‘Freedom’ (formerly NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party) is calling on the national media to wake up, step up, and direct hard questions at former Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins.
A recent extensive double-page feature article by Derek Cheng in the Weekend Herald has shed light on how officials and expert advisers covered up vaccine dosing intervals and myocarditis risks to protect their “safe and effective” marketing campaign. However this only scratches the surface of a much deeper, systemic institutional failure that meant that the rights of Kiwi youth and their families to “informed consent” were undermined.
The public are still missing the explosive reality of a series of decisions by former top level Ministers including Hipkins, Jacinda Ardern and Ayesha Verrell whose unminuted meetings, altered ministerial diaries, and sanitised Cabinet submissions, resulted in the glaring omission of heart inflammation warnings from patient information.
The Missing Meeting, Sanitised Cabinet Paper, and Altered Records
Official information requests and ongoing investigations by ‘Freedom’ leader Sue Grey and Board member Aly Cook have exposed a trail of anomalies surrounding a critical Vaccine Ministers meeting held on 13 August 2021. This was the meeting where key decisions were made to prioritise “consistent messaging” over safety risks for young people’s hearts.
The limited publicly released ministerial records tell a troubling story of concealment. Ministry of Health has now officially confirmed that the meeting took place, and listed those in attendance, including Chair and Minister for the COVID-19 Response Chris Hipkins, then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Finance Minister Grant Robertson, Health Minister Andrew Little, Associate Health Ministers Ayesha Verrall, Aupito William Sio, and Peeni Henare, alongside officials from the Director-General, COVID-19 Directorate, Vaccine Programme, and Medsafe.
- The Prime Minister: The meeting is entirely missing from the proactive release diary of then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
- Chris Hipkins: The meeting is entirely missing from the diary of then-Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins.
- Andrew Little: The meeting is entirely missing from the diary of then-Minister of Health Andrew Little.
- Grant Robertson: When the meeting appears in Grant Robertson’s diary, it contains critical anomalies, as the digit “1” was stripped from the front of the “13” date to read “3 August 2021,” and the entry was displaced out of chronological order to obscure standard review.
- Zero Minutes: The Ministry of Health has confirmed that this high-level meeting was completely unminuted and that no notes exist, resulting in a formal complaint currently under investigation by the Ombudsman regarding withheld documentation.
The agenda has been publicly but the official line is that no minutes were taken and nobody can remember who promoted the key decisions. What is clear from the Cabinet paper produced by Chris Hipkins for the following Cabinet meeting on 16 August 2021, is that he not only knew about the dangers of myocarditis, but also knew that information regarding those risks was to be removed from public communications. His paper to Cabinet appears to be deliberately sanitised by omitting any mention of myocarditis or other vaccine risks entirely.
“It has taken us many months to obtain these documents” says Aly Cook. “Sue Grey and I have made numerous Official Information Act requests and have had to make complaints to the Ombudsmen. Given the lengths the former government went to to hide this critical public health information and that neither of us were invited to speak to the Royal commission, it seems most unlikely that the Royal Commission of Inquiry was aware that their senior Ministers actively decided to hide such important information from the public.
Certainly this concealment from public communications is not addressed or even mentioned in the Royal Commission Report. The meeting was deliberately left unminuted, so the true narrative of what transpired can only be pieced together through the correspondence and briefings. The decision by the Royal Commission to not compel Jacinda Ardern, Chris Hipkins, Ayesha Verrell, Ashely Bloomfield or others to attend to give evidence publicly, and to permanent keep the evidence of Medsafe leader Chris James and Health Science Advisor Ian Town secret, reinforces what appears to be a highly sanctioned conspiracy against truth and transparency.
A Breach of Accountability and Public Trust
Freedom, has formally escalated some breaches to the Chief Archivist at Archives New Zealand, demanding a full investigation into whether the systemic unminuted meetings, diary omissions and alterations violate the Public Records Act 2005.
The motivation behind hiding these tracks becomes chillingly clear when looking at concurrent communications. Correspondence from Chief Science Adviser Dr Ian Town ahead of that August 13 meeting explicitly noted that it was suggested the wording around reducing myocarditis risk from extended spacing between vaccine doses, should be removed or re-worded to make it clear that there may be a benefit but the evidence is emerging. Just days later, CV Tag meeting notes confirmed that references to increasing dosing intervals providing protection against myocarditis were scrubbed from public communications.
The Myocarditis Blind Spot and the Breach of Informed Consent
The omissions and cover ups were serious. The result was that myocarditis warnings never went into pre- or post-vaccine care patient information when it mattered most. Our youth were not warned that taking “Two Jabs for Summer” might also give them heart problems for life.
“Official guidance should have ensured “informed consent” says Sue Grey. “Instead they actively chose to remove warnings that people needs to know, but which might undermine the government’s ideology and desired outcomes. Doctors and Nurses were sanctioned by their regulators if they raised the very concerns that all doctors, nurses and vaccinators should have been giving about myocarditis. But instead, as a result of the policy decision of the “Vax Ministers” vaccinators were not even alerted to myocarditis, let alone given sufficient information to discuss the risks of myocarditis and pericarditis as part of the informed consent process. Meanwhile many young New Zealanders were coerced to take high risk treatment they did not need, and which might cause serious injury to their heart, and in some cases death. The failure to provide myocarditis warnings to patient, or record informed consent in patient notes was a critical breach of true informed consent, leaving thousands of young New Zealanders and their families to make medical decisions in the dark.
Call to Action
‘Freedom’ urges journalists and media outlets to look past the superficial justifications and demand accountability from the architects of this conduct.
It is time for the press to ask Chris Hipkins and other key decision-makers the hard questions: Why were high-level safety discussions and myocarditis risks omitted from Cabinet papers and ministerial diaries? Why were official records altered? Why was crucial heart-inflammation risk information missing from “informed consent” materials given to patients?
Transparency cannot wait for future pandemics. The public deserves answers now.
