Free To Speak

The Second COVID Inquiry - Ani O'Brien on Dissent & Censorship During Coronavirus

• Free Speech Union • Season 2 • Episode 10

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We dig into the second COVID inquiry and why New Zealand still needs real accountability rather than polished narratives. Ani O'Brien argues that free speech, dissent, and honest scrutiny are not side issues but the core safeguards that stop crisis policy from sliding into coercion.


• why adversarial challenge strengthens democracy and decision-making 
• how media dynamics shape what can be questioned 
• the use of misinformation and disinformation labels to shut down debate 
• speech rights impacts alongside legal and medical concerns 
• vaccine mandates for young people and ignored expert advice claims 
• why inquiries serve a cathartic public purpose, not just “lessons learned” 
• the Parliament protest, class divides, and media portrayal 
• online mob behaviour, cancellations, and neighbour-tattling culture 
• selective tolerance for protests and contradictions in enforcement 
• Patty Gower’s apology and what accountability could look like. 


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Welcome And Topic Setup

SPEAKER_03

Welcome to Free to Speak, the New Zealand Free Speech Union podcast. If you enjoy the show, subscribe for uncensored conversations and free speech news from New Zealand and beyond.

SPEAKER_00

I'm your host today, Dane Giroud, a council member of the Free Speech Union, and joining me is another council member of our illustrious union, Annie O'Brien.

SPEAKER_03

Hey, how's it going?

SPEAKER_00

Good, good. So today we're going to talk about the second COVID inquiry. We will probably need to venture outside of the free speech realm a little just to get context and everything, but we will try as best we can to stick to the whole free speech um element of it. You wrote a really great, uh, very um detailed piece on your wonderful Substack. Um and it wasn't I mean the top, you know, talk about we can't be partisan, but you know, even in the title, you know, it's not like you're bad. You don't sound like a great, a big fan of uh of Chris Hipkins. Let's let's be honest.

Accountability And The Adversarial Tradition

SPEAKER_03

Look, I'm very honest about that, and there are personal reasons for that too. And so I um I don't hide that. And and generally in my writing, I um try to provide some balance, um, but I also just am very explicit when I'm not providing balance, and that was one case. Um, I also think that uh because of how uh pro and um forgiving our media have been in the in regards to this report and in regards to COVID, uh, that it's balance in itself to provide another alternative view of it. Um and I guess in in my piece, I was um I absolutely said, you know, early stages of the pandemic, um, I think our government did really well. I I think that they were um they were dealing with uh immensely um confusing, um uncertain times. Um the whole world was trying to figure out what the hell was going on and how bad it was. Everyone was going, okay, are we are we overreacting to this? Are we underreacting to this? What do we need to do? And I really think that um those early stages, they handled it as best they could and and kudos to them. And that seems to be where our media stops, is that they're like, yeah, we did the best. This is great. Um, whereas I think that in order to learn from these things um and provide um useful reflection, we need to look at some of the stuff that didn't go well. We learn from the stuff that we mess up, not from the stuff that we celebrate. Um, so I kind of got into some of the main reasons why um the main criticisms that were um raised in the report. Um and uh I th I feel like I was fair in the sense that that they are what was in the report, they are fair criticisms, but yes, I did go in pretty hard uh because I I really detest um lack of accountability in leaders. Um and it really feels like there's massive dodging of accountability on a lot of this stuff.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you make a good point. Uh uh someone has to do it. You know, we can't just have a chair leading media. Someone has to do it. Someone has to go in and be people even need to be unnecessarily hard on leaders sometimes. You know what I mean? Yeah, they can be corrected too, but you need that push and pull constantly to get the facts out there. That's the marketplace of ideas. That's the sort of collision of ideas that truth sort of can come out of.

SPEAKER_03

Well, I mean, the actual basis of of Western democracy, um, of our legal systems is an adversarial one. And I think sometimes we forget that that serves a function. It's not necessarily um uh a nasty negative thing to provide that opposition. Um and that was one of my I was um working for the opposition um for part of COVID. And one of the most difficult things was trying to oppose effectively when the media um had a had basically decided that any opposition or questioning was tantamount to treason. Um and it was a really hard time to provide um any kind of form of opposition to government action. And it's actually, as I say, a very important function in our democracy. Just like we have um in our court system, we have, you know, the opposing sides um take an adversarial stance and argue it out in front of a jury or a judge. Um, that's the same way our um political system is set up. And it's because through argument we are able to distill truth, um, we're able to um uh elicit weakness, um, and that is the function um of an opposition. So a lot of people kind of get a bit aggrieved about opposition being too nitpicky or um being a bit of a pain. But actually that their core function is to find every weakness.

SPEAKER_00

It is to be a bit of a pain.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, exactly. And I think it kind of um that is where one of my big bugbears for the the pandemic was that um culturally, if not formally, um that was really repressed. And I I do hold our media mostly responsible, but also our during Hipkins and Robertson really drove that as well. Um, and it basically it was um there was only one true narrative, it cannot be questioned, um, and any questioning of it is either disinformation, misinformation, or treason, you know, and um it meant that not only were individuals deprived of their speech rights, but also the function of dissent in a democracy was completely dismantled, compromised, yeah. Yeah, and it it didn't serve us well because um some of the uh kind of tricky things that that cropped up, um they weren't able to be uh really wrestled with um by opposition and government to produce the best outcome. It was just whatever reckons um Ardoon and Hipkins came up with, that was what kind of happened. And inevitably with with humans, um, you have all sorts of competing um uh agendas and and ideas and um and also no one human has all the expertise as well. And so there was a lot of stuff that was not challenged sufficiently enough because challenge was not acceptable.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean there were clearly issues where they knew that uh uh they were playing a bit fast and loose and going against expert advice, but compliance was obviously more important to them um than the truth necessarily, uh, which is exactly why they we need a free speech union, you know.

Disinformation Labels And Silenced Dissent

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, um we do. And I think um people probably have underestimated the effect of that the silencing and um repression of any dissent on our COVID response. Unfortunately, I think that some people think that was a feature, not a bug. And um they actually think it it was a good thing to just you know to kind of repress the inconvenient people who spoke out against or questioned. Um and I I think that is a shame that um people see things like that. But if you look at um the the the phase two report, you've got the main kind of report, and then you've got a kind of distilling of the perspectives that came out of the um uh interviews and and whatnot that they did. And that they don't give too much time in the report to matters of speech and censorship and that kind of thing. Um but in the perspective section, you can see um that there was there's a lot of people who are saying things like, Look, I've always been pro-vaccination, but I I didn't like the mandates, which was where I sat.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I sat there too. That that's where I was at. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And um they they're saying, look, I tried to, you know, have discussions about it, or I'd put something online, it was taken down, you know, like it's like they kind of there was a lot of people who've who felt really um aggrieved by the the imposition on their speech rights. And I think it's important that that is part of the conversation of what happened, um, part of the reconciliation, if you will. Um, and I don't think it has been enough. I think rightly people have focused on the medical evidence and the legal stuff. That is that is totally understandable. But I do think that there needs to be a bit of a reckoning, a bit of a discussion around um just how authoritarian our government got just like that.

SPEAKER_00

Well, the disinformation project was sort of created as a response to COVID disinformation, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_03

Well, it was created to prov prevent people from speaking inconveniently and labeling it disinformation. A lot of what was being said was actually, you know, things like the changing narratives around the origins of the virus, right? So that's changed several times, the kind of public narrative.

SPEAKER_00

What is accepted, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. And so people who weren't in step with whatever was the the current thing um were absolutely kind of castigated. Um and so there were so many things that were not allowed to be said, and that changed over time. And then things like the disinformation project came along to punish those who were saying the inconvenient things at the wrong time. A lot of it was around um vaccines, and um, there were some pretty wild things out there, but it's not illegal to have wild theories. Um and unfortunately now with this report coming out, um, at least in one area, a lot of these people have been proven right. Um, not the most extreme, extreme, extreme theories that were out there, but in the context of people who were vocally worrying about um myocarditis risks for young men in particular, but young people in general, um were told that they were misinformation, disinformation, um, anti-vaxxers, causing a bother kind of thing. And um, it's it's now come out through this report that um the government ignored um medical advice and mandated that vaccine for 12 to 17-year-olds when they were told not to. So it it is really quite uh when you look at it in that light, um yes, uh silencing the public provided uh an easier time for leadership to make decisions and to impose them. But it there's also a real ethical problem here because people were silenced and they've been proven right. And I argue, and you argue, that even if they hadn't been proven right, they shouldn't have been silenced. But especially in a case of a medical crisis, a medical um, you know, worldwide pandemic, to silence people who are quite rightly talking about, wow, this is all happening so fast, do we know about the safety aspects of this vaccine? You know, even that kind of talk was completely not okay. It was shut down um and it was seen as kind of subversive. Um, and that that is totally wrong. And we should be learning from this. We should be, there should be a massive section in the report that says the human rights of citizens were impacted in regards to there's other other aspects of human rights that were impacted as well. But in this case, speech rights, um, New Zealanders were not able to voice concerns to question government action, which are fundamental parts of being in a liberal democracy. Like I I I think people um kind of think we're joking when we say our government went authoritarian, but they really did for a time there. It was the kind of things that you would expect in a North Korea or a or a CCP China, um, where um simply questioning a government decision was enough to get you to lose your job. You know, that is just that is authoritarian regime stuff. And it came out of nowhere, and that is concerning. And we should be analyzing how do we ensure that those conditions are not set up again so that if we have a crisis, it's the the lever that the government pulls isn't I'm just gonna shut off all um uh ability for for people to question and dissent.

Vaccine Mandates And Ignored Advice

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, um look, we'll we'll we'll we'll get to uh what exactly was in the report. Um we you have touched on the the um the younger people, you know, the advice not not to have two shots there. Um I think most people intuitively knew that that was probably wrong. But fear, mob mentality, uh you know what I mean? They sort of pe people go along with that kind of stuff. But I I want to go back a little, Annie, and just talk about getting to the point where we haven't inquiry at all, because a lot of people didn't think there was any need to have one, which I found really bizarre. Like I don't care, I don't care if you're Moses, right? If if there's an an emergency and you're taking all this control for the for trust alone, we need to put everything out on the table and and know exactly what went wrong. You know, we can be forgiving. People can be forgiving, but a lot of people didn't even want an inquiry at all. So so can you speak to that a little?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I think people misunderstand the purpose of inquiries as well. Like I think um a lot of people think, oh, this is just so that we can um kind of flagellate the leaders and and you know punish them. Um it's not just about that, and it's not actually just about learning lessons either. There is also a cathartic purpose, which is that when something really hard happens, you talk to people who who um are proponents of restorative justice and they'll talk about it in the sense of um the justice system. But when something terrible happens, we often need to process these things and feel like we've been hurt and that what we went through has been acknowledged. Um and so the purpose of these inquiries actually serves that purpose. And I think it's probably the most important purpose that it serves is that it gives the people an opportunity to say, This hurt me, this impacted me, um, and my rights were impinged on, and I did not like this, and I don't think this should happen again. And so they get to have their say, and then in theory, these independent people say, Yep, they're right, they they they were hurt and they were treated wrongly. The government shouldn't do this again, but it was probably fair that they did this. Um, and then hopefully the the decision makers accept some responsibility. Unfortunately, um, Hipkins has been very dismissive, um, not interested in apologizing for some of those big decisions that he made against advice. Um, as our Dern and Robertson have both accepted the findings of the report, um, which I think is good because that demonstrates that um they they acknowledge those things that they got wrong. Um and and so I think that purpose is is is is poorly understood. And so for people who didn't feel like COVID impacted them, and there was a large chunk of usually quite privileged people who could work from home.

SPEAKER_00

The laptop class.

SPEAKER_03

The laptop class. Yeah. And you know what? I'm I'm one of them, but but I see things a bit different than a lot of them, I think. Um and so it was work from home, do your sourdough, drinks on Zoom, you know, it was all actually they quite enjoyed it. And now a lot of them refuse to go back to the office, you know. Um it's it's actually kind of uh there's a nostalgia for it, right? And um, and and so these people don't feel particularly aggrieved. They they are like, actually, this was a great time. Um, and that they kind of feel like um everyone's making a much ado about nothing. Um and so there is uh a disconnect, I think, from a lot of particularly as you say, the laptop class who are often in the positions of decision-making in our bureaucracy, public service, um not understanding just how much it affected other parts of the population. Um and so you have this effect of dismissing the grievance of a good chunk of the population. And you saw it play out with the the protest at Parliament. They were demonized, man. Like um really demonized.

SPEAKER_00

That that that's a really that's an aspect of it, and that's what the disinformation project did too. I mean, uh they were sort of set up to smear people in a way. Like just be a bullying, like an sort of a semi-official bullying crew of bullies. It was uh Yeah.

What Inquiries Are Really For

SPEAKER_03

It was quite amazing. I went down, so I was living in Wellington at the time, and so I went down to the protest and um just went around and talked to people because I really wanted to understand um what it was that had driven them to take up on the grounds of parliament um and really show their displeasure with the government. Um and I wish that every New Zealander would have gone down on the ground and seen what I saw because what I saw in the media and what I saw in reality were two different things. Um so the media had these kind of like um scary, um, they were talking about Nazis, they were trying to portray it as this real awful a massive far-right rally, basically. Yeah. And I got down there and yes, it was it was heavily um, I'd say, skewed in terms of like working class, some middle class people, people who had been forced out of jobs, um, because it was predominantly more working class and service-based people rather than laptop class who lost their jobs, um, especially due to the vaccine um mandates. And so there were so it's a classic case, I think, of the upper classes being like, look at them deplorables, to quote Hillary Clinton, yeah, um, and really um uh demonizing them. Also, it was disproportionately Mori, which I found really interesting, because usually our media and the government would have really hammered that and you know, would have listened to, you know, our Tang's venua, blah, blah, blah. Not these ones. They had the wrong opinions. So so they were not useful to them.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, see, for me, Maori uh be, you know, taking a stand against uh something like that is makes perfect sense because minority group, you know, that distrust of power is going to be there, especially with Maori.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and that's what I think the government forgets because well, that government forgot because they had asserted a kind of ownership over the Maori vote and over Maori perspectives and said we're the ones who who um represent them. And and that's carried over with the change of government, there's been a real like uh ownership claimed by the opposition now. And so for them it's really inconvenient when the kind of traditional historical position of Maori as having more distrust with the government, um, with good historical reason, um when it shines through like it did in COVID, that's really inconvenient for them. And so they were not gonna acknowledge that um or platform it. So they didn't like to show any of the Maori faces on on media. Um, and it wasn't until it was like it all kind of turned to crap and everyone was fighting, the police were all fighting, that was like you kind of got to look at all the faces that are involved. But um yeah, I think it as you say, there are there are certain groups um in society who tend to traditionally have a higher level of distrust in government. Generally, they have um gone through um periods where they've had very good reason to distrust government. Um and um in particular, those pe those groups of people are seen as a threat in times of um where the government's trying to assert control. Um, but the the the point I was wanting to make about the protest was about the the two the distinct different experiences and the fact that those who experienced material suffering under COVID, and I call it that because there were people who their their financial situation went from perhaps you know stable to utterly devastated. They lost jobs, they lost houses, they lost relationships because of the stress. Um, and and a lot of the laptop class have absolutely no idea about that. You know, no idea.

SPEAKER_00

But they will argue that they brought it on themselves, just get the vaccine. But Damien Grant made a good point, a rare good point. No, he does occasionally. But but he said, look, if if you think that a vaccine is gonna harm you or your child, that's the kind of belief that's equivalent to Jesus died and rose again. Like it's not it's not necessarily a belief you you're just gonna get over, you know.

SPEAKER_03

It's a pretty strong belief.

SPEAKER_00

It's quite it's it's a qu very strong belief. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Well, it's instinctual. And actually, um this is something that I think gets ignored a lot by our political class nowadays, all over the world actually, and that is that there are certain human instincts that aren't actually social or cultural, they are built into us. And in this case, the desire to protect one's children is is a built-in function. And so if you believe, as you say, that there is a threat towards your child, well, there could possibly be a threat.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, even possibly.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. In most cases, parents are not going to budge because they uh evolutionarily we are programmed to protect our young and to ensure that they get to adulthood. And so um social conditioning, like our our government tried to do with a lot of um the stuff around the vaccine, a lot of the kind of coercion of mandates, um, was never going to work on those who had already entrenched that belief that this was a harm to their children. What would have perhaps made a difference would have been getting into the detail of the vaccine, the science, and assuring people that it was safe. And in the process, if they learnt as they would have done with this um what's come out in the report, that uh that it isn't safe for this group of people, then they should have acted um accordingly. And that would have made more trust. If they the if if the government would have said, look, actually we're not going to mandate it for anyone under 29, I think, I think it was 29 that was the actual um uh advice, because there is a enough of a risk, although low, of this heart um condition. Uh and if we compare that to the risk of COVID and what that would do to a young person, which it was not fatal in most cases. It really wasn't. Um so we've weighed it up, we're not going to mandate it for under 29s. There would probably have been more trust in the the kind of um advice that it was safe for older people because the government was willing to make the concession that it actually is not safe yet.

SPEAKER_00

So Chris Hipkins hasn't spoken to this, has he? He hasn't given any justification for why they ignored that advice.

SPEAKER_03

No, and the media haven't asked him.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, which is just insane. But but I wonder, just trying to think about why you would not put that narrative out there, was he were they thinking something like, well, if there's any talk of heart conditions and dangers like that, that might start breaking down compliance generally. Because people might go, well, probably part of it. It says 29, but I'm 33 and I'm a young 33. You know.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I'm 35 and I'm I'm I feel 25.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I would have done that. I would have gone, look, I'm 51, but I'm a young 51. But but who knows? You know, so but that's not good because again, it's like compliance is everything, if that's the case. I mean, I'm getting a bit excited and I'm putting words in his mouth, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Um Well, in the absence of him explaining it, I think we're entitled to speculate.

SPEAKER_00

Well, see, that's exactly right too. In the absence of him fronting, we're going to speculate.

Parliament Protest Versus Media Story

SPEAKER_03

And I do think you're right, that would have played a part in it. They were very set on getting compliance. My concern is that there were other elements that drove that other than this will be the best health outcome for New Zealanders. I think there was a bit of hubris in this whole idea of wanting to have the highest compliance rate in the world. And um, I think it was a huge mistake that the Herald did the um sorry, pardon me. Um the Herald did their, I think it was like get to 90 or something. Um and I think in in hindsight, they might think twice about that as well because it it became advocacy instead of um reporting on on the facts as they were. So I think there was a lot of hubris tied up into we're gonna have the best response, we're gonna have the highest compliance, you know, da da da da da. And um and so that sometimes distracted from the core purpose, which should have been we need to get through this with the basically the lowest um negative impact on our people. Now l lethality of the degree uh of the uh virus uh w was number one can um thing to consider in that. Yep. But it wasn't the only thing.

SPEAKER_00

Which groups were, you know, that would have been the number one thing to consider for me.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and and really I think that is a huge learning is that um we should have um doubled down our effort on protecting the elderly without restricting the rest of the population. Um elderly and vulnerable in in other ways. Um but i it it I think we haven't been allowed to have that conversation about those decisions because I think the answers probably aren't that great. I think if he I think if he was to answer honestly, why did you um create create the boundary against all advice? Why did you extend the lockdown against advice? Why did you mandate for children against advice? I think his answers would if there wouldn't be satisfactory answers there. I think it was that they got so caught up in their own authority that they made decisions um on based on their own reckons, which as a minister you have a right to do. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, Winston Peters is a good example of that, isn't he? Like not taking advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on um uh state of Palestine. Yeah, yeah, in fact. So yeah, on Palestine.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. There are real reasons why, because you can get captured departments and you um and sometimes the advice you're getting is is conflicting to other advice. So there are very good reasons that ministers are allowed to ignore officials.

SPEAKER_00

Experts like like a like a Susie Wiles, for instance, isn't thinking about the economy. You know, like some of those people, they're not thinking, but they're thinking about something very and that's okay because they are they have a lane.

SPEAKER_03

They're in their niche, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And that that's right. And so the ministers were absolutely right to take advice from the economists, from the scientists, from the social scientists.

SPEAKER_00

Uh, bring them together and find the yeah.

SPEAKER_03

However, uh, our criticism is that they lean too heavily on the epidemiologists without considering the advice from some of the other experts who would have said um you're you're gonna cause um higher mortality for social reasons or um because of economic deprivation and a massive transfer of wealth.

SPEAKER_00

Um, you know, which is why Renard Dun said if we lose one person, it's one person too many, or something like that. Which is Well, you're gonna lose, you know. I mean, a lot of people that died from COVID would have probably died within a year or so anyway.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I mean, there's there is that.

SPEAKER_00

But many of them were in their 80s. I mean, that was the highest group that were going to pass. Um, so yeah, we don't want to lose any mother or grandmother or anything like that. But shutting down entire economies over protecting that group is just not that clever, really, is it?

SPEAKER_03

Unfortunately for Jacinda, that she shouldn't have the luxury of saying that. So for individuals, normal citizens, whatever, we can think, oh, one death is too many because it's my nana or it's um, you know, my friend or whatever. As a leader of a country and as a as a government, they are making decisions every day, whether they like it or not, about who lives and who dies. Think about the decisions they make about which drugs they fund, for example. Yeah. So there are people who die earlier because they don't have access to the most cutting-edge drugs on this thing, because they've decided to fund this thing and made sure people don't die for that. So it's very sloganing and it uh And I think the trouble there is because we weren't allowed to challenge that, because if you said anything like what I just said, you were accused of wanting to kill Nanas and um basically being the worst person on earth. Um but what I just said is is is the practical reality of governing. It's the trade-offs, it's the um decision making that has real impact. Um, but we couldn't say it because it undermined the messaging of needing this like total response, zero death, zero, zero, zero.

SPEAKER_00

Do you think there's a distinction to be made? Because we've got to be careful probably not to muddy the waters around what the government is doing in terms of censorship and what the mob is doing. So there's a mob online that are really pushing a lot of this. How much of it is government, you know?

SPEAKER_03

Well, there is there are there are they're very separate things, but they also interact. So a lot of the mob online were highly supportive of the government. So there is that kind of political affiliation. However, the mobs often were responsible for, if we exclude that the mandate-related job losses, um, they were responsible for the cancellations. So if someone online um criticized an aspect of the response um and someone screenshot it, sent it to their employer, everyone piled on, um, that was how a lot of people were getting um silenced, censored, and then suffering consequences um for it. Um that was a uh I think a hideous aspect of the um the the whole COVID period.

Compliance Culture And Policy Trade-offs

SPEAKER_00

I think it it existed anyway, as we know, with the culture wars and identity politics, the kind of in any emergency like this would bring out that sort of personality, I think.

SPEAKER_03

Uh yeah, so you you have it you have a type of person who is inclined to um you know being an authoritarian in their own life, you know, their own lunchtime.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Persons put two rubbish bags, they've got five rubbish bags. They should have two. I only have two, that kind of person, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Well, I thought it was that the most hideous thing was the tallying on each other's neighbours. Like I almost like I mean, I guess again, it's this idea of if you think it's a general genuine threat, but I don't actually believe that these people thought that that that someone having drinks in their driveway a little bit too close to their neighbours was going to kill anyone. I think they just liked um asserting authority, seeing the results of that.

SPEAKER_00

And you know, you know the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller about the the the witch trials, and and he was using it as a comment on on the the red scare, you know. Uh-huh. But a lot of the the witch trials, there were cases where that accused people of witchcraft so they could buy their land once they got killed. You know?

SPEAKER_03

Well, this is what humans do. Humans are duplicitous.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. So the neighbors probably like, I've never liked that fence. And this is my chance to really stick it to that person who put that ugly fence between our houses.

SPEAKER_03

Well, I mean, it gave people the power to punish in a way that they probably hadn't had before, you know? Like it's the same kind of instinct that has people calling noise control on neighbors they don't like and stuff, you know? But um, there was something really gross about how it was encouraged. So Arduan really encouraged this tattling on your neighbours.

SPEAKER_01

And did she die?

SPEAKER_03

Yes, she did. You can go back and she's like literally says, like, you can call, um, call the police and like it's it's good. No, it wasn't. And so I and I thought it really undermined the other message of this team of five million. I I think um in situations like this, you should side with your neighbors over your government, you know. It should be that um there's a solidarity of we're getting through this this horrible thing. You know, sure, if if if your neighbor's got COVID and is coughing in your window, then maybe I don't know. But it's but for like minor things and and even the thing that you that I kind of was like, how did we get to this? Was um people just going for a walk on the beach, getting the CE and not being anywhere near anyone else. And I mean, the irony was that one of the chief kind of advisors and and experts on telling people not to do this kind of thing was then caught on going for a for a walk and sitting on the beach. Yeah. But I I I think there were so many aspects of it that were nonsensical, but all pieced together to be this like um part of this picture of control. And because we couldn't question one, we couldn't question another, and the whole apparatus kind of was able to continue.

SPEAKER_00

The one that got me, Annie, was like going to a restaurant, having your mask on, and then going.

SPEAKER_03

No, when you sat down, you were allowed to take it off.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah. Well, no, I think that that was in America somewhere. They were doing that. Oh my god. It's like Yeah, so you sit down, you take it off, and then there's a force field around your table at that moment while you eat. It's like, okay, you could argue, well, you're limiting the duration of time and everything, but it's not gonna, I mean, it was that contagious. It's there was a lot of real performative and and and absurd and stupid, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And and I I think on a free speech level, when when speech is curtailed and dissent is prevented, things get more and more absurd because people don't have to provide reason and logic. They can just declare something.

SPEAKER_00

And there are gonna be contradictions.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, a good example was like one of the lockdowns got broken by the the Black Lives Matter movement, didn't it? Remember that?

SPEAKER_03

Oh, that was one of the worst contradictions.

SPEAKER_00

And what happened is Jacinda didn't really, you know, she was like, oh well, you know, I uh our team kind of supports that protest, so I'm not really gonna say too much.

SPEAKER_03

Well, even experts were like, you know, because of the social um it was like because of the social impacts of uh of racism.

SPEAKER_00

That's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

It that is more of a public health issue than COVID. Then why are we in our houses?

SPEAKER_00

I know, I know, I know. But but the but the idea that they would think that that most people who weren't like far-left activists would go, oh, okay. I mean, no one's gonna do I mean it was just ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03

It was so bizarre. And especially then the the fervor with which they treated any protest against the the lockdowns or mandates or whatever, it it then provided a really stark contrast of um a government that said, if we agree with your um belief or we agree with what you have to say, you can protest because it doesn't hurt us at all. But if you if you were protesting against us, which is what protest usually is, it's usually against power, right? Um, then it's not it's it's not okay. And so it really protest was not okay. Only performative um government-approved um messaging, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, it was nuts. Hey, going back to the whole um diversity of people at the um uh the parliamentary protests and how there is a talking over minorities that often happens with um I think government on both sides, to be honest. But you know, that's where Galen Barnes' film River of Freedom was so good and so important. Like that film was like close to three hours and it just spoke to so many people. And you got to see the diversity.

SPEAKER_03

It is very it is very valuable, that kind of work. I mean, it it didn't get the recognition it deserves, I think, because it was it's subversive, it's challenging the official narrative.

SPEAKER_00

It actually was one of the higher grossing documentaries, not on the record, but it it was like it it was selling out everywhere they that they went.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah but that that often happens with um art and and and product like this in in New Zealand. It's like our our most famous comedians in terms of name recognition and everything would be Maori and Polynesian kids in South Auckland making clips on their phones, but they're not um anointed by the state.

SPEAKER_03

And so they probably say stuff that's like not approved by the state.

SPEAKER_00

No, it's not it's not approved, but they would be the people with the biggest followings.

Online Mobs And Tattling On Neighbours

SPEAKER_03

And well, I mean you look in America at documentaries, and in the last few years, the most successful grossing ones have been the this year it's Melania's one, which I haven't seen, but I've neither yeah, what whatever. Um, but all of Trump supporters and stuff probably, a whole bunch of them have gone out and seed it. It's it's it's grossed higher than most documentaries, and yet it will not be touched by any of the awards or um kind of acknowledged or given any favorable treatment by any of the newspapers reviewing it. Likewise, Matt Walsh's um documentaries, he did one on brace and one on sex and gender, and they were some of the most successful doc uh documentaries, and they were ignored by all of the kind of um official apparatus that does awards and that kind of thing. And so I think it is just it, it's that um evidence that these kind of spaces in the arts now are totally just part of the the power structure. Um and art used to be um a place for subversion, a place for descent, a place for challenge. Um now it's usually um in line with power.

SPEAKER_00

Well, well, I I had this discussion with David Kuhn when we talked about the Adelaide Writers Festival and the Palestinian um rider.

SPEAKER_03

Well, that was a self-inflicted wound, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00

Well, yeah, yeah, but but my experience of of funding bodies and everything, uh I don't know about, I mean, it's they definitely have power, but when you say part of the power structure, they're all of a class. And I and I have an example of a the Tekanini tire changer who is a character that I've sort of created that you will never see on one of those panels, you know, going, Oh, I'd like to see this. You know, like that guy's never gonna be there, you know. So a pair of things.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, the people deciding what gets funded are genuine, genuinely of the laptop class that they are um uh educated.

SPEAKER_00

Politically pretty homogeneous.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, they're all they're all left or hard left, they're all university educated, urban, mostly white, um, and a lot of women, highly women. Um, and so they are um, and I realize I've described myself by and large. Again, I worry, I worry for my people. This is why I tell people I am so worried for my people, my my white women, you know, kind of liberal background, universally educated, urban. Like, what is going on? Like, my people have lost their minds.

SPEAKER_00

Well, the the other the point I made to David is it's the kind of institution, too, that like if the Tuckanini Thaya Changer got a got the opportunity, like within a a month, he'd probably be woke. Because it'd be like, I make lots of money now and I'm on this board and I'm doing this thing.

SPEAKER_03

I would hope not. I would hope that his like his life experience would would kind of bend uh I also think what tends to happen is if you get someone brave enough and anti woke enough into these situations, they are able to interrupt some of those narratives and challenge some of the stuff, but it depends on the strength of they either get arseholed out of there really quickly or they're able to make inroads. You know, it it's Terrifying though.

SPEAKER_00

I got a good I got a story about that. I I um and I told Brian this, but I I had a show with Warner Brothers that was a satire on Brian Tamaki and Destiny Church and the media. So I was taking a crack at basically I was having a crack at everyone, but it was a relationship between the media, Brian, Perception. It was all about that. And uh I had a I put together a diverse writer's table. So I had a Samoan writer, a Maori writer from out South Auckland, but I had a you know, a lovely, lovely woman, but a woke woman, you know, and I knew she was woke, and I wanted her there for that, because I didn't want us to go all in one direction. You know what I mean? Like we needed, I didn't want to end up being too cruel to that media class. Like I think I needed to well, it's just a professional.

SPEAKER_02

Is that possible?

SPEAKER_00

No, well, for me as a writer, you know, like it's interesting. You know, when I've got the writer's hat on, I I I humanize everyone. It's just, you know, when I'm not writing, I dehumanize everyone. But when I'm writing, I humanize everyone.

SPEAKER_02

So Oh, you noble soul.

SPEAKER_00

So I well, I so I had her there, and there were some really interesting discussions we had. And we one discussion which was fascinating is she was talking about how um one of the characters about racism and so, well, that wouldn't that's um that's not racism if he does it because there's a power imbalance. Because that person's white. Yeah, she was doing the power imbalance thing. And my friend, who's like pretty connected guy out south, you know, and he goes, Well, hang on a minute. Okay, um, bus stop, one in the morning, uh, mongrel mob guy there with I hate Pakia uh tattooed across his head, and a businessman who uh who weighs about 65 kilos. Who's got the power? And she's like, Oh. And and he said, you know, power changes. Your power changes every room you enter, there's gonna be a different relationship to that power. And that was a guy from South, a Maori guy from South Auckland making that point to her. And she didn't, and she was really good about it. She was like, Oh, she hadn't considered it.

SPEAKER_03

And by the way, I think that's why why you challenge that idea of the power, because the power is differential, as you say, it's situational. So the whole like the whole concept of racism when we first conceived of it was that it was prejudice or discrimination against someone based on the colour of their skin or the ethnicity. And that was pretty, you know, it takes into account all things being um equal, whatever, it's that that matters. Um, once you introduce that the kind of intellectualized university um version, which introduces the power dynamic, you all that they've done is control the narrative by going, actually, only these people are entitled to be aggrieved by racism. Yeah. Because only they can be truly impacted by it.

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's actually it but it gets even worse than that. They want to be racist. So change the definition of racism, then they they can be racist. They want to be. Because that that's what they're doing. They want to be racist. That's why they why would you feel any need at all to change the definition of racism? Why? Yeah. It works. It works. Why would you why would you have any need to do that? Because they w because they don't want to feel sorry for Jews is is one reason.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You know, and and and they want to sort of, you know, maybe poor whites and other groups, or or even Indians and Asians, as we've seen in in America, um, they've been discriminated, discriminated. Oh, not just America.

SPEAKER_03

If you talk to um if you actually, I mean, they don't tend to emphasize this in their reports, but if you look at the Human Rights Commission data, the um group in New Zealand who experienced the most violence as a result of racial hatred are Asian New Zealanders.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah, that that's that's horrendous.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But but we don't it's not yeah, we don't get a lot of campaigns and we don't get a lot of talk about it from the very interesting. Why? Because a lot of them vote national.

SPEAKER_03

I don't think that's why. I think it's probably more complicated in terms of who the perpetrators are as well. Ah, I get you.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So there's a lot of race politics going on.

SPEAKER_00

Um not helpful at all. No good out, no good ending to that that story. Yes, I mean, just you know, and that's that violation of equality that you know, censorship, because you know, the this what we're just talking about, censorship, if it came in, would be fitting into that paradigm, wouldn't it? It wouldn't be fitting into the classic, you know, paradigm of discrimination or prejudice based against someone on the colour of their skin or who they are. It would it would be based on that paradigm, the power imbalance.

Approved Protests And Narrative Control

SPEAKER_03

Well, I mean, there is if we're you know, we've kind of strayed quite far from but we'll just go we'll go with it. It's a conversation. If you look at who is allowed to say things about race and be critical of other races, that is skewed depending on what your race is, right? So so as you say, that censorship model applies depending on who the speaker is. Um and so for a Maori to have a grievance with um white New Zealand is perhaps based on um historical um you know wrongs that have nothing to do with the person now, um, that is seen as acceptable. It's seen as justified to impose that historical um action on the person now um because uh of racial conceptions that are intellectual. However, if a if a white person takes an issue with another race because of some historical thing, it is well for any reason, it is completely unacceptable. So there is a conditional censorship already on how we speak about things. I often speak very openly about race and it gets me called a lot of things. Um I'm in a a biracial relationship, I'm I'm not racist, um which sounds like a she doth protest too much, but um I I think it is I I mean, this is why I'm involved with the free speech union. I think better out than in. I think we should discuss these things um and and be honest about um the fact that actually throughout our entire existence, but especially in the age of multiculturalism, when different races and and cultures inter interact, there are some teething issues, there are some challenges. Um, and actually if we talk about them and and figure out what they are, we can probably resolve them. But if we create this system, which I think exists now, where certain people are allowed to express the grievance, but others aren't, and um certain statistics get suppressed because they don't suit the narrative of the of the the government likes to push about one group of people or another. Um, you know, as you said, we don't talk about the the violence against Asians. Why? Because it's just not convenient, it doesn't suit the narratives. Um so in my view, it is more productive for a cohesive society for us to have these conversations than it is for us to to dance around and play these games where some people we we just are supposed to know the rules that some people can say it but some people can't.

SPEAKER_00

Well, what what what you're talking about, uh they're actually walls between people. They're walls between people, you know. Um that's that's the purpose of it. You know, don't comment on that person, be walk on eggshells around that person, you know, because you're different and they're different. That's that's not multiculturalism. No, it's creating enclaims, it's creating yeah, it it is, and and it's sort of a um uh yes creating division. Like in South Auckland, we never had that, but we were we were living a lot closer together. Like you if you worked on a process line, which boring job, but one of the most hilarious days you'll ever have in your life, because everyone is there and they're teasing each other and joking and that, but it's it's like everyone is there. Samoans, Maori, Indian, Bangladeshi, Somalian, Pakia, uh Young Pakia, old Pakia, they're all there, you know. Um so all that talk. There's no walls there the way there are with the but this again, it's a it's a certain class, it probably doesn't have a lot of lived experience of multiculturalism dictating this stuff.

SPEAKER_03

Well, I found it really interesting. So, I mean, I grew up in Auckland in in a very multicultural um schools that I went to and stuff. Um, and uh I moved to Wellington in my twenties, I was there for four years, and I really upset my colleagues. I was uh working in the public service at that time, because I commented one day that Wellington was the whitest place I'd ever been. And they did not like that. I mean, you know, I was born in London, so I've spent a lot of time there as well. So I've you know, um experienced that multiculturalism. Um and yeah, I I was shocked when I moved to Wellington because these are the people making all the decisions, making all these racial policies, um, which I find very divisive. And yet, if you go into the meeting rooms in these public. We were all like like struggling, learning our penbiha with not a Māori in sight to help us.

SPEAKER_00

And so wouldn't partnership be like employ a couple of Māori?

SPEAKER_03

The thing is, it's just like Wellington is just not as diverse. And I mean, I don't think that you should force populations, like if that's who lives there, then whatever. But the problem is that these white people have taken on this kind of savior complex where they're writing these policies and laws um with a vision of what multiculturalism is that they clearly don't understand. Um I find it really um uh really jarring thinking about how I grew up versus the New Zealand I'm in now. So when I grew up, as I say, I I went to um little Catholic schools at first that were very um multicultural, then I ended up at an Albert Grammar where I was in the minority. Um and uh, you know, my experience was that we didn't actually talk about race. Like we we had like um we did multicultural stuff, but we didn't really think of it as anything different because it was just like sprinkled in, you know, like we did the numbers, the colours, we did um, we had certain weeks during the year where we did all the like poi and hangi and all that. And so it was all kind of integrated, but it wasn't like everything was um in today or anything like that. And we kind of just all enjoyed it, and um, there was never any like I don't remember any negativity towards any of that stuff. And this is like whether it was, you know, oh whiteies or um Indian students and there's always incidents, there's always incidents, but it's not a societal yeah, yeah. But now I look at how kids are at school and it feels like they're being taught like this racial awkwardness so that they can't relate to each other. Um, and I kind of look back and I think there just wasn't any of that. Like in the 90s and the early 2000s, it was really quite chill on that front.

Race Politics And Conditional Speech Rules

SPEAKER_00

How I describe it is we're told now to be reverent to other cultures. I I don't care if someone's reverent to my culture or not, it's my humanity I'm I'm worried about. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's it it's I think, and this is where South Auckland comes into it, it's the irreverence that actually makes us uh sort of light, easy, easy going makes a lot of those communities easy going, you know?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It's like if you're if you're all together and that you just gotta you just gotta laugh through it. You gotta laugh through it, you know.

SPEAKER_03

And I think if you go into a lot of communities in New Zealand, you'll find that's how people do things. We mapped. We intermarry, we um play sports together, we work together, and and actually it is purely that governance level, our public service in particular, who make these policies that differentiate between us.

SPEAKER_00

Probably the worst people in the country to be making the policies too. Like literally, guys, if you're listening, you're the worst people in the country.

SPEAKER_03

If they're listening, they are hating, they are hate listening, and they're gonna clip pictures of me where I look particularly bad. Here you go. Yeah, I'll be like, you know, and they're gonna put it, they're gonna clip those. This is what they do. They post pictures of me where they clip me in a bad still, yeah. And and they're like, This is where you look. I'm like, okay, that's the argument.

SPEAKER_00

Look at the way his nose overlaps his mouth. He looks like whizzle gummage. That that'll be my clipped photo. But um, so so just before we wrap up, because we'll be just talking, and it's been fantastic, as I knew it would be.

SPEAKER_03

The rest of the council is gonna be like, I thought you were talking about COVID.

SPEAKER_00

They'll be fine with it. Um, but anyway, so okay, so we'll end on this. Patty Gower's apology, your thoughts. Because I have thoughts.

SPEAKER_03

Um, I've got mixed thoughts. Okay. So, one, I appreciate that he has uh just demonstrated some introspection and he has considered what kind of message he sent to people, what his role was supposed to be in in that space. And he's he understands. I think he said like he should he crossed the line into advocacy instead of activist. I would say he didn't cross the line, he he frigging zoomed over it at a hundred kilometers an hour.

SPEAKER_00

It was like a sand jump.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So bless him. Um it's more than others have done. So I think good on him. He's had some had some critical thinking, and I've had private communications with a few others in the media who have said similar things but have chosen not to say it publicly. Um and I I can understand why they need to keep getting paid and get jobs. Um but um I I do think that on the whole the media has learned nothing from this. Um, you know, uh I was having a wee yarn with dad yesterday, and he said he got um he got trauma from uh Nicola Willis got up and um held up a piece of paper about the fuel crisis and it had level one, level two, level three, level four on it. And he was like, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01

Sunday ventilate, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And I said to him, like, look at what the government really tried not to have to do that. They wanted to um, you could see they were trying to keep people calm. The media were frothing for it. They were like, give us some drama, you know, give us a a scale and levels and like the most important time in their life where they felt they were had the most power was during COVID because they were able to go and um go into the beehive and and listen to the one PMs, and they chose what information we got from things. And and and so I think that they are frothing for another crisis. And um I I hope the government is strong enough to go, we are not playing your game, we are going to do what is best for New Zealanders, but it's really hard when the entire media apparatus is like screaming and and yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And is really, really pro in that direction. So so my views on Patty, uh I listened to his apology a couple times. And you know, I'm not a person that was super invested in vaccines or anything like that. I I mean I was anti the mandates from a very left-wing position, actually. It's like for me, don't touch people's jobs.

SPEAKER_03

That's just classic left-wing sort of mine was don't touch people's autonomy, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Then that too.

SPEAKER_03

But but to me I just like I've the the the left-wing feminists who were like take their jobs. I was like, I'm sorry, what happened to my body, my choice? Jesus.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But um, so so I was never that investor, so it wasn't like I was like, you better impress me, Mr. Gow. I wasn't like that, you know. I I wasn't in that headspace at all, you know. But I listened to what he had to say a couple of times. I think it was sincere. I think he was very um yeah, I think you could tell it was not necessarily even easy. He was a little bit emotional as he talked about it, he took his time and everything. Uh a lot of people on X, the people that are sort of more in the hardcore camp, were like, nope, not accepted, not gonna listen to you. You did this.

SPEAKER_03

And I can understand their feelings.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you may be, but I don't think it's productive. Because here's the thing if you if look, if people apologize, yeah, can you shoe them away? I mean, if they did something absolutely, and I guess they do just think he did do something absolutely horrendous, but uh uh and I and I'm I'm not quite in that camp, but uh if if you're gonna shoe them away, why would that you know they'll give up eventually, they'll screw you.

SPEAKER_03

And I'm never gonna make you happy. I mean, Patty has done something that um Hipkins has not, that any other member of the media has not.

SPEAKER_00

He was with Pat Brittenden two days ago with a smirk on his face talking about cookers and how this was this inquiry was only about the cookers.

SPEAKER_03

I really wish that a broad spectrum of New Zealand could see him when he's on that show, because he really drops a lot of his pretense.

SPEAKER_00

Um Yeah, he's really sort of because he knows he's got to get a free ride. So he's you know, he's got the smirk, and it's like, no, he's no, yeah, he's problematic. Uh there is n I've learnt this even through the free speech union. Well, you know, no, but honestly, I'm giving him advice. It's like through the you know, it's through the free speech union, through that interaction I had with Mohan Dutta. It's like the the public apology did not hurt me. It's a good it's good to go there. I mean, I I think there's this feeling that it'll show weakness and leaders have to be strong. And if you're on a board or something like that, you need to show that you don't really have faults and you're always level-headed and everything. But we're human beings. I I think we can go behind the curtain a bit more and show, you know, because there's lessons to be learned when you screw up, you know?

Patty Gower’s Apology And Next Steps

SPEAKER_03

Totally. And I think um, you know, I'm definitely I'm willing to accept when I am wrong, um, I am aggressively resistant when people come at me for things like my opinions that that um men cannot just suddenly become women. But if I had been saying that for all these years and then some scientific thing came along that proved that actually they could, um I I'd have to own it, you know. But um that's not gonna happen because it's not true.

SPEAKER_00

We got another hour. No.

SPEAKER_03

Let's get on to sex and gender.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, look, we're look we've been we've been going a while, so it's probably time to to wrap it up. But I really enjoyed it and and we should do it more often. Um, I think this was really, really good.

SPEAKER_02

If people listen to us, then sure, we might only get like four listeners.

SPEAKER_00

I don't think that'll happen. I am a you are a superstar, sorry. Um, yeah. So okay, and you know, Brian, thank you so much for this. Um, there may even be updates yet. Uh I know that Woodstead Peters is um wanting to do a vaccine injuries inquiry.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I think select committee inquiry or something.

SPEAKER_00

I'm not sure how that would work, but um yeah, I mean I think I like the idea of this free speech censorship inquiry attached to it. Maybe we should push it.

SPEAKER_03

Maybe we should hit Winston up and say, hey, as well as the vaccine thing, we need to talk about speech.

SPEAKER_00

Who knows? It wouldn't be a bad idea.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, then. Well, thank you, Annie. And um, yeah, we'll speak again soon. Uh, to all you people out there, fantastic supporters listening to this, you can uh contact us and comment on this episode or or offer ideas for future episodes at FSU. What is it? Look, I told you I always screw up the end. And he distracted me though.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, put on the screen here.

SPEAKER_00

We will put the we can podcast at FSU.net. Donin Z.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my god!

SPEAKER_00

Donin Z.

SPEAKER_03

He's the best host ever.

SPEAKER_00

I got through it in the end.

SPEAKER_03

We'll put it on the screen, okay? Just ignore what he says and just look at what's on the screen.

SPEAKER_00

Well, take portions of what I said, the good stuff. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_03

Bye. Thank you for listening to Free2Speak. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and consider sharing the podcast with others. We release new episodes regularly, and subscribing is the easiest way to stay up to date. If you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, you can contact us at podcast at fsu.nz. If you want to find out more about the New Zealand Free Speech Union, visit fsu.nz.