Tag Archives: Act_Party

Treaty of Waitangi

Seymour gets a clear message from Ngāpuhi at Waitangi: Mics snatched, backs turned

2 Comments

Turning their backs, a clear message it’s said, to stop talking and sit down. “We’ve always heard sentiments from our elders to be mindful and to be careful of the messages our children hear. Our tamariki were there, and they were watching.”

Stuff reports that there was hui by Ngāpuhi up to even the night before Seymour’s party arrival. They resorted at the very last minute to the lesser option for the reception given. Plan one had been to march them onto the marae, then march them straight back off without letting them speak at all.

Much criticism and talk around this silencing of Seymour, however, think about your opportunities given by them for speaking at their various venues and ‘consultations’. At local council it is a mere few minutes, and time up is time up with little if any feedback as to whether your concerns are taken on board. Same when making submissions. The entire system is not geared for dialogue. Your voice is very very limited.

From Stuff, NZ’s MSM

“We were expecting fireworks around Waitangi commemorations, and indeed they came. David Seymour, the man behind the Treaty Principles Bill, made his way onto the Treaty Grounds on Wednesday, where he was heckled, had his microphone taken away and had hosts literally turn their backs on him. Senior political correspondent Jenna Lynch was there. “| Subscribe: https://bit.ly/2JPg8oB Read more: For full coverage visit http://www.Stuff.co.nz Subscribe to our channel: https://bit.ly/2JPg8oB

 

 

NZ Government

The Regulatory Standards Bill that Act has tried 4 times prior to introduce, is currently flying under the radar

2 Comments

Note: submissions close Monday 13 January … thanks to  Steve Snoopman for alerting me to this …

“Attempts to introduce the legislation in 2006, 2009 and 2011 failed. Commentators at the times recognised the intentions of the Business Roundtable to introduce a legal straitjacket. It is of huge concern that this legislation which has been rebuffed four times as being a dangerous constitutional shift is practically guaranteed passage.”
Noel O’Malley, Lawyer

Two articles on topic:

  1. From the Otago Daily Times … by lawyer Noel O’Malley:

Is anybody taking notice of the Regulatory Standards Bill?

A draft Bill put out for consultation late last year has Noel O’Malley somewhat concerned.

Such is the attention being paid to the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, now before the justice select committee, it seems very little attention is being paid to the Regulatory Standards Bill now open for consultancy*.

Submissions on the Bill will close on January 13, one week after they close on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill.

Presumably, it will then be referred to the House for a first reading.

David Seymour, the sponsor of the Bill, claims the low wages experienced in New Zealand are caused by low productivity, which in turn is caused by “poor legislation”.

The answer, he claims, will be found in the Regulatory Standards Bill.

For those not familiar with the content of this Bill, a lot of backstory is required.

The Regulatory Standards Bill was conceived by the (then) Business Roundtable (now the New Zealand Initiative).

Act New Zealand has made four attempts to introduce a version of this Bill since 2006, failing each time, as under scrutiny, its dangerous consequences became clear.

Commentators at the times recognised the intentions of the Business Roundtable to introduce a legal straitjacket.

Attempts to introduce the legislation in 2006, 2009 and 2011 failed.

Likewise a Bill to this effect, introduced by Seymour in 2021, with the support of the National Party, was condemned as a dangerous constitutional shift undermining public and collective rights and threatening parliamentary sovereignty.

This recognises the ideology of Act in place of alternative principles embodied in Te Tiriti, international obligations, community wellbeing together with climate and environmental protections.

Passage of the Bill is contained in the Act Policy Programme, which, under the National-Act coalition agreement, National has agreed to support, unlike the Treaty Principles Bill.

It is of huge concern that this legislation which has been rebuffed four times as being a dangerous constitutional shift is practically guaranteed passage.

Preliminary advice on the Bill has been provided by the Ministry of Regulation, established by Seymour and of which he is the minister.

This advice highlights the proposals presented omit any mention of Te Tiriti and its role as part of good law-making, thus avoiding how the Crown will meet its obligations under the proposed legislation.

Even a cursory examination of the Bill leaves no doubt of the intent to promote individual and property rights over all others, constrain regulatory powers, and reduce the government’s ability to implement environmental protections, social safeguards and Te Tiriti-based initiatives.

The Bill goes further to establish a regulatory standards board, removing the role of the courts to consider complaints from the public about existing regulations which include legislation which is inconsistent with one or more of the Bill’s principles.

One can conceive complaints about recognition of collective Māori rights, environmental protections or social safeguards on the basis of inconsistency with individual rights, unrestricted property rights, equality before the law and imposition of taxes and levies.

As Melanie Nelson wrote in E Tangata (15.12.24), we are being asked to submit feedback on two sets of sweeping constitutional changes without fully grasping the impact of these extensive proposals on our lives and the country.

“Do we want a minor party’s libertarian ideology to shape the boundaries of legislation, government actions and judicial interpretations to significantly influence who we are as a nation, what we collectively stand for?”

* A draft version of the Regulatory Standards Bill is now out for consultation. A final version of the Bill has yet to be introduced to the House.

• Noel O’Malley is a Balclutha lawyer and past president of the Otago District Law Society.

SOURCE

2. From E-TANGATA by Melanie Nelson:

The ‘dangerous’ bill flying under the radar

New Zealand stands at a pivotal moment in its constitutional development. Not one but two key bills, both driven by the Act Party, signify a profound new direction for the country, writes Melanie Nelson.

Much has been said about the significant impacts of the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill.

Meanwhile, its long-standing companion, the Regulatory Standards Bill, is advancing quietly through government processes, with limited public awareness, minimal media coverage, and little parliamentary debate.

Consultation on the proposed Regulatory Standards Bill opened on November 19, the day the hīkoi arrived at parliament. The consultation period ends the week after submissions close on the Treaty principles bill.

Both bills, if progressed, will result in significant constitutional reforms with profound implications for New Zealand.

They propose comprehensively changing the nation’s legislative and political environment by embedding rigid legal frameworks that prioritise individual and property rights, constrain regulatory powers, and reduce the government’s ability to implement environmental protections, social safeguards, and Tiriti-based initiatives.

Restricting legislative freedom: A legal straitjacket in the making?

The focus on the Treaty principles bill has overshadowed its dull but dangerous regulatory cousin.

The Regulatory Standards Bill is the brainchild of the Business Roundtable (now the New Zealand Initiative). The Act Party has tried three times, since 2006, to introduce a version of this bill — failing each time it was put under scrutiny, as its dangerous consequences became clear.

Yet, this latest attempt seems to be sailing through with little to no scrutiny so far.

READ AT THE LINK

 

Photo: Getty Images

agenda 21/30, Medical Industry

Major Alert: New Zealand Government is Enshrining ‘Medical Mandates’ in Law

4 Comments

From Hatchard Report

There is a revolution in progress, and it is not a bloodless revolution.

The Gene Technology Bill introduced to Parliament this week includes the following provisions:—

  • Mandatory medical activity authorisations: for a human medicine that is or contains gene technology that has been approved by at least two recognised overseas gene technology regulators.
  • Emergency authorisations: when there is an actual or imminent threat to the health and safety of people or to the environment, for example, threat from a disease outbreak, or an industrial spillage. The Minister responsible for the Gene Technology Act (the Minister) will have the power to grant an emergency authorisation.

This article is also available as a PDF to download, print, and share and as an audio version.

These clauses bypass the medical choice provisions of the New Zealand Bill of Rights. 

They violate the conclusions of Phase 1 of the Royal Commission on the pandemic which found that vaccine mandates hurt people and the economy.

They pre-empt the findings of Phase Two of the Royal Commission which has yet to examine the safety of COVID-19 vaccines produced via gene editing.

It empowers the Minister to make health decisions affecting all Kiwis on the say-so of foreign gene regulators of his choice.

The Bill is being passed under Fast Track legislation designed to prevent public discussion of its controversial provisions and adequate understanding of its impact by MPs. There is no time sensitive need for this.

The Bill ignores the experience and lessons of the last five years of the pandemic which has been a gene technology disaster responsible for 30 million deaths worldwide. Its logic is therefore incomprehensible even to well-informed observers, but it appears to find echoes in a dark history:

“The sun shines” wrote Christopher Isherwood in his 1930s Berlin Stories “and Hitler is the master of this city. The sun shines, and dozens of my friends are in prison, possibly dead.” As are too many of my friends recently, young and old alike.

Following the 1933 Nazi acquisition of power, Germany underwent a rapid and sweeping revolution that reached deep into the fabric of daily life. At the beginning, it occurred quietly and out of sight of most of the population. At its core was ‘enabling’ legislation that empowered the government and its appointees (read: regulators) to take far reaching decisions on behalf of the whole population. Its core aim was Gleichschaltung—coordination—designed to bring citizens, government ministries, universities, cultural and social institutions inline with Hitler’s extreme beliefs and attitudes.

Today we are facing efforts aimed at global coordination of technology, including biotechnology, food tech and information technology. The New Zealand government appears very willing to play a leading role in this revolution, whatever the implications. We have reported on these previously at length (here, here, here and here). 

In addition to the prospect of government reimposition of medical mandates, the Bill does not require labelling of gene altered foods. As this flies in the face of all the canons of food safety and traceability established over the last 100 years, the only possible motivations are either a desire to deny consumers any right to preferences, or a wish to avoid any safety monitoring or culpability. Not only will we be unable to exercise medical autonomy, but we will no longer know what we are eating. This is an extraordinary and frightening prospect and not just for those who struggle with allergies. Food choice is not the prerogative of the government or bioscientists no matter how sure of themselves.

Something absolutely fundamental and personal is being taken away from us

This Bill is being promoted and steered by Judith Collins, with the full support and encouragement of the Prime Minister Chris Luxon and the leader of the ACT Party David Seymour. Collins is a lawyer and long time Parliamentarian, she will fully understand the import of the Bill. As a previous leader of the National Party who lost an election, it is hard to escape the suggestion that Collins may be taking satisfaction from the imposition of her will on those who rejected her leadership. We have all heard stories of waiters who piss in the awkward customer’s beer and laugh behind their backs. I am sorry to draw such a gross comparison, but my sense of outrage demands it.

The Gene Technology Bill seeks to institute a revolution, it spits in the face of the public who suffered during the pandemic and who voted in a new government with the thought that things might change. Instead we appear to have more of the same or worse. The refusal of Health New Zealand to publish up to date health statistics such as those for cancer incidence, speaks volumes about a government determined to avoid any accountability, even at the expense of public health. For the record, US insurance data reveals that cancer incidence has had a steady and unremitting upward trajectory since the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines. Ignored by our government and worse: covered up.

There is a time for everything and a season for every purpose under Heaven. A time to be born and a time to die, Now is the time to lobby your MP and let them know exactly what you think. Time to make our voice heard.

Please write to your MP before the summer break brings consideration to a close and put a note in your diary to follow up afterwards. This fight is winnable.

SOURCE

Photo Credit: pixabay.com

News, Treaty of Waitangi

Seymour’s principles of privatisation

10 Comments

by Ryan Ward
@ E-TANGATA

This totally makes sense. Drawing attention here to the Atlas Network & the Mont Pelerin Society. Perchance you are wondering who they are, I’ve included videos below the article, interviews on topic from Central News UTS and discussions with Dr Jeremy Walker (Australia) who has written extensively on topic. He is also interviewed by DOC Studios @ Youtube, with a particular focus on NZ. Shining a light on Seymour’s connection to the network. EWNZ

“…why those opposing the bill should be taking every opportunity to hammer home to the public the corporate ties held by Seymour and his backers and their intention to extract Aotearoa’s resources and siphon the profits to the wealthy here in New Zealand and to international corporations. It’s not about equality, it’s about opening up New Zealand to corporate exploitation.”

David Seymour’s Treaty principles bill is now in select committee phase, and open for submissions.

National and New Zealand First claim they won’t support it going further, but public opposition will need to be clear and overwhelming to ensure it doesn’t proceed.

If the bill went to referendum, current polling suggests it would have a good chance of passing, with 36 percent of the public supporting redefining the Treaty principles, and 30 percent undecided.

For those opposed, there are a few important things to consider, writes Ryan Ward.

We can expect an all-out propaganda campaign in favour of the bill.

This will be led by right-wing lobbying groups like Hobson’s Pledge, the Taxpayer’s Union, Groundswell, and others. Hobson’s Pledge has already indicated they have tens of thousands of submissions in favour of the bill ready to go and will be soliciting many more. They and other lobbying groups will also blitz the media with ads and messaging in favour of the bill.

David Seymour has been laying the groundwork for this campaign all along. His consistent and careful messaging surrounding the bill has framed its goal as providing equal rights to all New Zealanders, rather than giving special rights to different groups depending on their ancestry.

He has repeated this message over and over. According to Seymour, it’s about democracy and fairness.

This political messaging will be extremely difficult to counter using the predominant oppositional messaging which focuses on the bill’s racism or ignorant interpretation of the translation or meaning of the Treaty.

It will not be enough to loudly proclaim that the bill is racist toward Māori (it is very much so) or that Seymour is ignorant of the true meaning of the Treaty (he is not).

As evidenced by his dismissal of expert opinion and the haka and protest in parliament, and his minimisation of the hīkoi last week (possibly the largest protest in New Zealand’s history), Seymour is unmoved by factual argument or large shows of public disapproval. (A petition against his bill currently has just over 290,000 signatures, more than the 246,000 people who supported Act in the last election.)

By framing his bill in terms of “equality for all”, David Seymour has shrewdly tapped into the existing racial biases that have successfully torpedoed recent attempts to provide more representation and equity for Māori.

Much of the campaign messaging in the last election by Act, National, and New Zealand First railed against ideas of “co-governance” and unequal treatment of Māori at the expense of the rest of New Zealand. Seymour and his backers will continue to use this divisive rhetoric to turn the public against Māori and in favour of the bill. The recent Voice referendum in Australia and our own recent election results indicate that the public is very vulnerable to this type of dishonest and divisive political messaging.

Getting sucked into the race-war rhetoric that Seymour and his backers are trafficking in has been a losing strategy so far. It puts the opposition on the defensive: the disingenuous arguments about equality for all New Zealanders seem to place Seymour and his bill on an obvious moral high ground and are very difficult to counter effectively.

As Seymour said at the bill’s first reading: “The challenge for people who oppose this bill is to explain why they are so opposed to those basic principles.” We already know how difficult it is to win against such disingenuous framing.

Those opposing the bill need to find another political message that will resonate with the public. A simple message that can’t be co-opted by leveraging entrenched racial biases and relying on the public to understand complex legal and translational arguments.

A recent editorial in the Spinoff by Rupert O’Brien pulls the curtain back on Seymour’s dissembling language of equality and provides an offensive rather than a defensive oppositional rhetorical strategy.

O’Brien notes that while most of the discussion and analysis of the bill has been related to whether it accurately interprets the meaning of Te Tiriti, the real motive behind the bill is related to Act and its backers’ long-term strategy of deregulating business and opening up New Zealand to corporate investment, extraction, and exploitation.

As O’Brien writes, Act and their benefactors “know that it [Te Tiriti] stands as a major obstacle in their goal of deregulation and promoting laissez-faire economics.”

“They aim to achieve deregulation by, in part, turning government departments into state-owned enterprises (corporatising) and subsequently selling these as going concerns on the private market (privatising) . . .

“The Treaty principles have proved a significant roadblock to both corporatisation and privatisation in the past and present a clear threat to any plans of future development of public assets to the private sector.”

This is likely the real, though unspoken, reason that Seymour and his backers are pushing so hard to redefine the Treaty principles. By framing the bill as a means for equality for all New Zealanders, and then inflaming the race-war rhetoric that results from the justified outrage from Māori, Seymour can avoid discussing the real reasons behind the bill and his ties to domestic and international corporate interests that will profit handsomely from opening up Aotearoa to unregulated corporate development. Industries such as gas and mining have been long stymied by the legal interpretation and enforcement of the Treaty.

Focusing on the race war stops the public from “following the money”, as the saying goes.

But the money has been followed. And it leads to domestic and international right-wing lobbying and funding groups whose main goal is to enact policy that results in upwards wealth transfer and corporate exploitation. Many of Act’s largest donors are individuals such as Graeme Hart and the Gibbs family, who profited handsomely from the privatisation of New Zealand’s public sector in the 1990s under National.

There is a reason why Seymour desperately wants to keep the real motivations for his Treaty principles bill secret. The public generally don’t look favourably on politicians and political agendas that are blatantly in favour of corporate interests at the expense of the rest of us. If the real reason for the bill were made clear and widely known, the current framing would crumble, and the equality-race-war rhetoric would no longer likely be an effective strategy to win public support for the bill.

This is why an oppositional strategy focused only on the race-war rhetoric will fail, and why those opposing the bill should be taking every opportunity to hammer home to the public the corporate ties held by Seymour and his backers and their intention to extract Aotearoa’s resources and siphon the profits to the wealthy here in New Zealand and to international corporations.

It’s not about equality, it’s about opening up New Zealand to corporate exploitation.

By making this crystal clear to the public, and focusing relentlessly on a simple oppositional message, we can unite Aotearoa and turn the tide against Seymour and his reinterpretation of the Treaty principles.

Ryan Ward is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Otago.

E-Tangata, 2024

VIDEO & OTHER LINKS BELOW: (content warning, the DOC Studios videos do contain a few expletives)

The Atlas Network: Big oil, climate disinformation and constitutional democracy (includes Dr Jeremy Walker) From Central News UTS

David Seymour and Debbie Ngawera Packer on Q&A | Jeremy Walker on if Atlas is involved (Dr Walker begins at 1hr 11 mins)

 

Further info from Dr Jeremy Walker who has written extensively on topic drawing the public attention to the Atlas Group (posted @ Central News UTS) :

Further resources and tips on Atlas from Dr Jeremy Walker. Please disseminate where useful. Some tips on research methods for researching the Atlas Network’s global reach and organisation in specific countries and regions. A key insight was provided to me by Mirowski and Plewhe’s (2009) Road from Mont Pelerin, which defines a “neoliberal” as one of the membership of the global Mont Pelerin Society and/or of the thinktanks of the Atlas Network (p. 4). That book focuses mainly on the ‘economic ideas’ of Hayek, Friedman et al. in Western countries, but as my book More Heat than Life (2020) shows, these ‘ideas’ were paid for by oil money from the beginning, and promoted by oil money via the ever-growing network of thinktanks modelled on the original, the IEA (London) which almost from the beginning was supported by Big Oil, uranium, banking etc, as its seems most of the later clone ‘thinktanks’ are or were where we have any data. The senior exec directors of Atlas orgs are often MPS members. DeSmog has a list of MPS members including the date they were admitted as at 2013. You will find Alan Gibbs under the UK section. https://www.desmog.com/wp-content/uploads/files/Mont%20Pelerin%20Society%202013-membership-listing_Redacted.pdf

Very interesting names on it, including Charles Koch who has ploughed untold millions into the Network, also for example Aust PM John Howard. Wayback machine is vital, Atlas posted their global directory on their website until c. 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210824142756/https://www.atlasnetwork.org/partners/global-directory

There is plenty to learn from searching the Atlas site itself. You should also use Wayback to explore deleted material from individual websites. On the basis of that list a team of researchers based at DeMontford has compiled this very important database which: “contains the name and roles of board members, supervisory board members, academic advisory boards, and CEO’s of all think tank organisations that are part of the Atlas Network/Atlas Economic Research Foundation between January 2021 and December 2022. The dataset covers each continent under separate sections for individual continent analysis. https://figshare.dmu.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Atlas_Think_Tank_Main_Employers/22217050?file=39486961

Search for academic literature on neoliberalism, Mont Pelerin Society, and the names in the MPS directory, but Atlas Network as such as very limited exposure. As far as I know no one has published on the basis of this archive, like the MPS records, at the Hoover Institution. https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c80k2f0h/

DeSmog has the best resources on various thinktanks and the hacks that work for them, but yet to fully incorporate the Atlas dimension as they have only recently grasped this. Eg. ‘the Koch network’ is more or less on overlap of the US Atlas orgs, as oil billionaire Charles Koch has been on the Atlas board to my knowledge since 1987, and is a key funder of George Mason University where the head office is based. Also useful is SourceWatch, LittleSis https://www.desmog.com/databases/

Robert Brulle’s paper’s on the funding of climate denial orgs in the US is very useful, although likewise confined to the US and not cognisant until recently that nearly all the orgs named are in fact Atlas affiliates, spinoff orgs, and/or staffed and funded by the same set of ‘philanthropies’, including Donor’s Trust (set up by Atlas HQ to disguise donors identities) and the various Scaife and Koch foundations, as well as others named in Jane Mayer’s Dark Money (Olin, Bradley). https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=PlB0bM4AAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate

Esp these two: https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-178750/v1/77e68e86-364d-45b5-b426-b0355e605d70.pdf?c=1631873834https://www.activist360.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Institutionalizing-Delay-Climatic-Change.pdf

Below are links to an online version of my book, and two subsequent pieces showing the method above used in the Australian context and some of the sources in the bibliography may be useful. Walker, J (2023) Silencing the Voice: the fossil-fuelled Atlas Network’s campaign against constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australia, Cosmopolitan Civil Societies,15(2). (Open Access) https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/mcs/article/view/8813

Walker, J (2022) Freedom to burn: mining propaganda, fossil capital and the Australian neoliberals. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359443471_Freedom_to_Burn_Mining_Propaganda_Fossil_Capital_and_the_Australian_Neoliberals

In Slobodian, Q & Plehwe, D (eds) Market Civilisations: Neoliberals East and South, Princeton University Press. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9781942130673/market-civilizations

Walker, J (2020). More Heat than Life: the Tangled Roots of Ecology, Energy and Economics, Palgrave. https://archive.org/details/walker-more-heat-then-life.-the-tangled-roots-of-ecology-energy-and-economics-2020/page/259/mode/2up?q=atlas

Image Credit: By Glenn Davies – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=136317457