Gunning For Liz

Liz Gunn – what’s it all about?

Picture: Hiliary Barry and Liz Gunn

The majority of New Zealand minor media, alternative/new media, citizen journalists are novices and listed here. Gunn is the exception as a lawyer turned journalist with a television and radio career that started last century.

Regardless of any current events surrounding Gunn and accusations of conspiracy media and rabbit holes, STUFF News started a cancel culture attack referring to Gunn, who currently runs a minor news platform called FreeNZ, as a “former journalist.”

Jane Mander, historical figure and author of Story of a NZ River, would never be referred to as a former journalist, regardless of her controversial views – the dehumanizing process had begun.

What Gunn reports on is a direct conflict to the government propaganda that funded STUFF News during Covid … FreeNZ is self funded.

Next up was Sean Plunket who led the ongoing character assassination against Gunn. He claimed “Nutters hunt in packs” suggesting that Gunn leads some form of underworld army of the ignorant, who exist in their own echo chamber.

Looking at the subsequent onslaught from the SpinOff, Newshub and anyone else that wanted to join the hunt, one has to ask whether Plunket had the taste of liver and chianti behind his teeth.

This is the fallacy that our mainstream media live with – that if they project their thoughts everyone will agree with them. It’s an intolerable arrogance that’s been growing in size since the late 1970s to a public distrust of today’s mainstream.

Then arrived the witches on their broomsticks, Hillary Barry asking people to keep Liz in their prayers, Lizzie Marvelly and others joining in on social media in an attempt to paint Gunn as mentally unstable.

Inspite of being in the Lion’s Den, Liz Gunn obliged with a statement, as requested by Sean Plunket, to the Platform.

Plunket took great delight in reading the statement in a sarcastic voice intended to dismiss Gunn’s ramble as irrelevant nonsense and to belittle her.

Gunn has a significant audience, many of whom are among the 65,000 vaccine injuries that receive little to no recognition from mainstream media for obvious reasons, and also played a significant role in the coverage of the Tokelau House Arrests written about in the Tokelau Category.

An attempt was made by Plunket and other media to paint her work as irrational and insignificant.

Tokelau although a NZ Dependency is also a UN developing nation and was close to seeing charges of human rights abuses filed with the UN.

No insignificant matter that would have been an international embarrassment to the Ardern administration at the time and to her father the recently departed Administrator of Tokelau. 

We take this opportunity to remind Sean Plunket that when he launched The Platform News site, it was under the banner of “Resistance Media“ out to confront mainstream bias and incompetence – so what happened Sean?

Is that the media cesspit you’re contently wallowing in?

What makes her content noteworthy is how deeply personal it is about Jacinda Ardern. Here, she fantasises about Ardern’s death. pic.twitter.com/BglgA56Vh9

— Charlie Mitchell (@comingupcharlie) March 2, 2023

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Weather Fear

Following on from the recent two major weather events in New Zealand in January and February are questions about weather forecast accuracy and whether flooding was an infrastructure issue.

For some isolated areas this has created real fears especially from the floods on the East Coast.

We asked Philip Duncan at WeatherWatch what could be done to reassure locals and volunteers in the disaster zone.

Credit to WeatherWatch for their input into allaying the weather fears, some of which are being driven by overseas websites talking about NZ weather.

https://fb.watch/iTLekukC3M/

A shout out from DemocracyNZ in Dargaville to the worst affected areas on the East Coast.

Listen Up Luxon

Listen to Steve Cranston’s message to Luxon:

https://fb.watch/iTv15hc1yP/?mibextid=RUbZ1f

“I’m just curious, Chris … when did climate change become so important to you?”

Steve Cranston

Cranston was straight to the point when he addressed New Zealand’s National Party Leader, Chris Luxon over his climate hypocrisy.

This week saw a determined effort from the National Party to stamp ownership on climate policy and a possible deal with the Green Party in post election coalition arrangements.

Green Co-leader James Shaw has been the key political figure in the country’s development of climate policy and its Climate Commission and also a strong critic of the Opposition’s position on climate policy.

DemocracyNZ as a new political party launched in October hasn’t had time to stamp its mark on the election narrative but are not short of talent in their candidate line up to do so.

The shifting sands that see National move out of Opposition mode and establish an early election position around climate policy is yet another indication National has already surrendered the farming vote to DemocracyNZ.

DemocracyNZ leader, Matt King is a Northland farmer and Cranston an agricultural advisor in the Waikato.

3 Years On

It’s an effort to drag your attention away from all that is happening around us at the moment. I didn’t see the Christchurch earthquake mentioned once yesterday, 12 years on.

What was happening three years ago?

For NZ we were still in a peaceful pre-covid existence.

Far from perfection though, with little if any substance from Labour.

Mallard was becoming aware of the party’s failure to deliver and had been making a nuisance of himself, Jacinda was languishing, and the election chatter about her stepping down after the March Mosque anniversary was heating up.

At ground level though, homelessness was gaining traction and Facebook activity suggested there was at least 20k Kiwis living on the road in an organised fashion.

That’s not counting the general homelessness and the increase of people living in cars which was evident in Northland.

The battle with freedom campers was heating up and gypsy camps were developing around any convenient location.

If it wasn’t for Covid that would have been the narrative going into the 2020 Election 3 years ago.

Dangerous Territory

It’s frightening to watch but we are seeing the political disposal of free speech even without legislation. 

DemocracyNZ or Not?

So, would you agree that this is one of the most confusing times New Zealand has seen in its political history?

“It’s not responsible ‘to take options off the table'” Grant Robertson, said today, amid questions over potential flood tax.

Yet, these same people would exclude debates they don’t want to have from this election along with other political parties whose ideas you might like better.

This happens to an extent in every election year where the parliamentary parties will eliminate some issues early on to keep the election tidy often sidelining single issue parties – “It’s not an election issue.”

Among the minor parties we have now, sits DemocracyNZ.
Here is a party that is growing a candidate list who understand and can debate these issues and a party that has held public meetings throughout the country during the last 12 months.

Matt King already has a front bench that is capable of functioning in Parliament. That is one of the reasons I think we are seeing David Seymour fire up. Whether Seymour wants the top job or not he’s desperate for ACT to walk over any territory where DemocracyNZ candidates could shine.

ACT know they have some serious competition in Matt King who has already done one term in Parliament as a National MP but also what the public might not realise yet is with the quality of candidates standing for DemocracyNZ, they could easily win electorate seats where ACT would struggle to do this.

What we’re seeing with our two main parties, though is not an election but a competition for power – and after this week’s performance from Luxon some supporters will be taking a step back from National. 

If the politically homeless walkway and don’t vote for DemocracyNZ it’s a lost debate. The debate you could have had but will definitely not get if they don’t bother to vote.

Having said that, DemocracyNZ isn’t doing as much as it could to connect. The party has to make itself more visible than it is now.

Investing in Change

We’re creatures of habit and prefer something we call normal, often resisting change, if we even see the need for it … No progress without struggle?

At a time when New Zealand is having a significant political upheaval the electorate must question itself – are we paying enough attention?

Commercial interests do this on a regular basis, and vested interests can be resistant to change – you might say that is reasonably defending their territory.

Whether it’s new technology or the entrepreneur exercising their potential in the business world aside, voters cannot carry on as if politics is excluded from change because it’s convenient for incumbent politicians.

This is where the strength of our struggling media will be tested.

New Zealand’s mainstream was, to a degree, forced into cooperation with government both through the covid narrative and government funding. 

That’s obviously the case judging by the alternative industry that came about as a consequence. 

If that realisation creates a weary self-serving media, voters in this election will not get the coverage they deserve, the loss of faith in the mainstream will continue, and so will the move towards more reliable but smaller outlets.

That’s the question the mainstream media must ask themselves: if I’m not going to do my job now was I a casualty of convenience before?

Do media feel the obligation to return the favour to politicians?

It’s a complicated relationship within a democracy and no one gets excluded from their respective responsibilities while others shouldn’t benefit from manipulation.

Commentators can interpret polls any way they want to: not that polls can’t be manipulated anyway.

This election will be very different to recent elections and the result may be somewhat surprising and inconsistent with the polls that we see now.

Tokelau Refugees

The long battle for the Patelesio family of Nukunonu Atoll in the Tokelau Group is finally nearing an end.

Their fight for their basic human rights has however deteriorated to a sad end.

Refusal to accept the Tokelau Government’s compulsory vaccination mandates led to house arrests on two of the three populated atolls.

They were the only family on Nukunono Atoll and the last to secure release.

That story can be found in the Tokelau Category.

Mahelino Patelesio and his family are currently in Samoa awaiting flights back to NZ later this month.

And grateful for the ongoing assistance of their support team to get the family back to New Zealand.

Following continuing communication difficulties and a land dispute on the site on their retirement home, the family are now travelling light, taking only what they can within their baggage limit for the transfer to New Zealand.

Mahelino, his wife, artist Anna Patelesio, and two of their children Koloi and Jypsy have left behind their dreams to escape the nightmare … while New Zealand looks back on the first anniversary of the parliamentary protest.

DNZ – Kirsten Murfitt

For any rising political party it is a significant occasion when they launch a candidate in a bell wether electorate such as Tauranga.

Democracy NZ Party leader, Matt King was well placed when he announced local lawyer, Kirsten Murfitt to take up that challenge.

The lawyer and self confessed freedom fighter was supported by Taranaki-King Country candidate Lee Smith, who launched her own electorate challenge in September last year.

This duo, along with King (A former National Party MP) are all serious contenders for their electorate seats.

An enthusiastic crowd, packed out the Oasis Bar and Grill to hear Murfitt introduce herself and outline what she hoped to achieve in Parliament should DemocracyNZ be successful in Election 2023.

The event was covered by Zeb Jackson Live, one of our talented and rising stars in the media industry.

King who will stand as a candidate in his Northland Electorate announced the registration of DemocracyNZ with the Electoral Commission in October 2022 and Murfitt is the fourth candidate to be announced to date following on from Steve Cranston in the Waikato electorate.

Full details of the DemocracyNZ team can be found on their website.

Also, event notifications for their ongoing roadshow. The Party will hold its next meeting in Te Aroha, Friday 10th February.