SICK BABY REFUSED BLOOD WAKES NZ UP

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100 protestors outside the High Court Auckland this morning

Has it taken a sick baby, at long last, to wake Kiwis up from their Rip van Winkle stupor/slumber and demand a fair go?  

One would be hard put to decide whether it's 'Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand' or the NZ Herald which comes off worse in this sorry tale, but really the palm must go to Health - or rather, Sick Minister Andrew Little and his associates. 

In case you're wondering, 'Te Whatu Ora' means 'the weaving of wellness'. Isn't that just heart-warming. But we fail to see how refusing uncontaminated blood to a sick baby is going to weave his wellness - or his parents'.

An urgent hearing has been set down to seek a resolution between Te Whatu Ora Health NZ and parents who have refused to allow blood from vaccinated people to be used in a life-saving operation for their baby boy’s surgery.

Justice Layne Harvey said today’s hearing at the High Court in Auckland is purely administrative to set the date for an urgent hearing.

Representing Te Whatu Ora, lawyer Paul White flagged the urgency of the case saying medical professionals have said the child with such a condition would have been treated several weeks ago in normal circumstances.

Bullying, Mr White! In another version of the story the baby's mother denied that the case is urgent. Serious, but not urgent. And sadly, Ardern,Robertson&Co, Death Dealers to the Nation, have done away with normal circumstances. Deliberately. 

The parents’ lawyer, Sue Grey, said the case was different from other medical guardianship cases where parents are refusing medical care. For this one, she said, the parents want better care than what the state is offering.

There was no legal or other reason why Te Whatu Ora is refusing to consider the parents’ proposal as a solution, Grey said.

You have to read a long way down the story to arrive at the bit which states that 'the pair  claimed they had more than 20 unvaccinated people who were willing to donate blood, but this had not been approved by the New Zealand Blood Service (NZBS)." 

'The pair claimed' is a journalistic usage denoting people as questionable.  And can't you just see the bureaucrats at the NZBS clasping their metaphorical clipboards in defence of their turf?

“Because they label my clients as conspiracy theorists, [their position] is that anything my clients say can be ignored,” Grey told the court.

White said Te Whatu Ora’s application to the court is ultimately based on the best interests of the child and what they view as medically safe. 

He forgot to mention 'weaving its wellness'. 

The reason why this case has come to court is because the two parties have reached what he called an impasse, White added.

Who called it an impasse? White, presumably. It took three journos to write this story and still they couldn't get the syntax right.  

Justice Harvey set down an urgent hearing for next Tuesday, and encouraged the two parties to continue discussions in the meantime.

Rallies outside court

The baby’s mother told reporters she was doing this because it was her responsibility to do the best for her child.

She said having to deal with a court case was “massive” on top of having to feed twins.

But “I wanted to see the judge as well, and for the judge to see my baby.”

She said many people have shown support for their case.

“Kiwis are amazing, so many people I don’t know are showing so much love,” she said.

About 100 people gathered in support of the baby’s parents outside the front of the court’s entrance, holding placards and loud-hailers. Some recorded the ongoing scenes on their devices.

The baby’s parents and their supporters filled the small courtroom after waiting over an hour for their case to be called. 

The four-month-old at the centre of the case sat in his father’s arms next to his mother.

More supporters were turned away by security officers after the public gallery was filled up and waited outside.

They mean it was the supporters who waited outside, not the gallery. 

The NZ Herald understands Te Whatu Ora is seeking the guardianship of the four-month-old be shifted from his parents to the courts so consent to use donated blood in the required open-heart surgery can be given. 

Te Whatu Ora is assuming the courts will give that consent. Is this a stitch-up, perhaps? 

The New Zealand Blood Service’s website said blood was not divided by vaccinated and unvaccinated. It also stated there was no evidence there was any risk in using blood from a vaccinated person.

Like there's no 'evidence' of people dying suddenly or developing serious and crippling diseases after taking the jab. Oh, we forgot. There was that guy in Invercargill, right?  

It was understood an urgent hearing would be sought soon after today’s initial appearance in the High Court.

A supporter of the parents named Kelly said she believed the case shouldn’t be heard.

”It’s appalling, it’s stressful on the parents and on the baby.”

Kelly obviously doesn't realise it's all about 'weaving wellness'. 

Te Whatu Ora Auckland interim director Dr Mike Shepherd acknowledged it could be worrying when parents had to make decisions about their children’s care. “The decision to make an application to the court is always made with the best interests of the child in mind and following extensive conversations with whānau,” he said.

Unfortunately, the minds and the whanau involved are fallible and they do not have the rights of parents. And why have 'extensive conversations with whanau' if the family are not  Maori?  

Professor Nikki Turner, who is protecting 'Aotearoa'. So where's that, then? 

 

Auckland University’s Immunisation Advisory Centre medical director Professor Nikki Turner told Newstalk ZB Covid-19 was widespread in New Zealand and that would be reflected in the nation’s blood.

“Almost all blood in New Zealand will have Covid antibodies in it so unless you’re going to refuse all blood, I can’t imagine how you’ll get round this,” she said.

Dear Professor Turner, it's not Covid antibodies the parents don't want in their baby, it's the so-called v*ccine. 

“The next thing is that Covid antibodies per se are not in any way going to be a problem for the person receiving them, they’re just going to offer the person extra protection against Covid disease.”

Dear Prof, these parents do not believe Covid antibodies 'per se' or otherwise are going to be a problem for their child. It's the v*x that's the problem. Have you seen the blood clots that coroners are finding in corpses, including babies'? [  

Turner couldn’t recall an instance when blood had been deemed ill-suited to be donated because the person had been vaccinated.

“From a scientific point of view, no I can’t think of anything that would make sense at all.

How about a common sense p o v, then, Professor? Or is common sense beneath an academic like yourself? 

“I think it may be that people confuse the fact that the product in a vaccine is being injected into somebody but it’s not the product in the vaccine that is the response, the response is the body’s response to that [vaccine] that creates the immune response.”

Just who is confused here? Certainly not the parents, who are quite simply objecting to their baby being subjected to the response of millions, worldwide, to the so-called vaccine.   

at the High Court this morning

 

Associate Health Minister Peeni Henare, also the responsible minister for the NZBS, said in a statement that the “health matter” was between Te Whatu Ora and the child’s whānau, and he said it was inappropriate to comment further as it was before the court.

Requests for comment from Health Minister Andrew Little were referred to Henare’s office. Covid-19 Response Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall could not be contacted for comment.

Typical. When it comes to confrontations and crises, this government and its ministers are increasingly out to lunch. 

In an online video, the parents claim they are concerned blood containing a vaccine would be used during the operation needed by the four-month-old, despite their fears reportedly being dismissed by medical professionals and information published by the New Zealand Blood Service.

So these unnamed medical professionals and the NZ  Blood Service can categorically deny that blood 'containing a vaccine' might be used during the operation on this baby? We think not.

 In the video, the parents were interviewed by former TV newsreader Liz Gunn, who has repeatedly voiced Covid-19 mistruths and was seen earlier this year confronting a news reporter about claims of fainting children at an Auckland vaccination centre - a claim that was rubbished by health officials.

Of course Gunn's claims were 'rubbished by health officials' who were not presented in a pretty light. And how many 'Covid-19 mistruths', 'disinformation' and 'conspiracy theories' are now shown to be facts?    

The parents say the child needs open-heart surgery after being diagnosed with “severe pulmonary valve stenosis”.

The New Zealand Heart Foundation described stenosis as when one of the heart’s valves didn’t open properly, meaning pressure and blood could back up and cause strain on the heart.

Syntax again. Groan.

However, the parents said they didn’t want the surgery to use blood that came from a person vaccinated for Covid-19.

The pair claimed they had more than 20 unvaccinated people who were willing to donate blood, but this had not been approved by the New Zealand Blood Service (NZBS).

'The pair claimed' ... - a journalistic means of painting people as questionable at best, dishonest at worst. 

The parents, alongside Gunn, reportedly had a meeting with a doctor and a surgeon on the matter and their concerns were dismissed, according to the video.

The video, uploaded on Monday, stated Gunn’s interview was occurring on a Friday and the surgery was supposed to take place on a Tuesday.

The New Zealand Blood Service website featured frequently asked questions relating to blood donation and Covid-19 vaccination that included whether the vaccine was passed on through donation among other points.

The website confirmed any Covid-19 vaccine was “broken down” in the blood soon after injection and would not be transferred to recipients of donations.

“All donated blood also gets filtered during processing, so any trace amounts that may still be present poses no risk to recipients,” it said.

Concerning Covid-19′s spike protein, NZBS said it was present in “vanishingly small quantities” in the blood of some people for the first two weeks after vaccination.

“It is not found in the blood after this time period has passed. There is no evidence that this represents any risk to recipients.”

People who have been vaccinated with certain vaccines were required to delay donations until 28 days after vaccination. However, there was no stand-down period for those who had received the Pfizer vaccine, which had been widely used in New Zealand.

The NZBS website confirmed donated blood was not separated into vaccinated and unvaccinated sources because blood was filtered during processing.

Oh well, that's all right then. Isn't it reassuring to read such information from medical professionals who through the trials and tribulations of the COVID 'pandemic' we've come to love and trust? Dr Anthony Faustus Fauci comes to mind ... 

HASTINGS COMPLAINED OF THEIR WHITE MARTYR

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Sacred Heart's altar - note presider's chair in place of tabernacle, beneath a crucifix dwarfed by the OHP screen 

 

'Died suddenly.' It's a death notice that in the post-v*x regime of Ardern&Robertson, Death Dealers to the Nation, we're hearing more and more frequently. We'd better get used to it and the only way to prepare for it is prayer. 

It's always a tragedy but when it refers to a priest its ill-effects both in this world and in eternity are felt by all those who have lost their shepherd.

Father Anthony Htun RIP, the Parish Priest of  Hastings in the Palmerston North Diocese who recently celebrated his twentieth jubilee and was probably aged in his 50s, died suddenly in Hastings last Saturday morning. The parish community is described by one to be "in shock. Just stunned."

Fr Htun (l) with parish priest Fr Marcus Francis (r): in the background the doors to the chapel where Our Lord is consigned 

Father Htun - as he probably would prefer to be known, rather than 'Pa Anthony' as he was referred to in a Hawke's Bay parish notice informing informed us of a parish Mass 'to remember Pa Anthony Htun' (note, no 'RIP') - had come to New Zealand from Myanmar (not Borneo, as a fellow priest stated at Mass the next morning). He was a holy priest, devout, obedient and "wonderful in confession". 

One of his parishioners says Fr Htun was "taken before he was corrupted". Yes, 'corrupted' was the word he used, and what he meant was that Fr Htun might have become infected with the noisome spiritual disease of modernism which afflicts the Novus Ordo in New Zealand generally but especially Palmerston North and Cardinal John Dew's Archdiocese of Wellington - Cardinal Dew being PN's apostolic administrator. 

It was in that heretical (as in, condemned by several popes) spirit of modernism that the NZ Conference of Catholic Bishops, under the leadership of Cardinal Dew who seems besotted with our socialist prime minister Ardern and her diktats, that all our diocesan priests were made to undergo the Pfizer jab. Fr Htun was one of their number.

The priests who objected on moral and spiritual grounds to taking a concoction which incorporated the murdered remains of unborn infants - meaning that Pfizer made millions out of the satanic fetal industry and that psychologically our bishops and priests profited too, by thinking they'd made themselves 'safe' against a flu bug they were afraid might kill them -  were coerced into this violation of their conscience by the fact that if they refused, their parishes would be to all intents and purposes without a priest, without Mass and the Sacraments.  

The faithful priests who objected (to no avail) were very few but what a horrible predicament was theirs - and still is, as they hear news of 'died suddenlies', especially of a priest who dies suddenly. They need our prayer: their annual retreat, which these priests were reluctant to attend, began the day after they heard of the sudden death of one of their small number, Fr Htun, making what should be a week of rest and refreshment and real spiritual food (but is not) even more of a trial than usual. 

Father Anthony Htun RIP was that rarity in New Zealand, a priest who was himself a source of real spiritual food. In March 2020 the Archdiocesan give-away paper Welcom reported as follows:

Fr Anthony Htun is from Myanmar and arrived in the Palmerston North Diocese on 1 November last year. This is his first appointment. Ordained on 19 March 2002 he completed his Masters in Theology in New York in 2007. 

‘We are called “Donum Fidei: in Latin meaning, ‘Gift of Faith’. Despite the scarcity of priests in my home Archdiocese of Yangon we have been gifted to the Diocese of Palmerston North for three years,’ Fr Anthony said.

Spot the give-away. Latin. Fr Htun, with his Masters Degree in Theology (and a fine singing voice), was somewhat wasted on Hastings Parish, apparently. He obviously loved Latin, the official language of the Catholic Church, and used Latin phrases in his celebration of Holy Mass.

Parishioners complained. They wrote to 'the bishops'. 

Now presumably 'the bishops' - although modernists to a man - know that it was the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) that promoted the use of Latin in the liturgy.

The use of the Latin language
is to be preserved in the Latin rites.

SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM, 36

https://aleteia.org/2021/07/20/why-latin-remains-the-official-language-of-the-church/

Presumably, then, 'the bishops' would have informed those miserable parishioners of that fact, and that would have been the end of it.

But no. Complaints continued. Fr Htun confided to a friend that he was "walking a tightrope" between 'the bishops' and the laity, and caused such stress that he had "knots" in his stomach. Fr Htun was diabetic and had suffered what sounds like a hypoglycemic attack when he crashed his car (in a minor way) on his way to Mass several months ago. 

His confidant, a prayerful and sympathetic parishioner (thank God there was one, at least) read the warning signs and lent Fr Htun a book of Bishop Athanasius Schneider's:

The Catholic Mass : Steps to Restoring God to the Center of Liturgy

required reading for Hastings parishioners

That book gave Fr Htun - who had been "struggling with what he was allowed to do" - courage, in a foreign, modernist country, to resume using a little Latin and find confidence in his preaching, to the extent that he dared to tell Havelock North's Our Lady of Lourdes parishioners at a weekday Mass that in receiving the Blessed Sacrament in the hand (as they almost all do) they risk dropping Our Eucharistic Lord, in unnoticed fragments of the Host, to the floor to be trampled on or vacuumed up (OLOL is scrupulously vacuumed and well kept and in contrast to at least one other HB church, a pleasure to visit - except that the tabernacle is off-side). 

And speaking of the tabernacle, he told OLOL how wrong it is that at Sacred Heart Hastings - a faux Mission church of masonic design - Our Lord is kept well away from His people in a side chapel. Christ's loneliness and longing to be with us is not understood, simply because priests' and people's faith in the Real Presence has been lost, more through the irreverence and casual nature of Communion in the hand than any other single factor. Fr Htun's expressed desire to see the tabernacle in Sacred Heart church itself were stonewalled. 

How it must have hurt his devout, theologian's heart, to celebrate Holy Mass in that church with its raked floor, where before Mass Our Lord has to be fetched from the side chapel like a dog from a kennel, and where the congregation looks down on their Saviour and Redeemer on the altar rather than raising their eyes to Him as they should. 

Sacred Heart Hastings - faux Mission, masonic

What one reader of this blog thought, when she heard from an electrified OLOL parishioner of Fr Htun's reproachful remarks, was that Father must have been told he was to be moved on. And it seems that was the case, even though he'd been in Hastings Parish only three years.

But he was moved on by God Himself, taken away from largely unaware and ungrateful people to be comforted by Him Who made him, in eternity. 

A notice circulated in Hawke's Bay parishes today read as follows:

Tonight our Catholic Parish of Hastings came together to remember Pā Anthony Htun in the Mass, the highest form of prayer. Of significance was the presence of the Marist Priests from Mary Knoll at the Mission Estate. The tuakana priests had come to support the teina priest Pā Trung Nguyen who is one of the youngest priests in the country who has lost his friend, brother and mentor.

There will be Mass every night at 7:00pm at St Peter Chanel Church Hastings.  

The church is open during the day and people are invited to come and leave any tributes and prayers.

Thank you Pā Vince for being there with Pā Trung and celebrating Mass with us tonight.

A reader of this blog responded:

I’m amazed that the Hastings Parish would refer to their priest from Myanmar as ‘Pa Anthony Htun’  Or Father Trung Nguyen from Vietnam, as ‘Pa Trung Nguyen. Or Fr Onesi, a Pacfic Islander, as ‘Pa Vince’.

And why would they use Te Reo words not understood by non-Maori? I can think of only one couple who might be Maori in the Sacred Heart weekday congregations. It’s not effective communication, to say the least.

And Catholics would surely expect to read ‘Fr Anthony Htun, RIP’.  And surely the purpose of the Mass was not to ‘remember’ Fr Htun but to pray for his soul, and for the parish, especially for Fr Nguyen.

Especially Fr Nguyen (known locally with typical Novus Ordo familiarity, as "Father Trung"), indeed.  Please offer a Rosary for the intentions of Fr Nguyen, a very young, devout priest and like Fr Htun, "wonderful in Confession". Coming as he has from Communist Vietnam he is no stranger to hardships imposed by a regime - during the 17th and 18th centuries in Vietnam, it is believed that up to 100,000 Christians were martyred. 

Fr Nguyen must be deeply concerned by New Zealand's Marxist Prime Minister Ardern, but spiritual hardship imposed by fellow Catholics would surely be harder to bear. 

Fr Htun, who left his own people who needed him in the grip of a military junta and communism insurgents to go to a foreign, virtually pagan country where he was needed even more, and suffered rejection, could be fairly described as a white martyr.

https://aleteia.org/2017/10/31/3-types-of-martyrdom-that-lead-to-a-heavenly-reward/

 

St Andrew Dung-Lac and 116 Companion Martyrs of Vietnam, please pray for us

 

 

5 WATERS: ARDERN GUILTY OF GRAND LARCENY

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the new age socialist Robin Hood

 

 New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is a narcissist, a psychopathic liar, a tyrant, a traitor and a mass murderer all rolled into one. And in her latest escapade of 'Five Waters' she is guilty of grand larceny to boot.

A nice chap admitted to a group of Christians at a meeting yesterday that he voted for Ardern because she seemed compassionate. He said it with a smile and the Christians all smiled too and forgave him. He doesn't seem to realise, even yet, what he did.

If you can believe the election result, he and most Kiwis voted for a puppet, and the puppet master is Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum. Schwab is the closest the world has yet come to the Antichrist and his spiritual director, you might say, is Antipope Francis who has ambitions to lead Schwab's new world religion.

If anyone in the mainstream media knows any of this, they're not saying. That's because Ardern has stitched them up with our money, 55 million dollars of it. Even freelance journalists like Graham Adams, who says "We need to talk about Jacinda" (a la Lionel Shriver's best-seller, "We Need to Talk about Kevin"), or Peter Williams at the Taxpayers' Union, don't know the half of it. That's because they lack spiritual insight. Or because they don't read Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano (which is another way of saying the same thing).

For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places (Eph 6:12).

New Zealand's journalists, of whatever stripe, including those at NZ Catholic for example, won't wear this. It's too hard. To believe it means walking that "strait" way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!(Mt 7:14b). 

But at least Adams and Williams have the facts of this sorry, shocking, sordid matter. So let's dive into Ardern's (or is it Mahuta's?) Five Waters. Adams first. 

 It takes a large dollop of brazenness — and perhaps desperation — to deny reality quite as readily as Jacinda Ardern was willing to do last Tuesday, but the Prime Minister did not resile from the task.

When Newstalk ZB’s Barry Soper asked her why the three waters (fresh water, storm water and waste water) had suddenly become five waters (with the late addition of coastal and geothermal water) in the amended Water Services Entities Bill, Ardern flatly denied that was the case.

Denying observable facts is typical of very young children before they understand that bending the truth beyond breaking point is an art that requires at least a modicum of plausibility to avoid ending up deeply and shamefully embarrassed.

Ardern’s denial reminded me of a three-year-old niece who, when asked why her name had appeared on the wall of her bedroom written in red crayon, claimed a visiting friend had done it — even while she was clutching a red crayon in her own hand. Her young friend had yet to learn to write.

While this might be seen as an amusingly naive ploy in a child anxious to avoid the consequences of being caught red-handed, such behaviour is plainly alarming in an adult — and especially when that adult happens to be the Prime Minister.

Ardern told Soper — in a strained voice: “The reference [to coastal and geothermal water] in the legislation does not change the scope of Three Waters. It’s only about the drinking water, waste water and storm water.”

Soper: “It extends into coastal and geothermal, if you read the legislation, which I’ve done this morning.”

Ardern replied, with such stilted diction it sounded as if she was reading from a press statement: “I have read the legislation. It does not change its scope… However, I can see, based on your questions, that it has caused, potentially, some confusion. So we’ll ask the drafters whether there’s a way to make it much clearer…”

“So you’re going to have it changed, are you?” Soper asked.

Ardern: “No, [I’m] just going to ask the question whether or not it could be drafted with more clarity because it’s obviously created some confusion.”

In fact, the clause Soper was referring to is perfectly clear. Confusion has only arisen because the Prime Minister decided to argue black was white.

Her attempt to blame Parliament’s legal staff alongside disputing a common-sense reading of a clause smacks of desperation, no doubt because she knows her government is in deep trouble over its underhand move to fulfil Māori aspirations to control all the water in and around New Zealand — via granting iwi the exclusive right to issue Te Mana o te Wai statements that are binding on the four Water Service Entities.

Helping achieve this aim by quietly slipping a highly contentious amendment into a bill that was shortly to have its second reading — and after public submissions had closed and been considered — has to be ranked as one of the most deeply cynical and dishonest manoeuvres in the history of modern New Zealand politics.

Yet, even after her government had been caught out in such a dishonourable move to extend the bill’s coverage beyond three waters, the Prime Minister was keen to pretend it hadn’t actually happened.

As Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan put it to The Country’s host Jamie Mackay: “This is a new thing [the government] is doing. They just deflect and pretend it’s not a fact. So it’s the three waters already and then they chucked into the legislation — which is available online for anybody to read — geothermal and coastal, which makes it five waters, doesn’t it?”

Mackay: “Yeah, it’s five waters by my count. With [the seabed and] foreshore coming back to bite us on the backside.”

By denying that adding coastal and geothermal water will boost the number of categories of water covered by the bill to five, Ardern was gaslighting the nation in a way that makes a quote from George Orwell’s 1984 entirely apposite: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

The Prime Minister has always had difficulty dealing straightforwardly with dissent or criticism and is clearly allergic to admitting she is wrong — let alone getting around to apologising. She is also not above making stuff up to defend the indefensible.

In In other words, she tells lies.Whoppers.  

However, denying that a clause in legislation means what any reasonably intelligent person — or lawyer — would accept its meaning to be is a new and worrying expression of that deep character flaw.

One of the more bizarre tactics she has employed to ward off criticism during her five-year tenure is accusing opposition MPs of “politicking” or “playing politics” — as she has done when debating issues such as co-governance with iwi or the management of Covid.

When you are immersed in the business of politics, as she is, accusing others of “politicking” is absurd — yet she does it without any apparent awareness of how risible it is.

Ardern certainly didn’t welcome Soper’s impertinence in pointing out what are undeniable facts in the amended legislation. Quite possibly she thought it was an example of a journalist “politicking”.

In an essay on free speech published last month, former District Court judge David Harvey assessed the Prime Minister’s character: “Ms Ardern is possessed of a high sense of the righteousness of her cause. She does not debate ideas. She rejects them or refutes the premises of opposition without engaging in debate. She therefore avoids confronting the uncomfortable reality that she may be wrong. And by rejecting and refuting she adopts an air of superiority that views dissent as evil.”

Ardern’s self-righteousness and propensity to bend the truth into weird and unaccustomed shapes was, of course, signalled early in her tenure as the leader of the Labour Party.

During one of the leaders’ debates in 2017, when moderator Patrick Gower asked what she would do if she were to be “caught in a lie or caught intentionally misleading the New Zealand public”, Ardern piously replied, “Politicians make mistakes but a true mark of leadership is whether you front those mistakes [and] be as transparent as possible with the public when you make them.”

She also said she believed “it is possible to exist in politics without lying”, and claimed she’d never told a lie in politics.

Only someone with a high degree of self-regard and self-delusion could say anything quite that preposterous with a straight face and expect not to be jeered at but Ardern believes so deeply in her own goodness she managed to carry it off.

What she believes in is the new age socialist Agenda 2030: in short, to take from those who have and give to those who have not. 

Some of the audience actually clapped — presumably believing they were in the presence of a latter-day saint who had a miraculous ability to float above the tawdry, everyday business of politics.

To so outrageously deny political reality — and human nature — was, however, a step too far for then Prime Minister Bill English. When he was asked the same question about the possibility of surviving in politics without lying, he couldn’t in all honesty agree.

When you ride a very high horse, as the Prime Minister does, falling off can be painful and spectacular.

As the wheels of her government continue to wobble alarmingly — as they are in education, health, crime, and cost of living, to name just a few of the disasters Ardern is presiding over — watching how she reacts to the relentless criticism inevitable in an election year will bring its own horrified fascination, both for supporters and opponents alike.

If her bizarre burst of laughter last month when a journalist asked about the “hiding” Labour had taken at the local body elections and now her denying the obvious, common-sense interpretation of a legislative clause is any guide, the year ahead is going to be quite a ride for those who follow the Prime Minister’s fortunes.

 

Undue influence on Co-Governance: Apartheid: Labour list MP Tamati Coffey 

And now, Graham Adams:

   No longer is this just about how our water services are governed –   it's about democracy and even our constitution.

Last week Green MP Eugenie Sage tabled an amendment ( an "SOP" or supplementary order paper) to the Three Waters legislation that was being rushed through Parliament under urgency.

Incredibly, the opposition parties didn't even notice until after the Government had passed it. It added a provision that the law relating to the ownership and control of water services and significant assets could only be repealed by 60 percent of MPs or a referendum. No one had a say on this, and the fact it was done under urgency says it all.

In effect, the Government and the Greens are trying to bind subsequent goverments/parliament. It's the ultimate in an underarm bowl. As a senior lawyer put it: 

Entrenchment

Entrenchment is usually limited to very few core constitutional items that underpin our democracy such as the voting age, voting method and the term of Parliament. These are usually entrenched with broad cross-party support after thorough debate and public consultation and require at least 75% of MPs to vote in favour of any repeal or amendment.

In this case, the government has supported an amendment set out in a Supplementary Order Paper proposed by Green MP Eugenie Sage that was passed under urgency to entrench a provision which does not relate to a constitutional matter. They did so in direct contravention of Crown Law Office advice and without public consultation. The level of entrenchment was set not at the usual 75%, but at 60% for the only reason that that percentage represents the Labour and Green votes in Parliament.

Entrenchment of any provision in the Three Waters reforms is controversial for two reasons. First, it adds complexity and uncertainty to any new government’s plans to repeal and replace this legislation. Secondly, it is a major alteration to New Zealand’s unwritten constitution which could see governments of any hue attempting to entrench their significant policy reforms in an effort to tie the hands of their successors. It threatens to draw the courts and Parliament into direct conflict over fundamental questions of sovereignty. Constitutional lawyers have been united in expressing deep concern over the government’s actions - some of them have gone so far as to describe it as democratic vandalism.

ACT leader David Seymour was on Newstalk ZB this morning on the issue. I highly recommend a listen.

Be in no doubt, if this goes ahead, it would be an act of constitutional vandalism. 

With the Government’s current proposal, the principle of entrenchment is blown apart. What would stop a future centre-Right government from entrenching lower taxes or restrictions on the size of the public service, for example? We would like those policies, but in a democracy, voters need to be able to change public policy through the ballot box in regular elections. 

Now in theory, if Parliament is sovereign, a future government could simply repeal this entrenchment provision and then move onto repeal the legislation itself. But even if that survived a court challenge, it would undermine the important electoral entrenchments we already have. And if it didn’t, it would put us into completely unchartered constitutional waters. 

This isn’t about privatisation—it’s about control.  

 

Just as Jacinda's jabs and lockdowns were about control. And the whole world's jabs and lockdowns were about control. 

 

As early as April, the media were reporting that ministers were keen to shift the controversy over the reforms from co-governance fears to fears of privatisation.

But it was always a false flag: No one is proposing privatisation. What this is really about, is changing the rules of the game. It wouldn’t matter how you vote next year, as this provision could block a future Government from repealing this controversial approach to water reform. 

It is particularly disappointing that this move has come from a Green MP. While unsurprisingly the Taxpayers’ Union tends to agree with the party on very little, we have always recognised their commitment to openness, transparency and localism. But the move today confirms that the Greens are no different to Labour in their contempt for the voting public. 

And it isn’t just the parties of the Right who are outraged by this. It has received condemnation from across the political spectrum and from academia too. A group of eight academics wrote an open letter in today’s NZ Herald criticising the constitutional precedent this would set and the way it has been introduced at a very late stage in the legislative process.

The prime minister recognised on RNZ this morning that the concerns were ‘legitimate’. An understatement if ever there was one. She also confirmed that the principle of entrenchment will be discussed at the meeting of the cabinet this afternoon. 

If the Government does not drop this plan today, we will launch a campaign with full-page newspaper and TV ads by the end of the week to ensure that all New Zealanders are aware of the Government's outrageous tactics to trash our constitution

Be in no doubt, if this goes ahead, it would be an act of constitutional vandalism. 

 

Anticipating the birth of Our Lord, the liturgy reminds us also of His second coming