What is happening to the aid to the people of Hawkes Bay and the East Coast?
I know of lots of aid that is being delivered by Operation People and Voices for Freedom in truckloads.
It is an impression that very little official aid is making it up to Hawkes Bay and Gisborne and it looks as if we might be seeing a repeat of what happened with Lismore in New South Wales where aid simply didn’t arrive and some of it was thwarted (see below).
At the very least, the following stories are a case of bureaucracy-gone-wild but it is not difficult to reach conspiratorial conclusions.
I am going only by the information I have available.
COUNCIL & POLICE STOP DONATIONS GOING TO HAWKES BAY
After organising four plane loads of donations, community minded Papa Hone & Rachel from One Whanau at a Time, had a plane load refused by authorities as they attempted to deliver it to the Hawkes Bay region.
Local council was accompanied by police to meet the plane & seized the load saying if they wanted to bring things in they had to go back to them.
You can see the entire video HERE
https://t.me/CounterspinMediaNZ/132
There was an approving write up in the New Zealand Herald in 2021
Papa Honez providing food for families One Whānau At A Time
Then there was this. The supply of water to Gisborne in the midst of a dire emergency was stopped because of “certification issues”
Certification issue stops ship from supplying water
The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) has confirmed the transfer of water from HMNZS Manawanui was stopped last weekend during the height of the city water crisis due to certification requirements.
They unloaded 106,000 litres of water into tankers on the wharf and it was taken to a storage site in the city.
The Herald was told the ship had around 300,000 litres on board.
“The transfer of water into water trucks was stopped due to certification requirements,” an NZDF spokesman said.
The Herald was told the ship was not a “certified water supplier.”
The prime minister crows that: “The overall message here is we’ve got 145 extra police on the ground in the Hawke’s Bay area at the moment because we are concerned, and because we want to make sure that the community feels safe.”. It seems that in the midst of crisis the Napier police have got plenty of resources to go round impounding cars.
t is not a case of WHAT but of the TIMING.
HAWKE’S BAY POLICE HAVE BEEN BUSY KEEPING THE REGION’S ROADS SAFE FROM ANTI-SOCIAL DRIVER BEHAVIOURS (STREET RACERS) AND DRINK DRIVERS.
Forty-two cars were impounded by Hawke’s Bay Police between 17 and 23 February – 18 for anti-social road user behaviours (street racing) and 23 for alcohol or driver licensing offences.
In a normal week, around 25 cars would be impounded.
‘We can almost certainly attribute the increase in impounded cars to the increased police presence on our roads and in our communities. Many of our roads have been severely impacted by the cyclone, and people are focussed on the clean-up and recovery. Removing vehicles and drivers who pose a risk to others, particularly at this time, is an important part of our focus to keep people safe,’ said Eastern District Road Policing Manager, Inspector Matt Broderick.
‘We understand that people are facing really difficult circumstances right now, however, we cannot condone getting behind the wheel of a car after drinking.’
If you are in any doubt about whether or not you’re safe or legal to drive, Police’s advice is simple – don’t do it.
Motorists can expect to be stopped anywhere, anytime and will be breath tested.
‘We will continue to have a highly visible presence on our roads, especially while we recover from the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle.
‘We urge anyone who sees any concerning driving behaviour to report it to Police immediately.
‘We continue to encourage people to only undertake necessary travel and thank the public for their cooperation on this.’
If you do need to travel, we urge drivers to keep their speed down, drive to the conditions and allow plenty of time for your journey.
And is this not a case of bureaucracy gone mad?
This is one families possessions waiting for rubbish removal, the council is demanding all rubbish to be separated from the silt or they won’t take it…
Is this how councils interact with devastated people in the midst of a crisis. As people are going out of the way to give to community-based groups to deliver truck loads of aid I have concern about the “official channels” such as the Red Cross.
They will be the first port-of-call for concerned, ordinary Kiwis and millions have been collected.
What is indisputable is that much of that money is absorbed into administration costs and supporting inflated salaries but my concern is that we might have a repeat of something I believe to be the case from the 2011 Christchurch earthquake – that people had to apply to the bureaucracy, Work and Income to get assistance.
If millions of dollars of aid was being delivered to the peoples of Gisborne and Hawkes Bay I am sure we would have seen no end of footage. I have seen no sign of any of that (albeit, I am not glued to the telly!)
Cyclone Gabrielle: How to donate to cyclone victims – NZ Herald/NZME teams up with Red Cross with disaster fund
In just a day and a half generous New Zealanders have already donated more than $2 million to the New Zealand Disaster Fund.
The Red Cross has paid tribute to the generosity of thousands of New Zealanders who have already opened their hearts and wallets, as the appeal continues. The charity says it is experiencing “exceptional demand”.
To get more of a sense of what really might be happening see this
THE TRUTH OF WHAT IS HAPPENING IN HAWKES BAY AND GISBORNE
A SCANDAL OVER CRIME
The whole issue of crime has been downplayed by police and the prime minister.
In this statement from 20 February by the Commissioner of Police, Coster, he made no mention of an issue of road workers being held up at gunpoint by a carload of gang members and the PM dismissed the “rumours”
Women’s Refuge says ‘no surprise’ family harm up 60pct since Cyclone Gabrielle
But he said theft and burglaries are actually down, while family harm is up 60 percent since Cyclone Gabrielle
“In terms of what we’re actually seeing, we have increased levels of family harm being reported, our dishonesty offending is actually lower than normal. We need to acknowledge, of course, that reporting is harder than usual, but in terms of our numbers, it’s the family harm that is up at the moment.” …
Police say rumours and false information are being spread, which only serves to make vulnerable people feel even more unsafe.
The road workers stuck to their guns ( I apologise for the pun) and so the story came out
Cyclone Gabrielle: Road workers who had guns pulled on them in Hawke’s Bay, dispute Prime Minister’s ‘third-hand’ information claim
Road workers who had guns pulled on them at a Hawke’s Bay roadblock say they are frustrated by officials casting doubt on the incident.
A traffic management boss said staff in the region had a pistol and sawn-off shotgun pointed at them by a car-load of gang members while working last Friday.
Traffic management supervisor Liam Harvey told Newstalk ZB that the roadworkers reported the incident to police. “We had the police come to us that [Friday] night, and took statements from everyone involved,” Harvey told ZB’s Heather Du Plessis-Allan.
He confirmed these statements were first-hand accounts. Harvey also said police had told him they had made some inquiries, but he hadn’t heard anything further since the weekend.
Finally, the Prime Minister Chris Hipkins had to apologise while sticking to a false narrative.
Cyclone Gabrielle: Chris Hipkins apologises to roadworkers held at gunpoint, says he got incorrect information from police
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has apologised to the road workers who had a gun pulled on them at a checkpoint in Hawke’s Bay in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle.
The apology comes after Hipkins initially played down claims of widespread crime in cyclone-hit regions, saying there were no first-hand accounts of people pulling guns on road workers.
But one road worker told Newshub they had given first-hand accounts to the police days earlier.
“I regret that one of the comments that I made was taken to be questioning the authenticity of what people were saying,” Hipkins told AM on Tuesday. “The information that I had from the police, at that point, was clearly incorrect.
“Absolutely, I regret the fact that the intel I had was incorrect at that point.
“The overall message here is we’ve got 145 extra police on the ground in the Hawke’s Bay area at the moment because we are concerned, and because we want to make sure that the community feels safe.” (ed. You can see what they have been busy with HERE)
But Hipkins said there were still some unsubstantiated claims about some reports of crime.
Do you think this was just a one-off event?
THE LISMORE PRECEDENT
I think that we should look to what happened in Lismore, NSW last year. My recollection is that the people in Lismore were largely left to their own resources (as seems to be the case on the East Coast of NZ), and then we had this MSM article.
The aid didn’t arrive.
Thousands of families whose homes were destroyed in devastating floods are still waiting for promised government payouts with only a TINY number paid out months later
- Thousands of families whose homes destroyed in floods waiting for payouts
- NSW Government promised $1.6 billion for flood impacted communities in state
- Only seven per cent has been distributed two months on since the floods
I covered this HERE
Just like in New Zealand there was grassroots assistance and in at least one case, one person Dave Oneegs from the freedom movement, was punished for his generosity.
Dave Oneegs: Punished for helping Lismore flood victims
Dave used a jet-ski to traverse flood waters, rescuing people off of roofs and trees. He was giving people who had lost everything thousands in grants to help them get back on their feet.
Dave Oneegs became widely known on Australia’s social media due to his uncomfortable truths about COVID-19 and other government conspiracies. He was banned over 12 times on Facebook and Instagram due to platform censorship. He moved to Telegram as it was the platform for free speech and quickly got up to 72,000 followers.
Dave put out a call on his channel for people to volunteer to the help flood victims in the Lismore region. These are the worst floods in Lismore’s history on record.
“It was absolutely, unimaginably, catastrophic, biblical, devastating floods”, Dave explained.
Dotti Jansen from Aussie Helping Hands contacted Dave, and together they raised $360,000.
Dave used a jet-ski to traverse flood waters, rescuing people off of roofs and trees. He was giving people who had lost everything thousands in grants to help them get back on their feet.
“It was incredible to see two sides of it. The gratitude of the people who received those funds and all the trolls who came out and made accusations that we were lining our pocket and somehow trying to get rich quick.”
Unfortunately because it wasn’t a registered charity, the operation was quickly shut down and people couldn’t get the money to get things they desperately needed. Not only were the funds frozen, but because Dave promoted the fundraiser on his channels, his personal accounts were frozen as well.
“That was my crime, apparently — promoting an unregistered charity.”
The foundation money and Dave’s personal account are still frozen.
“Unfortunately because it wasn’t a registered charity, the operation was quickly shut down and people couldn’t get the money to get things they desperately needed. Not only were the funds frozen, but because Dave promoted the fundraiser on his channels, his personal accounts were frozen as well.”
I would like to hear an update on this and to ask the people of Lismore how they have been assisted in their recovery from their devastating floods.
But the media never follows up on stories.
Back here in New Zealand, I am very concerned for the people of Hawkes Bay and the East Coast, and what official assistance they will get going forward.
In the meantime, some of us don’t forget.
