking and disclosing lobbying and influence.

This is a new development in NZ media. A lobby group (the Integrity Institute) has paid a dollop of cash to Newsroom, in exchange for Newsroom running a series of articles that support the mission of the Integrity Institute (which as far as I can tell is that lobbying is evil when done by anyone with a commercial stake in a decision, but is wonderful when done by anyone without a commercial stake).

This isn’t just giving a column or op ed space to a lobby group (which is common) but taking money from a lobby group in exchange for an editorial direction that they will run a year long series of articles.

Could you imagine the outcry if for example the NZ Initiative paid BusinessDesk to run a year long investigation into how bad regulations are harming NZ businesses. It would be the lead item on Mediawatch and decried as money undermining media.

I think Nicky Hager called it pay for play, which is ironic as I think he now works for the Integrity Institute.

Hang on, though. Isn’t Newsroom the subject of influence by accepting a grant from The Integrity Institute? 

Yes

Well, the institute partnership has provided funding, has suggested some places to look, but Newsroom has developed the subject areas, will be led by what we uncover and will retain full editorial control. Our team – Fox Meyer and me, David Williams – are reporting to Newsroom’s co-editors, not the institute, and we aim to show influence from all sides of policies.

Does anyone think that they would receive further grants, if the output doesn’t please the funders of the Integrity Institute (who pulled funding from VUW because VUW wouldn’t comply with their wishes)?

To argue that yes we are taking their money, and yes they have “suggested” where we focus, but hey this doesn’t compromise our independence is laughable. Even more ironically they are trying to make the case that money in politics has too much influence, while insisting that money in media has no influence at all! The hypocrisy is immense.

Their first article appeared on Thursday, and it is about freshwater policy. Over thousands of breathless words we discover that MFE and MPI spent around 60 hours in consultation meetings with every stakeholder you could think of. You and I might think this is actually a great example of government doing its job well. So what is the problem? Well of the 60 hours, 35 hours was spent meeting industry groups (farmers etc) and 25 hours meetings councils and NGOs. This it seems is terrible.

To me it is no surprise that slightly more time is spent with the groups and organisations that have to implement the regulations. They are the ones directly impacted and also often have the technical expertise of how a regulation on paper actually impacts things in the field.

NGOs with an interest in the policy issues should and do get consulted. But the number and duration of meetings should be based on need, not arbitrary criteria.

Radio NZ reports:

Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger is backing calls for the government to cap rates rises.

Mauger told RNZ he could not agree more.

“Everyone campaigns ‘ohh, we gotta stick to basics’, right? And then the first thing some of us do is go away and not stick to basics,” he said.

“We need to be stronger around the council table to say what’s basics. Now … someone’s basic might be someone else’s must have … but it’s good to have rates caps. I feel it’s good. I really do.”

He gets it.

If employees wish to purchase extra annual leave, then it should be at the standard 2% per week. The Reserve Bank is effectively giving staff an extra two weeks annual leave than the rest of the public service by offering three weeks extra leave for 2%.

There are 250 working days a year. A Reserve Bank staffer could do the following:

• 40 days annual leave
• 15 days wellness leave
• 12 days public holidays

So that is 67 days off, leaving just 187 they have to work. Of that 187 days, a third or more may be work from home.

No wonder they needed to triple their staff numbers!

Radio NZ reports:

Mt Albert MP Helen White could understand why some people opted to have it, but it was not for her: “I just think that I should live by my principles. Also I probably couldn’t afford it. I know I’m on a decent salary, but it’s a lot of money.” …

Labour MP Ginnie Andersen said health insurance was not in her budget: “By the time I pay my mortgage and my insurance and my rates and feed my children.”

It’s tough being in the top 1%. They have to survive on a package of:

• Salary $168,600
• Super subsidy $33,720
• Perks $6,300
• Allowances $22,300
• Total $230,920

It’s weird that Labour MPs complain that high earning NZers don’t pay enough tax, yet also complain that they can’t afford health insurance because they don’t have enough after tax income.

Simon O’Connor writes:

I was recently asked to give a talk at a New Zealand university, sharing my impressions of my recent trip to Israel and the Gaza envelope. It would have had a political and legal perspective to it (along with the ethical), so I would assume much discussion with those attending on the nature of the conflict; whether international law is being broken; what possible solutions are possible and feasible; and more.

I was happy to accept the invite but knew in the back of my mind that it was highly likely to be cancelled.

So, I was not surprised when an email came to me stating that because the topic and timing were sensitive, that the talk would be cancelled. At one level I chuckled, possibly due to being correctly prescient yet at another level, I was deeply disappointed – not for me, but our universities as a whole.

Yet the universities insist there is no problem!

If students and staff can’t handle a former MP discussing their first hand experiences and views of the Israel and Gaza conflict, then we don’t have freedom of speech on campus.

NZ First announced:

New Zealand First has today introduced a member’s bill which would make it law that government buildings can only display the official flag of New Zealand.

“Government buildings are for all New Zealanders and should not be hijacked to force cultural, woke, or divisive political ideology down the throats of others” says New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters.

“This legislation would ban symbols and flags of politically motivated ideology and division from being displayed on government buildings”.

“New Zealand First believes in one country, one people, one flag” says Mr Peters.

The “Display of Flags (Government Premises) Bill” would restrict flags being displayed on Crown buildings, local authority properties, and state schools to the official flag of New Zealand.  Only in specific circumstances could an officially recognised flag of another country or territory being hosted on official business be displayed.

This bill would make it illegal for Government House to show the royal flag, when the King is in residence. It would also stop the vice-regal flag being shown.

Schools would not be able to host the flags of other countries as part of their educational programme.

No government building could display a sporting flag (such as the All Blacks Silver Fern) as part of an official victory parade.

It would also prevent the New Zealand Red Ensign, the New Zealand White Ensign, the Royal New Zealand Air Force Ensign and the New Zealand Civil Air Ensign from being used.

Local authorities would no longer be allowed to display their official city flags.

The Olympics flag would also be banned.

So really this is a very silly bill.

Radio NZ reports:

Canada has agreed to allow access for New Zealand dairy products following a long running trade dispute, Trade Minister Todd McClay says.

Dairy exporters had been blocked from the Canadian market, despite the move being in breach of the CPTPP trade agreement.

On Friday morning McClay announced an agreement had been reached.

He says Canada has committed to making changes to its dairy quotas which will deliver up to $157 million to New Zealand dairy exporters.

This shows the values of trade agreements with a process to resolve disputes. It allows small countries like NZ to force larger countries to follow the rules they signed up to.

A few weeks ago, in this Post, I listed but a small fraction of the less consequential lies the Mainstream Media have told about President Donald Trump. Today I will cover a shorter list of:

MORE CONSEQUENTIAL LIES

1 – Russia collusion

False media narrative

After Trump’s shock win in the 2016 Presidential election, it was alleged that his campaign was assisted by the Russians who it was said preferred that he win over Hillary Clinton. This support was said to be overt and covert – overt in the use of Russian bots to influence social media with pro Trump/anti Hillary ads on Facebook paid for by Russian interests. Covert in alleged ties between the Trump campaign and the Russians that were allegedly first detailed in the so-called Steele Dossier, so named after the British MI6 agent Christopher Steele who wrote a report alleging how Trump was compromised by Russian intelligence partly because he was alleged to have been caught on camera in a Moscow hotel cavorting with Russian prostitutes (the so-called “Pee Tape” for reasons you can guess). This dossier was used by then FBI Director James Comey to persuade the FISA Court (a secret court needed to authorise any spying on US Nationals on US soil) to issue an interception warrant for the Trump campaign and organisation. Inferences of Russian interference and taint by repeated allegation led to a series of incidents that shackled Trump 45’s Presidency for the first two years: the early resignation of Michael Flynn as NSA Director, Attorney General Geoff Sessions standing down in the investigation due to a conversation with the Russian Ambassador and the relentless drumbeat by Trump’s opponents, amplified loudly and incessantly by the MSM, that Trump was a secret Russian agent, that his victory was only of because of the Russian aid and that he was in effect Putin’s puppet. Trump had to endure a lengthy and extensive Special Counsel investigation led by former FBI Director Bob Mueller who found no criminal conspiracy between Trump, his campaign and the Russians.

Truth

Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential election campaign was proven to be isolated to a handful of Facebook ads targeting swing voters with the sums in the low hundreds of thousands. Against the backdrop of a total campaign spend of over $2 billion, this miniscule amount could’ve barely swayed a tiny handful of votes. The source of the rumour was traced, eventually unearthed fully, by the later Special Counsel John Durham (a former DOJ Federal Prosecutor) where it was proven that not only was the Steele dossier fabricated (along with the Pee Tape) but that the company that commissioned and paid for the dossier (Fusion GPS) was hired and funded by Perkins Coe, at the time the official attorneys for the Clinton campaign and a long time luminary in Democrat politics. Furthermore, it was unearthed that Obama CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey knew in advance that the Steele dossier was fabricated and yet they not only used it as the pretext to illegally spy on the Trump campaign but used it as the imprimatur to manipulate intelligence community heavyweights which in turn gave credence to the widely reported Russia collusion hoax by the MSM. The whole Russia Collusion narrative, that utterly and completely dominated media coverage of Trump for years, was built on a tissue of lies fabricated by his political opponent (Clinton and behind her Obama as he had to authorize the illegal surveillance) to hamstring and hamper the early period of Trump 45’s Presidency.

Consequence

The impact of the Russia Collusion hoax was mammoth. It affected who Trump could successfully nominate to key roles forcing him to turn to anti Trump insiders who were nominally and barely supportive. It hung over Congressional Republicans as the narrative was strong enough to affect the outcome of the 2018 mid-term elections seeing the GOP lose control of the House opening the way to the eventual Trump impeachments, another event that greatly overshadowed the 2^nd half of his first term in office. Even after being finally refuted by the Durham report, it still was a by-line uttered by Trump haters for many years influencing how moderate Democrats and Independents viewed Trump. The Russia Collusion hoax has a very modern repercussion, that of the recent announcement that the FBI have commenced an investigation of James Comey and John Brennan. Given what they actually knew and what they did illegally to Trump, given Trump’s propensity for extracting revenge for all the Democrat lawfare unleashed on him, he will be hoping that criminal indictments will eventually follow and frankly they are deserved. Only days ago Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified some of the Crossfire Hurricane documents that appear to implicate Obama, Comey, Brennan and Hillary Clinton in concocting the entire fake Russia narrative by deliberately altering the official intelligence report on possible Russian interference in the 2016 election from a finding of minute, inconsequential involvement to the full blown Russian interference narrative that was then peddled relentlessly. Prediction: this will not end well for anyone involved in this treasonous attempt to destroy Trump 1^st term.

2 – Hunter Biden laptop   

False media narrative

In the summer of 2020, one of Trump’s attorneys, former New York City Mayor Rudi Guiliani, was tipped off by a Delaware computer repair shop of the contents of a laptop owned by Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. Delaware, then Federal, law enforcement was advised and they came and picked up the hard drive but a copy was made and Giuliani gave a copy to the right leaning New York Post who published some of the explosive findings three weeks out from the 2020 election. The full contents of the laptop were also downloaded by internet sleuths the Bortnick brothers who published the entire contents on their Marco Polo App. Immediately the Deep State swung into action and took the following unprecedented steps to suppress it:

• They persuaded 51 former intelligence operatives (the bulk of whom had worked for Democrat Administrations or were RINO Republicans) who uniformly claimed in a letter they all signed that the laptop contents bore all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.
• Left leaning social media magnates like Twitter 1.0’s Jack Dorsey, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook and Instagram) and Alphabet’s Sundar Pickel (Google and You Tube) all agreed to co-operate with specially assigned FBI and CIA agents manning dedicated portals to first block the dissemination of the NYP story and eventually to remove the Tweets and other social media references to it.
• This draconian intervention went so far as to target any and all social media posts by private citizens that tried to reference or link to the article or even mention Hunter Biden’s laptop with blocks, shadow bans, suspensions and demonetisations. These combined efforts of US Federal Government agencies to silence the 1^st Amendment free speech rights of their own citizens were unprecedented.
• The MSM were unrelenting supporters of the official ‘Russian disinformation’ narrative and were completely happy with the suspension of civil rights and freedom of speech if it meant Trump would lose.

Truth

Anyone who has had the opportunity to examine the contents of the laptop (I have had a reasonable look over) will know that it spelt dynamite to Joe Biden’s close electoral chances in 2020. On top of Hunter’s seedy prostitute and drug filled antics caught on film, there was plenty of damning evidence of the Biden family ‘pay to play’ corruption in China and Ukraine where a low life like Hunter was wined, dined, placed on boards and paid millions for no other reason than he was the son of Obama’s then Vice President. Any decent investigative journalists, had they been able to report their work without censorship, would’ve been able to connect some very ugly dots in the run up to the 2020 election. As it turned out, the truth came out officially when the FBI admitted under oath in Federal Court that the laptop was real and NOT Russian disinformation. A few of the ‘gang of 51’ have given halfhearted mealy mouthed non-apology apologies whilst the bulk have remained utterly silent on their big lie and almost no one in the MSM has been bold enough to call these crooks out on their lies.

Consequence

The combined social media, intelligence agency and MSM action to bury a story so damaging to Biden only weeks out from the Presidential election can be very accurately described as election interference. American voters’ free speech rights were deliberately taken away to benefit the electoral fortunes of one candidate (Biden) over the other candidate (Trump). A poll was taken after the truth of the laptop was widely acknowledged asking if Biden voters would’ve changed their vote for Biden had they known about the contents of the laptop and a shocking 15% said they would. Given Biden won by only 44,000 votes across three key battleground states, a margin of less than 1%, this was a most consequential lie.

3 – 2020 Elections were fair – no court finding of fraud

False media narrative

Trump perpetuated the “Big Lie” that the 2020 election had been stolen from him. I have written much on the topic of the 2020 election fraud in January 2021 so I don’t propose to re-litigate this topic for now except to say that a frequent media refrain has been that the best evidence that Trump lost the 2020 election fair and square was that, despite all the various courts that heard election fraud cases brought by Trump and Republicans, none ruled in his favour. The media have reported this narrative over and over and it too is a lie.

Truth

Whilst a number of courts had election fraud litigation lodged, of the 88 cases filed, the vast majority were never actually heard. All of the large, substantive election integrity cases brought by Trump and Republicans, were dismissed by mostly partisan Democrat judges WITHOUT A SINGLE PIECE OF EVIDENCE BEING PRESENTED for spurious and flimsy reasons such as lack of standing (as if Trump lacks standing to litigate his own election!) or out of time (despite being told that they couldn’t file earlier because it was too early!). 24 (or 28% of the total cases) of the less significant election fraud cases were actually fully heard and of THOSE cases, 75% of the courts ruled in Trump’s favour and in some jurisdictions, some modifications were made to electoral procedures and even laws. I did a whole detailed Post on this topic where there are links to every single election integrity case filed and the details of the outcomes. The narrative that painted Trump’s views on the 2020 election as the “Big Lie” was itself a lie. Some time during Trump 2^nd term, a Special Counsel will be empowered to finally litigate, view and hear ALL the evidence of the 2020 election fraud that to date, has NOT seen the inside of a courtroom ….YET.

4 – Neo-Nazis as “fine people”

False media narrative

On August 12, 2017 an avowed neo Nazi and white supremacist Alex Fields deliberately drove into a group of people protesting at a Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, North Carolina (held to oppose proposals to pull down a statue of Confederate leader Robert E Lee) killing one person and injuring 35 others.  The MSM and Trump’s political opponents immediately accused him of calling the white supremacists “very fine people” igniting a massive wave of liberal and media outrage and protest. It became an article of faith on the left that Trump defended neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Three years later during the 2020 election campaign, Biden tweeted the hoax yet again.

Truth

At a press conference three days later, President Trump was questioned about the incident and specifically the neo Nazis and said, “you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides”. When questioned further, Trump clarified that his comment about “very fine people” did NOT apply to the white supremacists. Trump was clear on how unacceptable their behaviour was. Even prominent mostly liberal leaning ‘Fact Checkers’ like USA Today, Snopes and Politifact accurately portrayed the totality of Trump’s comments and described the claims that Trump called the white supremacists “very fine people” as inaccurate. The MSM and the liberal left have long held the view that Trump is racist and this mischaracterisation was too good to be true for his opponents to pass it up and so it has lingered for some time.

5 – Jan 6 was an insurrection

This topic is way too huge for me to cover in a short couple of paragraphs so look for a dedicated post on the entire raft of false narratives over January 6, 2021.

6 – Robert F Kennedy Jr is anti-vaccine

False media narrative

RFK has been portrayed by the MSM as an anti-vax conspiracy theorist and all the negative connotations that go along with that accusation.

Truth

Kennedy has been largely pro-vaccine all his life but he has challenged ubiquitous vaccine programmes and childhood mandates by saying that not all vaccines are safe for all people. He is very big on safety and wants to ensure that vaccines are properly and thoroughly tested and vetted for safety before authorisation. He contends (rightly) that the safety testing for some vaccines has not been as vigourous and lengthy as they should be and that Big Pharma have used their power and influence over the regulatory process and this has seen some vaccines come to market too soon or maybe some that never should’ve have been approved at all based on larger than acceptable adverse reactions. You can be against unsafe vaccines and still support the concept of vaccination and to support the research, development and approval of truly safe and effective vaccines. Much of JFK’s [edit RFK Jr] nuanced view on vaccines has been chopped up and selectively quoted by the MSM to make his position to be more extreme than it is.

7 – DOGE will cut Social Security and Medicaid

False media narrative

Ever since Trump began to fulfill his oft stated campaign promise to properly cut Federal government waste, fraud and abuse (something many conservative politicians have promised but have only ever tinkered around the edges of) by repurposing the Obama era US Digital Service into the Department of Government Efficiency, when Trump hired Elon Musk to bring in some tech industry leaders and their brightest savant analysts to truly examine the operations of the Federal government with the view to saving billions, all hell has broken loose on the left. Customised algorithms, written to troll through numerous government operations that consume vast sums of US taxpayer dollars such as their retirement benefit programme Social Security and the two Federal government healthcare programmes (Medicaid for the working poor and Medicare for retirees), unearthed staggering amounts of fraud. Once Trump began to cut deep into the fraud and abuse, immediately Democrats (and their shills in the MSM) began a drumbeat of accusations that Trump was cutting people’s Social Security and Medicaid. Social Security is somewhat of a third rail in US politics (much like National Super in NZ or the NHS in the UK), a much beloved policy from the Roosevelt era and traditionally you tinker with it at your political peril. Democrats hoped that scaremongering over SS and Medicaid would curtail DOGE’s investigations and stop Trump from implementing changes.

Truth

The only expenditure that the Trump administration has cut from SS and Medicaid has been the billions paid to millions of people receiving these benefits fraudulently. DOGE discovered over 3 million SS numbers still operational for people over 120 years old! Of these numbers, there were SS benefits still being fraudulently paid in the name of deceased people sometimes for decades after their death due to the woeful internal systems at the Social Security Administration. DOGE eventually cancelled 3.2 million SSNs for people over 120 years old and stopped the SS payments in the millions. Apparently, it was possible to change the bank account number into which SS was paid over the phone with no verification so fraudsters would wait until a loved one died and change the bank account and the SSA had no way to match death records with active SSNs. Also embedded in this massive pile of dead people’s SSNs were illegals who rorted the system to get fraudulent SS cheques. So yes, Trump is making cuts to Social Security but only by cutting out the billions in fraudulent payments to crooks and illegals using existing SSNs to defraud the system. Americans totally voted for that because it preserves the viability of SS for whom the system was intended…..lawful US citizens.

Over at Medicaid the problem was just as massive (as in billions wasted) except that the fraud was mostly by illegal immigrants obtaining free heath care on the US taxpayer. This was usually done in Democrat controlled states (many so-called sanctuary states that grant protections and benefits to illegals) one of which is access to Medicaid which, whilst Federally funded, is administered at the state level so as to dovetail with individual state’s health benefits for the poor. Previously, even prior Republican administrations allowed Medicaid to reimburse any state’s burgeoning Medicaid bill (budgets blowing out because of funding healthcare for illegals) but Trump has put a stop to all the Medicaid funding of illegals by blocking the reimbursements to states which is used to cover their generosity to illegal immigrants. Now states that persist in this must do so from state funds which means either big state tax hikes or curtailments in programmes for illegals. So yes, Trump is cutting Medicaid ….. but only to those who were receiving it illegally. Any deserving poor who are US citizens, their benefits remain untouched but the MSM are more reluctant to publish that truth than to parrot Democrat false claims of across-the-board cuts.

8 – Salvadorean illegal as innocent “Maryland father”

False media narrative

In March 2025, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran illegal immigrant living in Maryland, was deported to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center. The media and prominent Democrats portrayed him as a dedicated father and husband who was legally protected from deportation since 2019 due to rival gang threats back home. Social media and Democratic leaders, including Senator Chris Van Hollen, slammed the move as cruel, accusing the administration of ripping apart a family, including Garcia’s autistic son, without due process and visited him in the Salvadorean jail in a photo op stunt.

Truth

Garcia’s claim of lack of due process was fake news. In April 2019, the US Department of Justice Immigration Review Court heard an appeal to his deportation status and declined the appeal due to his known gang affiliation, danger to others and flight risk. That case was his due process. In March 2025, the Department of Homeland Security Investigative Referral Unit not only detailed his MS 13 gang affiliation but referred to his years earlier interrogation by Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) on suspicion of human trafficking as he was driving a van full of 8 Latino adults with no luggage. The weak DHS under Biden authorised the THP to release Garcia. His MS 13 gang affiliation had first been documented by the Gang Unit of the Prince George County Police where his clique was identified. This “Maryland Father” was also accused by his wife of domestic violence and in March 2021, she filed a Domestic Protection Order with Prince George County Court. And finally, the issue that had caused a previous court to notate his file that there was fear of his life from retaliation by a rival gang in El Salvador, since the election of President Bukele, his tough on crime agenda has effectively wiped out not just MS13 in El Salvador but also the rival gang Garcia claimed to be afraid of! MSM reporting of Garcia’s deportation pathetically frequently repeated the “Maryland Man’ mantra as if he was some innocent by-stander caught up in Trump’s “vicious” anti-illegal sweeps and almost none of the legacy media reported the truth, that he was in the country illegally, he got his due process in the Immigration Court hearing, he was part of the notorious violent MS13 gang that Trump had vowed to expel, he was a known human trafficker and a wife and child beater. Democrats, and their media allies, did their popularity no favours championing so aggressively the cause of someone so disreputable. Sadly, there have been dozens of violent illegals deported as Trump promised who the media have also similarly portrayed as “a Brooklyn mother” or “humble farm worker” (when illegals were arrested for employing child labour on a marijuana growing operation in California just last week). The media are determined to lie continuously about ICE and DHS carrying out Trump’s popular campaign promise to expel violent criminal illegals first.

9 – Trump’s cuts led to drownings in Texas

False media narrative

After the horrendous flooding in Kerr County, Texas (north of Austin) on July 4^th where over 100 people perished including dozens of school children at a camp, various MSM operatives, including no less than ABC’s flagship interviewer George Stephanopoulos, hot off losing his network $15 million for slandering Trump, proceeded to tell his audience that these awful losses were all Trump’s fault because of his recent cuts to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that led to staffing shortages and insufficient warning.

Truth

I’ll leave the truth to be told by a Trump hating Democrat with knowledge of the relevant agency in Texas in charge of the weather monitoring.

“These are the facts. The National Weather Service issued its first flood watch on Thursday July 3^rd. Just after midnight on July 4^th the NWS issued a second food watch and 1 hour later at 1am they upgraded that flood watch to a flood warning which would’ve triggered automatic alert tones to every owner of a mobile phone in the affected flood plain. Then, at 4am July 4^th they declared a flood emergency and the Guadalupe River reached its crest at 4.30am. Normally on a holiday weekend there are two forecasters on duty but on this weekend, there were FIVE forecasters. So, as you can see, there was no shortage of warnings and no shortage of forecasting capability … you know how I feel about that creature in the White House but politicizing a national disaster and trying to place blame where none is due just makes us look bad.”

Conclusion

This last example is a picture child of everything that is wrong with the MSM. The instant rush to judgment to find anything to blame Trump and make him look bad, the utter incuriosity of reporters to check facts with relevant authorities and find out the TRUTH, the blatant politicising of a tragedy and the shameless telling of a lie, any lie, to make Trump look bad.

And so this goes on, day after day, month after month, year after year. I’ve highlighted but a few but you get the gist. The media loathing of Trump has become blatant, personal, partisan, vicious and relentless and it’s getting worse not better. And yet still some of you reading this blog, perhaps even David himself, continue to despise Trump perhaps rationalising to yourself that he deserves all this biased negative coverage. But at what point do you realize that MAYBE PERHAPS SOME of what you believe about Trump is because of the relentless drum of media negativity. Surely, you rationalise, with so much ubiquitous negativity, some of it must be true. Trump is not without flaws. He’s bombastic, inartful, sharp tongued, vengeful at times, has an inflated sense of his own importance, is full of braggadocio and exaggeration, uses hyperbole constantly and, like, almost all politicians, tells outright lies. But he has accomplished more in the first 6 months of his 2^nd term than many two term Presidents managed to accomplish in total!

The media opposition to Trump is now counterproductive and is backfiring and boomeranging. More and more people see the blatant bias and are switching off from MSM sources all around the world and embracing newer media outlets prepared to be more balanced or give the other side. For those of you who still despise Trump, I would invite you to do the following: the next time the MSM report on Trump, remember this long list of lies, some of them consequential, and ask yourself, “am I getting a fair assessment of the facts?” Perhaps think, “I’ve trusted the MSM all my life but could it possibly be true that they have become so biased, so oppositional, so compromised that they can no longer be trusted? And if they can’t be trusted any more, who can I trust?”

In today’s hyper-polarised political world, there are very few truly unbiased and respected commentators of US politics but I am going to give you two names of people who you cannot tell which way they vote. The first is Mark Halperin, host of the Next Up podcast and his own TV show 2 Way TV. He can be found on You Tube, X and the 2Way App. He is one of the few down the middle unbiased, experienced but extremely well-connected commentators. The second is John Solomon of J Solomon Reports and founder of Just the News, again on the internet, X and You Tube. He’s a former journalist at the AP, WaPo and The Hill.  I’d like to give an honourable mention to former Rolling Stone Political Editor Matt Taibbi, formerly a pretty solid lefty now much more centrist and nuanced and very good on the left’s war on free speech.

If people want to hear centre right/conservative viewpoints, the best sources are:

Cable/internet: Newsmax, Real America’s Voice, a few Fox News hosts are solidly conservative (Jesse Waters, Sean Hannity, Greg Gutfield, ) otherwise Fox can still be pretty anti Trump.

Media platforms: Megan Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck – The Blaze, Mollie Hemingway (The Federalist).

Podcasts/Shows: Joe Rogan, Charlie Kirk (TPUSA), Vince Coglianese, Dave (x22 Report), Dinesh D’Souza, Tom Fitten (Judicial Watch), Steven Crowther.

Substack: Brian Cates (Rise of New Media), Julie Kelly, Captain Seth Keshel (election integrity expert). All three are also on X.

X (Twitter): DC Draino (Rogan O’Handley), Clandestine, Data Republican.

We are reaching a tipping point with the MSM. Almost all face declining ratings, some precipitously, and whilst government funded MSM sources can soldier on oblivious to the ratings impact of their blatant biases because most governments, even on the centre-right, are fearful of making massive cutbacks and so will still pour money down unprofitable government owned media sinkholes. For the privately owned MSM, things are more dire. In the coming months, I predict that JFK Jr [edit RFK Jr] will announce the implementation of a policy that he campaigned on (and I believe Trump supports him on), and that is to ban all media advertising of pharmaceutical drugs. The impact of this policy will be devastating. Most visual broadcast media get over 70% of their advertising revenue from Big Pharma, slightly less in major print media. These outlets are already hemorrhaging due to falling ratings, this ban will be the death knell for a number of well-known long-standing media titles. The amalgamations that will follow, at the hands of less ideological owners, may be the only way we seem some balance return to the MSM. Their myriads of lies about Trump will come to haunt those who drove the editorial decisions to abandon impartiality and defeat Trump at all costs. And maybe, just maybe, with exposure to more balanced media, we might see fewer cases of TDS.

The Post reports:

School principals hope a new Crown agency to handle their combined $30 billion property portfolio will mean fewer pre-fabs and more permanent classrooms.

The establishment of New Zealand School Property Agency (NZSPA) was announced by Education Minister Erica Stanford at Auckland’s Northcross Intermediate School on Friday.

It’s a major move that will take the expensive operation of building, procuring, delivering and maintaining billions of dollars of assets out of the Ministry of Education’s hands. New Zealand has than 2000 state schools and 16,000 school buildings – which in 2024 cost taxpayers $1.7b in capital investment.

Rolleston College principal Rachel Skelton said it’s “a really good thing” if the new agency means more schools get new classrooms quicker.

A dedicated agency for a $30 billion property portfolio makes a lot of sense.

The advisory group establishing the agency includes the following:

• A Chair of a territorial authority holdings company
• A former CEO of infrastructure for Fletcher Building
• A former director Naylor Love, one of the largest privately owned construction companies in New Zealand
• A CFO for a global education delivery and consultancy company
• A former chair of Precinct Properties

With respect, I have more confidence in their ability to put together a competent entity to manage school property, than I do in the Ministry of Education.

Shayne Currie reports:

A contentious, part-taxpayer-funded documentary on Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick – due for release more than a year ago – is still months away from a cinematic and TV release, almost four years after more than $200,000 in public money was approved.

It is bad enough that taxpayers have had to fork out $200,000 for a propaganda film about Chloe. But after insisting it would be timed to avoid the 2023 election, we now find out they will probably be showing it within a year of the 2026 election. If that isn’t election interference, what is?

Everyone knows that this documentary will in no way be balanced or critical, but will be a hagiography about how amazing Chloe is, because she managed to be selected by Green Party delegates to a winnable list place and then won an electorate seat.

One could make a more compelling case for a documentary about another young MP who didn’t come in on a party list, managed to win an electorate in his early 30s, passed a major societal law change with cross-party support, resurrected his party from 0.5% popular support to almost 10%, and eventually rose to be Deputy Prime Minister.

Now do you think a taxpayer funded documentary on the latter young MP would be universally flattering and sycophantic, or would it be deeply critical?

The Herald reports:

ANZ has declined a proposed settlement by lawyers leading a massive class action against the bank for giving customers the wrong information about their loans.

The lawyers asked ANZ to agree to pay a penalty of up to $300 million, on top of the $35m it has already paid more than 100,000 customers to compensate them for an error made nearly a decade ago.

ANZ responded in a letter, saying the sum sought was so high that the bank could not reasonably be expected to agree to it.

It called the offer a “stunt” – a “misguided” and “cynical attempt to influence the law reform process currently before Parliament”.

It’s the retrospective law change that is misguided and cynical.

The banks have claimed that the cost of the class action law suit could cost many billions of dollars. If they really believe that, they should jump at a chance to settle for just $300 million.

The proposed change is controversial because it applies to the past. 

The Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill attempts to ensure the law pre-2019 aligns with the law post-2019.

Another contentious element of the bill, introduced by Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Scott Simpson, is that it specifically says it will apply to the ANZ/ASB case.

It is more outrageous than controversial. The lawsuit is over five years olds. To have Parliament change the law specifically to affect the outcome of a case before the courts is a terrible precedent.

NZ First deputy leader Shane Jones said his party would take advice before deciding whether to support the bill being passed into law in its current state.

“I wouldn’t want to jump to any conclusion, but it’s a very, very bad constitutional practice to summarily change people’s rights unless there is a compelling case,” Jones said.

Shane Jones is right.

The Herald reports:

Sky TV is buying financially troubled TV3 (Three) for $1 in a seismic media move that pits it in a new battle royale with TVNZ.

The deal, announced by publicly listed Sky TV to the NZX at 8.30am today, will see the exit from New Zealand of US giant Warner Bros Discovery in the free-to-air television space.

Sky will take all of the Three (TV3), ThreeNow and Eden brands and platforms – officially as of Friday next week, August 1.

This is a very smart move by Sky. I suspect they will remain long-term owners of Three, which has been a challenging standalone broadcaster since it launched.

It launched in 1989, and went into receivership. A ban on foreign ownership over 15% stopped NBC from increasing its stake. Then Westpac owned it as a creditor, and they sold it in part to Canwest in 1997. Then in 2007 it went to Ironbridge Capital and in 2020 sold to Discovery. And now it is sold to Sky NZ.

As I said, I can’t see Sky NZ selling it. As a domestic broadcaster they are here for the long haul.