VAERS is a passive reporting system, (meaning it relies on individuals to send in reports of their experiences to CDC and FDA). Passive surveillance of adverse events following immunization (AEFI) is a spontaneous reporting system, affected by under-reporting limitations  (Carol Sakey)

ORIGINAL RESEARCH:  FREQUENCY & ASSOCIATIONS OF ADVERSE REACTIONS OF COVID-19 VACCINES REPORTED IN THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE US. 3rd February 2022 – Sec. Infectious Diseases – Surveillance, Prevention and Treatment.  (Department Of Population- Based Medicine. Institute of Health Sciences, University of Tubingen, Germany)

This study aims to provide a risk assessment of the adverse reactions related to COVID19 vax’s manufactured by AstraZeneca, Janssen, Moderna and Pfizer BioNTech which have been in used since Dec 2020 and Oct 2021 in the European Union and the US.

Data from the European Database of Suspected Adverse Drug Reaction (EudraVigliance) and the Vaccine Averse Events Reporting System (VAERS) FROM 2020 TO October 2021 as analysed. There were more than 7.8 millions adverse reaction of about 1.6 millions persons are included in the study. The COVID19 Vax Adverse reaction was compared to the adverse reaction to the influenza vaccine exposures.

There was a higher risk of reporting serious adverse reactions for COVID 19 Vax’s in comparison to influenza vaccines. Individuals over the age of 65years were associated with a nigher frequency of death, hospitalisation and life threatening reactions than younger individuals. The onset of serious adverse reactions occurred within the first 7 days after vaccination in 77.6 -89.1% of cases. The largest risks observed were allergic, constitutional reactions, dermatological, gastrointestinal, neurological reactions. The largest  relative risks between COVID19 vs Influenza vaccines observed were allergic reactions, arrhythmia, general cardiovasula events, coagulation, haemorrages, gastrointestinal;, ocular, sexual organs reactions and thrombosis.

CLASSIFICATION OF ADVERSE REACTIONS: There is different MedDRA Coding levels used in VAERS and EudraVigiliance therefore allow a relatively detailed description in particular medical conditions mentioned in the reports. It is necessary to take into account the different biological pathways linking vaccine expose and adverse reaction.  The medical conditions coded in VAERS are classified in 17 event categories following the Common Toxicity Criteria (CTC) developed by the National Cancer Institute in the US, this is one of the oldest and most common used classification systems of adverse reactions in clinical trials

STATISICAL ANALYSIS: One of the major drawbacks of spontaneous reports of adverse reactions is the fact that the calculation of risk differences needed in causal influence is not straightforward due to under or over reporting of adverse reactions, uncertaintities regarding to the number of individuals exposed to the vaccines. In the case of COV ID19 vax programmes in the EU and US risk estimators of adverse reactions for the COVID19 vs Influenza vaccines, namely the number of individuals exposed to the COVID19 vaccines and the age distribution are known and used as the denominator to calculate the risk estimates for COVID19 vaccines

COVID-19 vaccines are associated with higher absolute risks of serious adverse outcomes in comparison to influenza vaccines used in 2020 and 2021.  In comparison of the reported adverse reaction reported across vaccine types it suggests a substantial agreement between reporting between EudraVigilance and VAERS studies, with dyspnoea, respiratory arrest, pulmonary embolism, myocardial infarction, thrombosis, cerebral haemorrhages, and pneumonia being the adverse reactions most frequently mentioned in the death reports.

The risk estimates of adverse reactions by vaccine type and CTC category were largest for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in both EudraVigilance and VAERS, followed by the vaccines of AstraZeneca and Moderna. mRNA and chimeric virus vaccines were obtained from pre-clinical trials assessing their effects in treatment of various cancer types such as melanoma, renal cancer, prostrate cancer, leukaemia, lung cancer. Previous research concerning the use of nucleic-acid based technology, in particular for the mRNA platform is much more limited. Only previous research on cancer immunotherapy, the spike S protein of SARS-COV-2 and the nanoparticles, the biological plausibility of the adverse reactions following COVID19 vaccination can be summarized by the action of at least three major pathophysiological mechanisms.

mRNA USED FOR IMMOTHERAPY FOR CANCER: First of all the strong immune responses must be the feature of both cancer immunotherapy and prophylactic vaccination, since their effect is basically due to the building up of a specific antigen-antibody production targeting the destruction of tumour cells in cancer immunotherapy and the induction of immunisation against viral infections in prophylactic vaccination, respectively.

Hence the nucleic-acid-based pharmaceutical technology on which the COVID-19 vaccines are based upon elicits potent immune responses via Toll-like receptos (TLR), interleukins (IL) IL-6, IL-12, interferon type 1 (IFN-1), tumour necrosis factor α (TNFα), pattern recognition receptors, dendritic cell maturation, induction of CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses, among others  At the same time, however, such potent immune reactions may also increase the risks of pathophysiological mechanisms related, for instance, to tissue and organ lesions and thromboembolic events

At least for the adenovirus-vector technology, results from clinical trials indicated that adenovirus proteins may elicit acute-phase immune responses involving the release of IL-6 and TNFα and activation of innate immunity cells such as mast cells and neutrophils . In some instances, this may result in an increased likelihood of an acute shock-syndrome due to a cytokine cascade leading to disseminated intravascular coagulation, acute respiratory distress and multiorgan failure . In addition, by mechanisms which have not been fully explained so far, the pro-inflammatory environment related to the interactions between nucleic acids, TNFα, matured dendritic cells (DC) and the receptors TLR3 and TLR7 has been associated with disease progression of autoimmune diseases such as lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis

Despite the advances made in the reduction of the pro inflammatory risks of mRNA and vectorised pharmaceutical platforms, the induction of severe immune induced reactions such as thrombocytopenia and human erythrocyte agglutination has been previously documented with adenovirus-vectorised therapies . The present investigation suggests that all four nucleic-acid-based COVID-19 vaccines are associated with increased risks of thromboembolic events

Endotheliopathy and Coagulopathy had been observed also for all types of COVID-19 vaccines . ( Endotheliopathy, or endothelial dysfunction, is emerging as an important pathological feature in COVID-19. Transmission electron microscopy of blood vessels from autopsy specimens from patients with COVID-19 has revealed the presence of endothelial cell damage and apoptosis)   (Coagulopathy (also called a bleeding disorder) is a condition in which the blood’s ability to coagulate (form clots) is impaired.)

From this perspective it is reported that recently proposed vaccine induced immune thrombotic (VITT) maybe actually be a severe manifestation in a continuum of vaccine induced coagulopathy affecting vaccinated individuals. In particular the high frequency of adverse reactions following COVID19 vaccines than for influenza vaccines

The pathogenicity of the Spike -S of SARS-COV-2 which has been involved in the  endotheliopathy and coagulopathy(as described above) . The  spike S protein, expressed in both nucleic acid technologies of the COVID-19 vaccines reviewed here, is not only a potent activator  which may contribute to  endothelial damage, but also an enhancer of platelet aggregation and thrombus formation . In addition, the spike subunit S1 can cross the blood-brain barrier and is taken up by the neural cells, the lung, liver, kidney and spleen  Hence, it is likely that the cleaved spike protein subunit in itself has the ability to cross other types of blood endothelial barriers surrounding immune privileged organs such as the spinal cord, ovaries, testes, pregnant uterus, placenta, and eyes , potentially inducing innate immune responses.

Moreover, whereas adenovirus serotype 5 have been found to cross the blood brain barrier in the murine model, the nanolipid-complexed mRNA vaccine platform is optimised to diffuse across non-fenestrated endothelial blood barriers and, thus, due to the immune responses mentioned above, both vaccine platforms may induce in some cases a pro-inflammatory environment in the immune privileged organs. To some extent, this pathophysiological pathway involving transduction across blood barriers and subsequent immune response may partly explain some of the neurological and inflammatory reactions reported to VAERS and EudraVigilance affecting the central nervous system and the sexual organs.

Concerning the mRNA platform, a third pathway is related to the role of the lipid nanoparticles themselves used to complex the naked synthetic mRNA. Even though there have been advances to reduce the immunostimulation of lipid nanoparticles (e.g., by increasing the density of polyethylene glycol in the lipid nanoparticles , they still may elicit pathogenic anaphylactoid reactions by complement activation and enhanced platelet aggregation  (An anaphylactoid reaction is a severe, potentially life threatening allergic reaction, it can occur in minutes of expose )

The Nanoparticle realted adverse reactions may contribute to the pro inflamatory host responses and consequently increase risks of thromboembolic or anaphylactoid outcomes. In particular, the complexed mRNA will tend to bio-accumulate in the adrenal and seminal vesicle wall, liver and spleen due to the normal lipid metabolism, bloodstream distribution and the permeability of the fenestrated endothelium to the lipid nanoparticles and, hence, these organs may become target organs of toxicity (72, 73). In fact, previous pharmacokinetic findings on the biodistribution of nanolipid, encapsulated nucleic-acid drugs revealed that the nanolipid vehicle prevents the nucleic-acid from being metabolised and, thus, blood and plasma concentrations of the nucleic-acid components are determined by the pharmacokinetics of the nanolipid vehicle   ( Thromboembolism is the name for when a blood clot (thrombus) that forms in a blood vessel breaks loose, is carried by the bloodstream, and blocks another blood vessel. This is a dangerous condition that can affect multiple organs, causing organ damage and even death.  As such, it requires immediate treatment.)

The adverse reactions commonly mentioned in the death reports such as  pulmonary embolism, thrombosis, cerebral haemorrhage, myocardial infarction, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis are in agreement with the findings of previous autopsy studies which have identified several causal mechanisms linking COVID-19 vaccination and a lethal outcome. Of particular importance are strong immune-related life-threatening conditions involving antibody-mediated platelet activation in VITT cases (platelet factor 4) neutrophil and histiocyte infiltrates in myocarditis (and reactive astrocytes, microglia, and foamy macrophaghes in cases of acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (neuro-inflammation)

As for the deaths, hospitalisation of those people over 65 years of age as to COVID19 Vaccines, these age-dependent alterations of the inflammatory response, vascular function and haemostasis may pre-dispose older individuals to an exacerbated inflammatory response, thrombus formation and endotheliopathy following COVID-19 vaccination which ultimately lead to the increased frequency of lethal outcomes, hospitalisations and life-threatening reactions among older individuals.

STRATEGIES AND LIMITATIONS: Major strengths of this study is the availability of the number of individuals exposed to the new COV ID19 and Influenza Vaccines in the US and EU populations during 2020 and 2021, allowing a more accurate reporting of adverse reactions. COVID19 Vaccine exposures 451 million as opposed to 437 influenza vaccine exposures, and the populations are practically the same in 2020 and 2021 (ie., almost the same individuals and demographic structure)Also varying sensitivity of the passive reporting systems can be ruled out as a major explanatory factor of the frequency observed.

This is an important strength of the present study in view of the rapidly increasing vaccine coverage rates against SARS-CoV-2 which will limit the availability of appropriate control groups made up of individuals without COVID-19 vaccine exposure. In addition, the present analyses are based on some of the largest datasets publicly available worldwide on vaccine-related adverse reactions containing approximately 7.8 million adverse reactions of 1.6 million individuals.

FUTURE RESEARCH: The results of the present investigation in this study may provide avenues for future clinical research in several area’s, whereas passive or spontaneous reporting systems suffer from serious under-estimation of adverse reactions. This is important as it is a drawback as to the magnitude of under-reporting of non serious and serious adverse reactions . Spontaneous report systems has been estimated to lie in the range

Finally, the results of the present investigation may provide avenues for future clinical research on several areas. First, passive or spontaneous report systems suffer from serious under-estimation of adverse reactions. This is an important drawback, as the magnitude of under-reporting of non-serious and serious adverse reactions to spontaneous report systems . It cannot be ruled out that the reporting rates of COVID19 vaccines may be to some extent much higher than for influenza vaccines because of the major limitations of passive reporting systems, under reporting rather than over reporting.

VAERS is a passive reporting system, meaning it relies on individuals to send in reports of their experiences to CDC and FDA. Passive surveillance of adverse events following immunization (AEFI) is a spontaneous reporting system, affected by under-reporting limitations. https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/25/suppl_3/ckv175.042/2578461

It is noted that future research should assess the magnitude of under estimation and coverage of adverse reactions in VAERS in order to obtain more accurate risk estimates. At the same time, additional autopsy studies may clarify the pathogenic mechanism potentially accounting for the reported death cases and/ or life threatening conditioning as to COVID19 vaccines.

In the present investigation a higher risk of reporting serious adverse outcomes was observed for the COVID-19 vaccines in comparison to influenza vaccines deployed during 2020 and 2021. Individuals age 65 and older were associated with a higher frequency of death, hospitalisations, and life-threatening reactions than individuals age 18–64 years .

The largest relative risks between COVID-19 vs. influenza vaccines were observed for allergic reactions, arrhythmia, general cardiovascular events, coagulation, haemorrhages, constitutional, gastrointestinal, ocular, sexual organs reactions, and, in particular, thromboembolic events. Further clinical investigations are needed to identify both specific and common biological pathophysiological mechanisms across the different vaccine platforms, and to assess the relative safety between the different COVID-19 vaccines currently being deployed.

Funding and publishing of this study is by Open Access Publishing Fund of University of Tubingen, Germany.  The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.756633/full

Data Availability Statement

Data of Eudra Vigilance are publicly available as CSV files at https://www.adrreports.eu/ under the line listings view of the corresponding vaccine type. Data on vaccination coverage in the EU are available at https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/data-covid-19-vaccination-eu-eea (download 26.10.2021). Data on population for the EU are available from Eurostat’s database at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/main/data/database in the table population on 1 January by age, sex and educational attainment level (demo_pjanedu). Data on US vaccination coverage are available at https://data.cdc.gov/Vaccinations/COVID-19-Vaccinations-in-the-United-States-Jurisdi/unsk-b7fc (download 27.10.2021). Data of VAERS are publicly available as ZIP files for each reporting year at https://vaers.hhs.gov/data.html. Data on US annual resident population by age groups from 2010 to 2019 are available from the US Census Bureau at https://www.census.gov/en.html (table NC-EST2019).

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.756633/full#supplementary-material

REFERENCES:

1. Food and Drug Administration. Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Emergency Use Authorization. Silver Spring: US Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration, 2020.
2. Food and Drug Administration. Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine Emergency Use Authorization. Silver Spring: US Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration, 2020.
3. Commission E. Commission Implementing Decision of 6.1.2021 Granting a Conditional Marketing Authorisation Under Regulation (EC) No 726/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council for “COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna – COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine (Nucleoside Modified),” a Medicinal Product for Human Use. Brussels: European Commission, 2021.
4. Commission E. Commission Implementing Decision of 21.12.2020 Granting a Conditional Marketing Authorisation Under Regulation (EC) No 726/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council for “Comirnaty – COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine (Nucleoside Modified),” a Medicinal Product for Human Use. Brussels: European Commission, 2020.

‘ I asked for cooperation and I got fascism”. A prominent socialist member of the Labour Party calling its own party out. (Taking a trip back in history)

Likening the Labour Party members of Parliament to ‘book burners’. Eluding to severe censorship  by his own political colleagues.

Book burning is the deliberate destruction by fire of books or other written materials, usually carried out in a public context. The burning of books represents an element of censorship and usually proceeds from a cultural, religious, or political opposition to the materials in question.

NOTE: The National Library to cull 600,000 books would be a disaster reported an article in the Spinoff NZ in 2020. National Library to burn 600,000 books, was called out as ‘a disaster for researchers’. No one actually knows how many books, newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, letters, e-documents, and other things loosely definable as “publications” the National Library has. Cataloguing of the older material is often imprecise; but the number is well up in the millions.

Jacinda Ardern – In public statements ahead of her meeting with President Biden, Prime Minister Ardern called for greater censorship of social media.  Ardern ‘the only source of truth’.

NZCPR Article includes- Jacinda Ardern in her first formal speech to Parliament pledged “This government will foster a more open and democratic society. It will strengthen transparency around official information.” Since that time, the Government’s “iron grip” on the control of information has tightened and it is harder now than ever to get information.

Going back in history to John A Lee who majorily formulated Labour Party’s internal polcies. A Labour Party MP, a radical Socialist calls his own Labour colleagues out as Fascists.

NOTE: PLEASE CLICK IN THE IMAGE ABOVE WHICH WILL TAKE YOU TO MY RUMBLE VIDEO ON ‘I ASKED FOR COOPERATION AND I GOT FASCISM’

The minor parties are not publically speaking about what lies behind the bigger picture of the Governments narratives. WHY NOT???

UN NEWS 2022…The Green Party welcomes the next steps towards implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in Aotearoa, and calls on the Government to get on with the mahi of upholding Tangata Whenua rights.

“Implementing UNDRIP has been a long time coming, especially as Aotearoa was one of the last countries to support it, even though Māori helped write it, so let’s just get on with the mahi and do what Māori have consistently said for decades,” says Dr Elizabeth Kerekere, spokesperson for Māori Development.

“Thousands were involved in the consultations for Matike Mai; these voices form the foundations of the whare that we need to build together here in Aotearoa.

“These practical steps to uphold Tangata Whenua rights through the implementation of UNDRIP are important, and the feedback clearly shows this requires a restoration of tino rangatiratanga. This should form the basis of our journey towards constitutional transformation.

PLEASE CLICK  IN THE IMAGE ABOVE THIS WILL TAKE YOU TO MY RUMBLE VIDEO ON THIS IMPORTANT TOPIC.

HATE SPEECH FACT SHEET.  This Fact Sheet has been written for Family First by Rodney Lake “Free speech is my right to say what you don’t want to hear” GEORGE ORWELL In a free and open society, distasteful opinions are met with open inquiry, civil dialogue and debate. If I don’t like what you say, even if I find it offensive, I meet your ideas with my own in an attempt to discover something approaching the truth. But this is all about to change, with potentially devastating consequences

WHO DECIDES WHAT’S “HATEFUL”? One of the most disturbing realities of criminalising “hateful” speech is that there is simply no universally agreed upon definition of what constitutes “hate” in speech. For a law to be just, those who are controlled by it must be able to clearly see what it permits and what it forbids – and hate speech laws have proven throughout history to be unable to do this. Without a clear definition, how will you know when or if you have broken the law?

“There is no jurisdiction in the world where a statute has been enacted that offers a clear definition of what hate speech is. Consequently, it is left to the police and the courts to determine. This raises the problem of citizens not knowing precisely where the boundary of criminality of speech begins.” Historian and Professor, Dr Paul Moon

Imagine road laws with strict penalties for speeding, but with no speed limits in those laws, or no speed limits posted on our roads; just a vague sense that the courts get to decide on a case-by-case basis if you were speeding or not. You could never know if you were breaking the law and would live in constant fear of punishment. This would be bad law.

CULTURAL FRAGILITY Another problem is the growing fragility of a society increasingly subject to emotionally-based reasoning. Those who are easily “triggered” by offence tend to automatically presume hateful motives where none exist. Criticism and ridicule end up being construed as harmful and thus the desire to treat them as criminal acts. Traditional beliefs about human sexuality and identity, which have been held by the majority of humankind across diverse cultures for thousands of years, are only recently construed as “hateful” by the LGBT community.

Some passages from the Bible are indeed insulting. After all, who wants to be told they are a sinner? Yet the claim that “We are all sinners in need of forgiveness” is central to the Christian faith and has never been motivated by “hate”, quite the contrary. Under these proposed laws, people’s presumed reactions to your speech will become crucial to determining criminal intent. You may not actually intend harm, but if your speech is considered as showing hatred towards a particular group of people, you can be charged with inciting hatred and face a criminal conviction

So the first and most important question in the debate on hate speech is: What constitutes “hate”? Who gets to decide? Who will be the moral arbiters who determine when and if someone is guilty of “hateful” speech?

YOUR RIGHT TO SPEAK = YOUR RIGHT TO HEAR = YOUR RIGHT TO THINK The right to freedom-of-speech may seem minor to most kiwis who typically don’t have public platforms under threat. But this issue runs much deeper than just your right to speak, as it also includes your right to HEAR, and your right to THINK. You have a right to hear both sides of any debate3 – even viewpoints which are wrong or offensive to you. Laws which prevent others from speaking freely result in you no longer hearing opinions you might want to hear and evaluate for yourself. You have a right to offend, but also a right to be offended, meaning you have a right to hear ideas and perspectives which you disagree with

In addition, if I say you’re free to sit anywhere in the room, but I will punish you if you don’t sit on the chair I’ve chosen for you, then you are not truly free. Likewise, freedom of conscience means you can believe what you want, but hate speech laws will forbid you from expressing viewpoints which deviate from a vocal minority. So are you really free to think what you want?

Freedom of conscience – the freedom to think – is not truly free if you are not free to act on your beliefs and speak your mind.

A Speak Up For Women billboard (see below) was removed recently in Wellington. In a statement, billboard company Go Media said it was removed as soon as the company started fielding calls from offended New Zealanders. 4 Speak up for Women sought to hold public meetings to highlight threats to protected female-only spaces by biological men identifying as women. They have been subject to an intense smear campaign, uncharitably labelled a “hate group”, and harassed by public officials, councillors and mayors seeking to cancel their events. There is little doubt, if hate speech laws existed today, they would have been used to full effect to shut down this group

NOT AN ABSOLUTE RIGHT Unfortunately, however, some will abuse their right of free speech with ‘shock tactics’ intentionally designed to inflict deep hurt and offence to gain attention for their cause. We must not be afraid to call such behaviour out as intentionally offensive and unwarranted. Free speech is not an absolute right, and the right to offend and be offended is not an end in itself, but simply the best means we have of wrestling with competing truth claims in the midst of conflicting viewpoints. Exercising free speech responsibly and thoughtfully is the best antidote to hate speech. But we still have a moral obligation to others to speak respectfully and kindly, even in disagreement.

SPEECH IS ALREADY LIMITED There are many things we are not free to speak about. Commonly accepted boundaries and laws set limits on free expression when that expression conflicts with the rights and protections of others. Examples includes laws on: libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, food-labelling, nondisclosure agreements, the right to privacy, dignity, public security, perjury and more. These restrictions on your freedom of speech are widely accepted as part of a civil society. Likewise, threatening and abusive speech is also already banned because the consequences of harm can be directly linked to the speech in question.

EXISTING LAWS ALREADY OUTLAW HATE CRIMES “Hate crimes” are already illegal! A “hate crime” is an offence motivated by a hostility to the victim because they are a member of a protected group. The Human Rights Act makes it unlawful to incite hostility or discriminate against a group based on their colour, race, or ethnic or national origins, or to discriminate against people based on their sex, marital status, religious belief, ethical belief, disability, age, political opinion, employment status, family status or sexual orientation under the Act. Conduct amounting to a hate crime (e.g. assault) has been well defined throughout existing laws to ensure such crimes are punished justly. Laws which already address harmful speech include:6

The Human Rights Act 1993 • The Summary Offences Act 1981 • The Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 • The Broadcasting Act 1989 • The Harassment Act 1997 • The Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 • The Sentencing Act 2002.

For example, the Human Rights Act 1993 prohibits speech that is “likely to excite hostility or ill-will against”7 a person because of their identity in one of the above racial or ethnic groups. So, for example, if you try to incite a mob to go beat up Asian people, you can be charged with inciting violence under these laws – even if the mob never commits those acts. There isn’t the need for further criminal laws to address such acts of hate and incitement to violence because such laws already exist!

SO WHY THE PROPOSED LAW CHANGES? Law changes are proposed to address what is believed to be missing: specifically, the “incitement of hatred and discrimination” against ‘protected groups’ – which will be expanded to include all groups listed in the Human Rights Act (see above). The effect will be to significantly lower the bar for actions to have criminal intent, from the current “incitement of hostility or violence” to a much more worrisome and ill-defined “incitement of hatred”. The current Ministry of Justice discussion document proposes a person “would break the law if they did so by being threatening, abusive or insulting”8 So you could potentially commit a criminal offence simply by insulting someone who belongs to one of these ‘protected groups’.

‘HATE’ SPEECH? If you said “Only women give birth”, are you intentionally inciting hatred and discrimination, or simply stating what you believe to be a biological truth? ‘The proposed law also seeks to expand the above list of protected groups to include gender identity, to “clarify the protections for trans, gender diverse and intersex people”. This will include “gender expression and gender identity”9 . This means any speech deemed offensive to transgender people could be considered a criminal act punishable with fines or imprisonment.

The Reverend Dr Bernard Randall was appointed Chaplain of Trent College in the UK in 2015 to provide pastoral care, share the Christian faith and lead services in the school’s chapel. In a recent sermon, he defended the pupils’ right to question the school’s introduction of new LGBT policies, and encouraged respect and debate on ‘identity ideologies.’ Following the sermon, Dr Randall was reported by the school to PREVENT, the anti-terrorism unit which normally identifies those at risk of radicalisation. He was eventually made redundant by the school. His 12-day employment tribunal hearing has been delayed until September 2022.10

Australian tennis great Margaret Court holds the alltime record of 24 grand slam single titles. But as the Pastor of Victory Life Centre in Perth, her comments on the redefinition of marriage, homosexuality and the transgender community have sparked protests and calls to rename Court Arena (named after her) including by fellow tennis greats Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, and John McEnroe who labelled Court Australia’s “crazy aunt” (apparently this is not hate speech).11

THE TRUE GOAL: INTIMIDATION AND SELF-CENSORSHIP The hidden agenda behind such laws is the development of a culture of fear and self-censorship for the purpose of political intimidation and control. Thoughts and ideas which are undesirable to special-interest groups will be able to be silenced simply by framing them as “hateful”. Such groups will claim to believe in free speech, just as long as it’s speech THEY approve of

The result will be a population too afraid to express unpopular opinions, and no longer participating in the vital democratic process of debate and civil discourse necessary for a free and open society. “The very last thing New Zealand needs is the chilling effect of hate speech police stifling our thoughts and monitoring our every utterance. Yet, if the law changes go ahead, the result will be that fewer Kiwis will openly speak their mind for fear the Police will come knocking on their door. It will indeed be an ominous day for New Zealand if the Police become the enforcement unit of ruling politicians and their activist allies against free citizens expressing contrary opinions…” Muriel Newman, former MP – “Muzzling free speech”12

NECESSARY FOR SOCIAL REFORMS Freedom of Speech has been essential to the success of significant past reforms such as: the abolition of slavery, the right for women to vote, the American civil rights movement, opposition to apartheid in South Africa, and the Waitangi Tribunal. It’s easy to claim, in hindsight, the outcomes of these significant cultural moments should have been obvious. But we forget these battles were fought by courageous people publicly voicing unpopular opinions against the prevailing attitudes of the time. Hate speech laws would have been a significant threat to the fearless voices of reform in those movements.

ON MULTIPLE FRONTS The proposed law changes are just one front on which freedom of speech is threatened. The battle is also being fought on four other fronts where social, rather than criminal, sanctions are being used as weapons of political intimidation.

FIRST: Workplace Intimidation The infiltration of social activism, political agendas and “woke politics” into corporate workplaces and policies is very concerning. Employees who hold views not considered politically-correct in the workplace are bullied into silence and self-censorship through intimidation, ridicule and threat of losing positions or employment. Many privately report they stay silent on personal political or religious views for reasons of self-preservation. In the workplace, tolerance has become a one-way street.

SECOND: Corporate Cowardice Threats of boycotts and brand-reputation-damage for businesses who do not follow the latest woke narrative are increasingly common, resulting in corporate cowardice in an attempt to appease the activist mob. Company directors and government department leaders should stop being intimidated and distracted by woke demands, and focus on business and mission interests ahead of political ones. Another form of corporate cowardice is book banning, where book sellers remove titles from their catalogues which are supposedly “harmful”. This is entirely hypocritical in the example of Amazon, who have delisted titles which question gender ideology e.g., “When Harry Became Sally” by Ryan T. Anderson, while still selling Hitler’s political manifesto, “Mein Kampf”, for the purpose of academic analysis.13

THIRD: Big-Tech Censorship This includes intimidation from takedowns, shadowbanning, traffic throttling, demonetisation, and suspension of accounts. The passive acceptance in the general public of these increasingly heavy-handed tactics of big-tech and corporate censorship, supposedly for our own protection, is a very concerning threat to our open and democratic society

FOURTH: “Cancel Culture” Public figures and professionals are lynched on social media and de-platformed for questioning popular woke ideology, sending a clear message of intimidation to others to selfcensor. Public meetings and platforms should be a place where the free exchange of ideas are debated in a pursuit of truth. But disruptive protests, venue cancelations, and even threats of violent protests are being used as excuses to shut down such events

These four types of censorship and intimidation have resulted in the silencing of dissenting ideas and open dialogue on continuous issues which deserve to be openly debated.

WHAT IS WOKE? To be Woke is to have been “woken up” to the important social justice issues of the day and hold a more radical progressive view on issues of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexuality and identity. Being Woke means being aware of injustices according to progressive values, and embracing social reengineering in an attempt to deconstruct traditional values and institutions (such as the nuclear family and the Church) which are falsely seen as a threat to addressing those injustices

DRIVING UNSAVOURY IDEAS UNDERGROUND An unforeseen result of the suppression of free speech is the driving of genuinely hateful, radicalised and dangerous groups (such as neo-Nazi groups) underground into private dark-web echo-chambers. Dr Paul Moon says, “The case could be made that restrictions on the open expression of ideas could end up intensifying radicalisation… Anyone who thinks that a change in law will diminish hate clearly has little grasp on history.”14 You can’t always fix hateful and obnoxious ideas simply by banning them. Rather, when allowed into the sunlight of public discourse, they can be thoroughly and publicly discredited. The result being those who are susceptible to such dangerous ideas can be inoculated against them.

“Underlying prejudices, injustices or resentments are not addressed by arresting people: they are addressed by the issues being aired, argued and dealt with preferably outside the legislative process. For me, the best way to increase society’s resistance to insulting or offensive speech is to allow a lot more of it. As with childhood diseases, you can better resist those germs to which you have been exposed.” UK Comedian Rowan Atkinson (a.k.a. Mr Bean)

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS The discussion document the Ministry of Justice released in June 2021 raises significant unanswered questions, beyond the broader principles highlighted above, including:

Why are only some groups protected and not others? The proposed laws want to expand existing “incitement” protections to other presumably vulnerable groups such as gay, lesbian, transgender, non-binary, etc. Yet those groups tend to be those which progressive left-leaning “woke” people want to protect. Why only those groups? Aren’t all humans hurt by hate, regardless of their group membership? Will Christians be a protected group?

The most prominent recent case of cancel culture and the consequence of perceived ‘hate speech’ is Israel Folau who tweeted firstly his personal view opposing the redefinition of marriage, and then in response to a specific question put to him, a paraphrase of a bible passage. The public reaction to his social media posts was entirely disproportionate to his actions and amounted to a public lynching intended to destroy him and his career. If hate speech laws existed at the time, it can be assumed they would have been applied to his situation without mercy

Why such harsh penalties? Proposed penalties of up to three years imprisonment and fines of up to $50,000 are entirely disproportionate to the presumed harm suffered. Common assault is only punishable by up to one-year imprisonment. Why is the punishment for hate speech crimes three times greater? What does that say to the victims of actual violent crime?

What about conflicting interests? If a mosque insults an LGBT group with its teaching on homosexuality, while the same members of the LGBT group insult Islam with its teaching on organised religion, whose right to be protected from “hate” would prevail? Or could they both be prosecuted?

Can the Police and Courts cope? How will our already stretched criminal justice system cope with the flood of bitter complainants and defendants eager to have their rights protected from “hateful” ideas? Is it really the job of the police and courts to mediate disputes involving offended feelings?

Is there a difference between public and private speech? Will the expression of opinions in private places be protected under the law? Or can I be punished for expressing offensive views to friends and family around the BBQ or dinner table?16

What about political viewpoints? The line between political views and moral views is impossible to define. What if political views questioning government policy are deemed offensive and “hateful”? Could I go to prison for merely insulting someone’s political beliefs?

What about religious expression? Will reading a Bible verse in church, or a passage from the Koran in a mosque break the law? Could my pastor/minister face imprisonment and fines for merely teaching certain (offensive to some) passages from the Bible? Will my religious expression be protected?

CONCLUSION Proposed hate-speech laws are being smuggled in under the pretence of ‘the public good’. After all, who can disagree with the idea of banning hate? But beneath the shiny veneer of good intentions lies one of the most dangerous law changes our country has faced in recent history. Belonging to a group should not afford special protections that result in the removal of the rights of others to disagree with them. Political activists and special interest groups will miss the important distinction between hate-speech, and merely speech they hate, and end up using such laws as tools of political intimidation to punish opponents and shut down debate in the marketplace of ideas. Laws already exist banning the incitement of violence. There is far too much ambiguity in what constitutes “hate”. And the risk

SPEAK UP Exercise your freedom of speech and make your voice heard. Make a submission to your MP, the Ministry of Justice or any future Select Committee considering such laws. Visit HateSpeech.nz for further instructions and forward this Fact Sheet onto others to help get the word out. of misapplication and abuse for political ends is far too high. These laws must be rejected for the sake of a fair, open and democratic society

In 2018, Warkworth baker Kath received a request to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding which she politely refused due to her personal beliefs on the definition of marriage. Consequently, she was harassed with days of intense media coverage and vitriolic ‘hate speech’ accusations and physical threats including her home address on her social media accounts and website.

The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.  GEORGE ORWELL / SELWYN DUKE

Supporting Family First NZ. Carol Sakey

https://familyfirst.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Hate-Speech-Fact-Sheet.pdf

In December 2020, the report by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attack on Christchurch mosques on 15 March 2019 made a number of recommendations to improve existing laws relating to hate speech.

In the previous year, the Commission researched and published a resource on the legal framework governing hate speech – Kōrero Whakamauāhara: Hate Speech. The resource includes definitions of hate speech and outlines the legal framework in New Zealand and in similar overseas jurisdictions.

In addition, during September and October 2019, the Commission arranged and facilitated engagements for communities who had experienced, or were at risk of experiencing, hate speech. These engagements helped to inform the Commission’s approach to hate speech.

New Zealand currently has no comprehensive hate speech laws. The closest are provisions within section 21 of the Human Rights Act 1993 which prohibit incitement of racial disharmony.

These make it a criminal offence for a person to publicly use language which is “threatening, abusive, or insulting” to a group of people on the basis of their “colour, race, or ethnic or national origins”, and which is intended to “excite hostility or ill will against, or bring into contempt or ridicule” that group.

This is punishable by a fine of up to NZ$7,000 or up to three months imprisonment.

What the proposed reforms would do

As part of its broader recommendations to promote social cohesion, the royal commission suggested some reasonably narrow changes to the existing Human Rights Act provisions:

• add incitement of disharmony on the basis of religion
• move the criminal offence to the Crimes Act 1961 and increase the penalty
• tighten the definitions within the provision.

The proposals in the cabinet paper would do all this, specifically increasing the punishment to a fine of up to $50,000 or maximum of three years imprisonment. This would put hate speech punishment in the same general league as making a false declaration or assault with intent to injure.

The language would also be revised to make it an offence to intentionally “stir up, maintain, or normalise hatred” against a nominated group through “threatening, abusive, or insulting communications, including inciting violence”.

This is narrower than the existing law, meaning speech intended to bring a group into “contempt or ridicule” would no longer be covered.

The cabinet paper goes significantly further than the royal commission is in its recommendation the new law be extended beyond race and religion to cover all categories protected under section 21 of the Human Rights Act. These include age, sex, disability, religion, race, sexual orientation, political opinion and a number of others.

The paper also proposes a similar expansion of the civil provision in the Human Rights Act (largely ignored by the royal commission), and adding a prohibition on incitement of discrimination.

It also proposes clarifying the grounds of discrimination to specifically include gender identity and sex characteristics.

A risk of over-reach: By and large, this is a measured proposal. The threshold for criminal liability is very high, requiring a high degree of animosity and an effect far beyond offending an individual.  Despite some claims to the contrary, the proposed laws would not cover (for example) the unkindness and rudeness implicit in casually mis-gendering a trans person.

But by including every ground of discrimination under section 21 of the Human Rights Act, there is some risk the proposed changes become overly broad. In particular, political opinion is an area in which robust, even hostile, debate is important, and there is potential for a “chilling effect”.

Reasonable people may well disagree on this and other aspects of the proposal. But at this stage the cabinet paper is just that — a set of proposals. A more detailed discussion document will be put out for public consultation. One would hope it will include a more precise draft of the proposed legislation.

Hate speech regulation is a fraught topic with important considerations on all sides. It deserves serious consideration and public debate before these proposals finally become law.