Today I am entering the cesspit of what goes for New Zealand politics – petty, deluded and deeply-divisive.

I feel as if I should be putting the term “Freedom movement” in quotations marks for reasons I shall make clear.

Just yesterday I came across the following, which should shock (although, perhaps not surprise) everybody.

Today you might need a New Zealand hospital

You may spend many hours waiting for emergency attendance…and wonder why

A new study helps shed light on your potentially life threatening wait.

THE HOSPITAL STAFF ARE ON SICK LEAVE FOLLOWING A COVID INJECTION

A new study examined… pic.twitter.com/kWtTj7YRAB

— NZ and the MRNA (@HopeRising19) September 9, 2023

Inability to work following COVID-19 vaccination-a relevant aspect for future booster vaccinations

Results: Among 1704 HCWs enrolled, 595 (34.9%) HCWs were on sick leave following at least one COVID-19 vaccination, leading to a total number of 1550 sick days. Both the absolute sick days and the rate of HCWs on sick leave significantly increased with each subsequent vaccination. Comparing BNT162b2mRNA and mRNA-1273, the difference in sick leave was not significant after the second dose, but mRNA-1273 induced a significantly longer and more frequent sick leave after the third.

Conclusion: In the light of further COVID-19 infection waves and booster vaccinations, there is a risk of additional staff shortages due to post-vaccination inability to work, which could negatively impact the already strained healthcare system and jeopardise patient care. These findings will aid further vaccination campaigns to minimise the impact of staff absences on the healthcare system.

Yet what do we have in this country?

People in general don’t want to hear the bad news for which I fear there is no solution short of putting the whole population on a detox program (sic). 

Instead, they are running around in a herd, seemingly having begun to endorse Winston Peters and then with Liz Gunn setting up her party, New Zealand Loyal, running as a herd in the opposite direction.

People have another guru they can follow and deliver us from Evil. 

Liz is going to take us out of the United Nations?

Really?

Good luck with that.

I would even regard promises to annul the Therapeutic Goods Act (even a high-up person in National said that) as being impossible on the grounds that this legislation comes from international sources – it is not a homespun policy.

In this context I wish to point your attention to an article on Facebook by the founder of the Outdoors and Freedom Party, Alan Simmons, written from hospital with a high degree of passion.

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...This article is my own and not the ODFP hence it is up on my own facebook page.  My displeasure at the disloyalty of the freedom movement is pretty obvious in this article and if you don’t like what I’m saying then bugger off my site. Ive bit my tongue right through this article for no other reason than respect for some who have been totally mislead and I hope they find their way back to common sense and integrity.

As I lay in bed recovering from 7 hours of open heart surgery the mind wanders, mostly backwards, and often headlining those thoughts were some of the values that have been important in ones life and often those values shaped the way we lived.  I was bought up in the era just after the second world war and as uncles and family friends were welcomed home and discharged from the army the country set about rebuilding and moving forward. One of the great ANZAC abilities had been the trust  each had in the other and how you could rely on your friends to watch your back. That way of life permeated through our society in the 1950’s and 1960’s.Simply put, your word was your bond and friendship was special and trustworthy.

So how naive it was of me to think that in 2023 that sort of trust and honour still exists and loyalty was still sacrament.  As the founder and president of the Outdoors and Freedom Party I watch with horror as the freedom movement destroys its self consigning us all to another era of mistrust and mindless legislation surrounded by an army of bureaucrats determined to make life miserable for everyone.

And then our so called friends like Liz Disloyal Gunn decide their ego is greater than the common good and start a new party and then stand candidates against other freedom candidates. Sue Grey, co leader of the Outdoors and freedom party asked Liz politely not to stand candidates against other freedom candidates and her answer was she “would put it in in her backpack”! Well her backpack has the bottom missing!

As we tried to pull the freedom movement together in 2022 and 2023 to unite the various factions  we offered LiZ Disloyal Gunn a seat on our board, a high list position and even co leadership but she did not accept as she was not interested in politics!

As Sue Grey bats off charges from the Law Society around Liz Gunns conduct during the baby W case  It was of great disappointment to be confronted by Liz’s rush to start a freedom party to blow the movement apart. Why? A supposed friend would do that! Especially after Sue Grey took a lot of time and expertise to run that case for Liz for no dollars.  Here I come back to the loyalty issue again.  And, running after her are others who are bedazzled by her carefully written script, beautifully read out from a news prompt by a accomplished tv news presenter!  She says everything we have been saying for years, copies ideas and policies and presents them like she means them. Don’t make me cry!  Our “policies” she claims with gusto are designed for you to help us make a better world. What policies are these I ask as I look at a list of bullet points declaring things like “we will withdraw from the UN”. Really! How does one do that! Especially if no one from the freedom movement gets in! The reality is that.  ” We will remove fluoride from our water.  As Sue Grey and may others have held meeting after meeting all over NZ, stormed council meetings on this issue I have never once seen Liz Disloyal Gunn at any  of those meetings. What about the submissions to parliament and the travel to Wellington to present or the hundreds of other submissions on everything from recreational fishing to the Therapeutics bill.  Oh yes Liz Disloyal Gunn is going to scrap the therapeutics bill but could not be bothered to make a submission on the bill.  Policies are well thought out and costed by groups of members with explanations justifying the ideas to allow people to follow the reasoning. Not a one line bullet point.

A bit like her Cameo visit to parliament grounds during  the protest.  She joins a long list of so called politicians who made fleeting visits just to have to bob each way on the outcome. I did not see Liz Disloyal Gunn getting food ready or even sweeping the paths.  As the NZ Outdoors party (there from day one) organised funding to help keep it running, organised media and generally did a thousand jobs to make the protest camp run smoothly. Liz Disloyal Gunn was not there but now seeks the votes of those who put the hard yards in, who slept on a steep hillside, who wallowed in mud and were beaten by the police. If you vote for Liz Disloyal Gunn in my opinion you are a traitor to the movement and its embarrassing how easily some are bought off.

So all in all you can see Liz Disloyal Gunn has destroyed any friendship or trust I had in her and I wish her all the worst in the election. I cant help but note some others I trusted have sidled up to her and look to become candidates Most I know, I even sacked from our party because of their abusive nature and I chuckle, good luck managing that lot because like a pack of hungry wolves they will turn on her! Just remember any support for Liz Disloyal Gunn will diminish the chances of a real Freedom person getting into parliament and effecting change.

PS don’t waste your time abusing me as I  really don’t give a toss!😁“.

And here is the response of Liz Gunn, media personality and author of the “love letters to New Zealanders“

Not that I endorse the above (how can I? I don’t know the facts)Personally, I found Liz Gunn’s comments nasty and vitriolic. 

Hint: You do not, in my world, refer to a political rival as being in his “final days of life” .

The facts of the matter are laid bare in an article by Muriel Newman, A Broken Country:

“The Roy Morgan poll has National on 31 percent, Labour on 24 percent, ACT on 18 percent, the Greens on 12.5 percent, New Zealand First on 5.5 percent, and the Maori Party on 4 percent.

On this poll, the “wasted vote” for parties that won’t make it into Parliament is 6 percent. In effect their votes will be divvied up and re-allocated proportionally to successful parties.”

In other words, the TOTALITY of all the mushrooming political parties in opposition may get over the 5 % threshold, if we are lucky.

Anyone remember Billy te Kahika in the last election?

That positive outcome has been nixxed by egos of people who have to do things their own way and by Liz Gunn coming in at the last minute to take the herd away from the other parties.

That is the disease of this country.

These were comments I made on Telegram and Facebook in response to all this.

“My own personal position is that we are facing catastrophe from Adern’s vaxx program,economically, healthwise etc. and that it is impossible to vote our way to “freedom”..

The Freedom Movement seems to have lost its way by everyone rushing off in different directions shouting at each other.

None of them will get into Parliament – of that I am sure.

I do not think there is a “solution”, especially in party politics.

IF I VOTE AT ALL it will probably be for Winston. Like RFK Jr. in the States he is the only force remotely capable of bringing some sanity back into the New Zealand polity. Will he, or even can bring about our hopes and desires?

The answer is of course not!

But politics is the art of the possible.

My advice is by all means vote for whoever you wish.

Follow your conscience.

Just don’t be attached to any desired outcome.