Yesterday Christopher Luxon delivered a major speech in Blenheim and launched a policy paper setting out ‘National’s alternative’ to Labour’s Three Waters. While National has always said they would repeal Three Waters if they become government, until now National has kept mum on what its alternative to Three Waters would actually look like.

Last year, we fielded hundreds of questions during our nationwide ‘Stop Three Waters’ roadshow from supporters concerned whether we could trust a National government to put assets back into local control and scrap unaccountable, so-called ‘co-governance’ arrangements. It took until the roadshow meeting of a packed hall in Tauranga for the National Party’s Three Waters Spokesman to commit that National’s replacement to Three Waters would not have ‘co-governance’. Mr Luxon made the same commitment a few weeks later.

But yesterday morning, Mr Luxon announced a policy that is almost identical to the alternative being promoted by the Taxpayers’ Union. And it’s not just the Taxpayers’ Union – the same alternative model of water governance is backed by the Mayors of Auckland, Christchurch, and 32 local councils!

Today’s announcement means there is now consensus not only against Three Waters – but on the alternative reform to improve water quality and affordability.

Our team in Wellington are scrambling. But as we work through the fine detail, there is nothing in the policy that departs from what we’ve been calling for. It is clear we can now put Chris Hipkins under real pressure to totally Scrap Three Waters and go with this alternative.

Chris Hipkins is now the last man standing who still supports Three Waters. He has promised to ‘refocus’ the reforms, but unless we keep the pressure on, a refocus will simply be a rebranding exercise. Yesterday’s announcement by the National Party makes a halfway compromise much harder for Mr Hipkins. We need to double down right now to force the Prime Minister’s hand. 

The experience of many people after the severe weather events in the past few weeks is that when the power goes down, they can’t buy things with eftpos cards, and need to resort to old fashioned cash, or barter.

Having a good supply of cash is thus desirable. Further reasons include saving the whole community bank fees, and stopping the surveillance state — which was massively ramped up under Comrade Jacinda — keeping tabs on dissenters’ movements. (Keeping cellphones switched off when not in use is another way of stopping that.)

from the CounterSpin Media telegram page

LIZ GUNN ARREST UPDATE

Liz Gunn from Free NZ is now safe at home, surrounded by good friends.

Her arrest today at the Auckland Airport has come as a shock to her & the NZ public.

Liz was waiting with Jonathan Clark to film the arrival of their friends’ the Patelesio family from Tokelau.

A jumped up security ‘Karen’ had asked them to stop filming (despite many families filming arrivals) & things escalated so quickly that before the pair knew it, they were being arrested by police.

Liz was man handled by an uber aggressive cop and Jonathan was thrown to the ground when he heard his camera smash.

It was then picked up by the CSM team, who was then threatened with arrest & the camera forcibly removed.

Liz & Jonathan were both civil & polite & said the excessive use of force was a huge surprise.

They were then cuffed and removed from the arrival terminal, where they spoke to police for almost an hour.

One police officer was good. However, the other was described as “a complete psycho” by witnesses.

One cop seemed proud to have had 3 jabs & was looking forward to his fourth because it was free.

Liz is being seen by a doctor after being injured by the police. She was is good spirits when we talked to her but was naturally shaken by the experience.

Onlookers said she was calm & strong, despite the instigation of the jumped up Karen and the bully cop. One policeman brutalised her and twisted her right arm. When Liz said you’re hurting me, he said “good.”

Jonathan told us he has been charged with willful trespass & resisting arrest. He has received a summons to appear at Manukau court on Thursday, March 23, at 9am.

At this stage, the same is likely for Liz but her paperwork was MIA so this is yet to be confirmed. She has been trespassed from the airport for two years.

Whilst the average kiwi at the airport was unware of the gravity of the situation, the pair are both so grateful for the support amongst the wider free thinking NZ public.

Hopefully the two will file a complaint with the IPCA about this behaviour as everyone should do. See this post.

The Leftists’ saint, Anthony Fauci may have lied. Who’d have thought?

From HART at hartgroup.org:

Facts previously dismissed as misinformation now admitted

On 11 January 2023 a paper was published in Cell Host & Microbe titled “Rethinking next-generation vaccines for coronaviruses, influenza viruses, and other respiratory viruses”.

There are just 3 authors, one of whom is Anthony Fauci, who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022, and the chief medical advisor to the President from 2021 to 2022.

Fauci is generally regarded as one of the key architects of the USA’s – and therefore the world’s – response to the pandemic, including pushing for the emergency authorisation and rollout of the Covid vaccines, and the formulation of policies which exerted huge pressure on citizens in nearly all countries to be injected with these products or else face sanctions, ranging from social ostracisation via the use of “vaccine passport” schemes, through to job losses, and even fines merely for being unvaccinated.

Fauci made some bold claims about the Covid vaccines in order to justify such coercive policies, including that they would prevent infections and limit transmission of the virus to others. These claims were then picked up by political leaders worldwide and used to justify their own policies, even when – from early data – it became obvious that the vaccines did not prevent infections or reduce the viral load of those infected.

This latest article, therefore, has quite rightly raised some eyebrows because of the astonishing concessions it contains, amongst which are the following:

1. Of the influenza vaccines, the authors note:
   
   As of 2022, after more than 60 years of experience with influenza vaccines, very little improvement in vaccine prevention of infection has been noted. As pointed out decades ago, and still true today, the rates of effectiveness of our best approved influenza vaccines would be inadequate for licensure for most other vaccine-preventable diseases.
   
   The authors then draw parallels between the vaccines for covid and those for influenza:
   
   The vaccines for these two very different viruses [covid19 and influenza] have common characteristics: they elicit incomplete and short-lived protection against evolving virus variants that escape population immunity.

Continue reading

By Roger Childs

It’s the weekend that hundreds of thousands of rugby fans look forward to with eager anticipation -– the opening round of the trans-Tasman Super Rugby competition. 

In the first match last year’s champions — a nearly full-strength Crusaders team – met the Chiefs in Christchurch. An easy result to predict – 31-10 as it turned out – but unexpectedly it was the Waikato franchise who won.

The Blues meet the Highlanders on Saturday night and the fifth New Zealand team — the Hurricanes — play the Queensland Reds across the Tasman. 

There is a particular edge to the 2023 tournament as the World Cup will be taking place in France later in the year. Players are vying for positions in the All Blacks and the Wallabies, and they know that there are only so many spots available and plenty of competition.

Chiefs in fire in the second spell 

The local fans in Christchurch were not disappointed to see their team get out to a 10-0 lead early on the basis of a David Havili try and a Richie Mo’unga penalty, but a late first half try to the visitors’ captain, Sam Cane, closed the gap to three points at half time.

Each team conceded a yellow card, and also had players going off with injuries Crusader Cullen Grace (shoulder) and Anton Lienert-Brown (ankle).

The second half was all Chiefs and they ran in three tries, which Damian McKenzie converted.  McKenzie was one of the stars of the match and organized the Chiefs attack brilliantly from first five. He ran strongly, passed quickly, tackled solidly and kicked with precision, and he was ably assisted by Shaun Stevenson who made several telling breaks from full back. In the second half Josh Ioane added some penetration from first five when he came off the bench.

In the forwards Brodie Rettalick was the star with consistent takes in the lineout, powerful running in the open and strong work in the tight. He was well backed by the other forwards with Luke Jacobson busy at the breakdown, and Samisoni Taukei’aho always making ground with ball in hand. 

Other teams on notice

This convincing bonus points victory sends a clear message to the other franchises that the Chiefs are not to be messed with.  It is of course very early days, but the Waikato boys will be delighted to have convincing bonus point win against the champions on their home turf.