New Zealand Takes The Fifth

As you probably know, ‘taking the fifth’ is an American expression which refers to the fifth amendment of the US constitution.

When asked a question you are allowed to remain silent if answering it will incriminate yourself. People who ‘take the fifth’ in court are generally considered by the public to be guilty even if the court cannot muster enough evidence to obtain a conviction. They may even continue to profess their innocence outside the courtroom, but they will not be believed.

We are asking a lot of questions of our government, but not receiving many answers. Has Parliament decided to ‘take the fifth? The curious lack of public dialogue, the refusal to meet protestors, and Ardern’s famous dictum that ‘the government is your only source of truth’, all point in this direction.

I would like to ask: “When did the New Zealand government first receive the Pfizer Adverse effects report completed on 30th April 2021?”.

The Victorian government has publicly admitted that they received it early on. Our government has remained silent. Among my follow up questions:

• Considering the volume of adverse events and deaths following mRNA vaccination reported by Pfizer, why did you continue to tell the New Zealand public it was completely safe?

No doubt the NZ government will continue to try to avoid anything like a courtroom situation where two sides engage in a formal process to uncover the truth. Instead their public pronouncements will continue to profess righteous indignation and innocence, whilst painting their accusers with the broad brush of ignorance.

‘Taking the fifth’ has in fact become a habit in our country. The Broadcasting Standards Authority, the Advertising Standards Authority, the Media Council, and the Human Rights Commission, all of whom are supposed to take an independent stance, have deferred to the government and replied to complainants that government advice on vaccine safety should be taken at face value. Are they also taking the fifth?

Discrimination in the workplace

The ‘consultative’ processes followed by government departments and private companies in order to ‘legally’ sack their unvaccinated employees also have a familiar ring. Long scientific submissions by employees facing the loss of their profession and livelihood, are stamped ‘considered’ but not answered. This is quite sufficient to meet government guidelines, which essentially require them to listen, but do not require them to answer.

Will companies who implemented vaccine mandates be able to continue to operate them into the future with tacit government approval? A few public comments seem to point in that direction. Moreover some companies are pushing ahead with mandates despite the mild nature of omicron and the failure of mRNA vaccination to stop transmission, infection, and hospitalisation. Will they ask prospective employees to reveal their vaccination status? Why would they want to do that? Perhaps because they have had a lot of hassle from the government over mandates and they won’t want to go through anything similar in the future.

Now this is an issue with important historical roots. Over the years, employees have won rights and legislation protecting them from discrimination in the workplace. This includes personal privacy of medical records and much more. The new Covid legislation has had a particular effect on discrimination. Employers are being encouraged to discriminate and are being protected from sanctions for doing so. Nor are they required to explain themselves. They are able to take the fifth and kiss you goodbye.

We have reached a watershed

Those of us who for months have been writing to MPs, mainstream media, GPs, scientists, academics, and watchdogs, are by now well aware that we are whistling in the wind. I am told that most MPs have their in boxes set to divert correspondence to the spam folder if it contains the words vaccine or Covid. Are they taking the fifth safe within the safe walls of the beehive?

It won’t have escaped your notice that such a system allows for the abuse of power. In common with many other western powers, our government appears determined to push ahead into the future with a programme of mRNA vaccination, whatever the human cost of adverse effects. It apparently intends to continue to pursue policies which economically and socially disadvantage a minority of our population whilst inflicting long term health risks on the majority. This is a government that has raised ‘refusal to engage in a dialogue’ to a modern art form. To achieve this, they are funding mainstream media who promote one sided coverage that has little relation to the scientific debates about Covid continuing in scholarly journals.

Finally how can the court of public opinion pass judgement on our government now that they have taken the fifth? As a minimum there are two changes that need to be made:

• The NZ Bill of Rights needs to be entrenched in a constitutional framework.
• Parliamentary privilege, which allows MPs to lie without consequence, needs to go.

Both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated are facing an uncertain future spiralling out of our control. There is less and less point in trying to dissuade people determined to continue down the road to a biotech medical disaster—they are taking the fifth.

Good advice would be prepare for a different future. Failures in education and healthcare will need to be redressed. Narrow specialisation has left many ‘experts’ blinkered to the point of wilful ignorance of the wider implications and pitfalls of their advice, even to the exclusion of their own personal health and well being. Institutions need to promote a broader interdisciplinary academic focus, critical thinking including deductive and inductive methods, and a wide ranging analysis of historical parallels. Organising institutions that serve people, respect science, and promote self-healthcare should be our priority.

PS Stuff newspaper have replied to some of you, who wrote to complain about their recent ad hominem piece about myself, that I was given a ‘right of reply’, I wasn’t. Anything approaching a dialogue is increasingly out of character in our country. New Zealand has taken the fifth.