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Welcome to podcasts two eighty five for May twenty one, twenty twenty four. And let's start with a warning. This is a lengthy podcast, but it could have been longer. Exercising discipline is sometimes difficult. It's a double interview session starting with an update on New Zealand power supply by power systems engineer Brian Leyland, who has been on the podcast on well more than one occasion. Eighteen months ago, he wrote in the New Zealand Herald, virtually every aspect
of our power system is a cause for concern. Still is, and as before, considering the recent discovery that Chinese solar farms have built in kill switches accessible to theies who could switch off all the farms that they have supplied. That's about fifty percent worldwide. Now, to suggest that we are confronted with a serious issue is hardly debatable. What is debatable is whether it's being handled competently and Brian
will take it from there. Then we have the suggestion that the New Zealand public is growing increasingly skeptical about the capacity for democratic institutions to put our best interests at heart. Conventions and processes are in place to ensure that these institutions are transparent and accountable. Public good policy requires that the information underpinning decision making is of the best possible standard. But what if those processes are bypassed.
New Zealand government agency for Economic Growth, the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment otherwise known as MB is so entranced by the promise of biotechnology that has, to all appearances short circuited the democratic process and good regulatory practice. This has become a case study that may not only reflect New Zealand's woes, but mirror the global crises in policy
and science across the Western world. And of course this discussion, and of course this discussion is related to the gene Technology Bill, which is a subject to some heated debate at this point of time. Now, the words that I've been quoting are by j. R. Brunning or Jody Running, who is a sociologist and a Trustee of Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility. She has been on the podcast on one occasion, I think from memory, and she's actually
very thorough. But the other thing to add at this point is that the information in this report compelled us, I quote compelled us to request that the Ombudsman undertake a formal inquiry. So if by chance you have to be interested in what goes on well shall we say, behind the scenes, then this is a very very interesting discussion.
But up in a moment. Brian Layland Layton Smith. Now the name Brian Leland is familiar to most of you, I'm sure, but there are always some who were fresh on the scene or who haven't heard of somebody I'm talking with. So let me give you a little of his background, well much of it, actually, we'll give him. We'll give him the full course. He is a New Zealander based consulting engineer with experience in all aspects of the power industry. His main interest is in hydro power.
He has experience in wind, solar, tidal and wave power. He also has worked on substations and transmission lines on diesel, steam and gas turbine stations and he had he's had some involvement in nuclear power. I'm particularly interested in that. Actually,
his academic qualifications include do academic qualifications count for much anymore? Well, they do for some people anyway, include a master's degree in Power system design and a Distinguished Fellow of Engineering New Zealand, a Fellow at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and a retired Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. He's also acted as a consultant on many overseas projects
in developing countries. This has included work for the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and as an independent advisor on dam projects in India, Pakistan, West Africa and Afghanistan. I'd say that that qualifies him to make as much comments, if not more than most people in this country involved in the electricity industry. Brian, did I missety thing up now? That was? You will almost make me feel embarrassed? Well, in fact you do. Well, there's no need for it.
What now? Quote you something from about a year ago, maybe ten months and it's from the New Zealand Herald and it's written by Samantha g of Radio New Zealand. And there's really only one line. I want to read New Zealand is heading toward an electricity supply crisis. Now you were awarding of that in the middle of last year. We spoke about it. But that's the middle of last year. We're now a good ten months down the track. What might have changed?
Okay, what has changed is the availability of gas. We now know that we've got less gas, and we assumed a year ago. We now know also that the combined cycle station in Taranake, which is throughout articular meguans, will be retired pretty soon. So we've got less gas and less capability of burning it. And the latest security of supply assessment by Transpower, the draft one says that next year is going to be worse than this year, and
the year after it will be worse still. Now, who says that Transpower the system operator?
And how would Transpower know?
Well, they are the ones who are in theory. The other ones who are trying to keep the lights on. But they have no power to build new stations or influence to building a new stations.
But are they assuming that there will be weather that doesn't work?
Yeah, they always assume that there's a possibility of but dry year. But it's getting to the stage now where even in a normal year there may have to be blackouts during peak DeMint periods because we just haven't got enough capacity to keep the lights on, but they would
be fairly short two or three hours and intermittent. But a dry year, which is what we've just been through and had last year, is much different and you need massive rotating blackouts to cope with the fact that you haven't gotten that energy.
You know, there's something about an assumption that sits uncomfortably with me. They assume that this will be the case, that doesn't plan for if their assumption is wrong.
They've got a reasonable handle on contingencies and they've factored the men, but I think they've been on the generous side. Was the contingencies, I would be more pessimistic than they've been.
In your experience, and you do a bit of public speaking, etc. Is the New Zealand population across the board aware of how close we are to losing control? No, not at all.
And before two thousand and three, if we got short of power, the first thing they did was ask the public to save power, turn off flights, don't do so much hot water and all that sort of thing, and that used to ease the situation by quite a bit. It was got a significant reponse. After two thousand and three they decided that they would shut down industry and
commerce before they asked people to save electricity. So last year we shut down Method X and paid a lot for the gas, which is it turned out we virtually did not need, and we reduced output on the smelter, which also cost quite a lot. And this year we've done the same. For those who don't know, and they claim that we're we're getting through it all right, when the real story is we've had shutdowns, just that the public didn't see them.
For those unfamiliar, what is METHODEX or who?
Method X is the gas? What used to be the gas the gasoline plant, but now it makes Method X methanol instead of gasoline. And it's been a steady taker of gas over the years and provided the steady load for the gas fields which make most of their money out of the liquids associated liquids, so it needs a steady demand.
So it's done a good job.
But we shouldn't be shutting it down just because we've run out of We haven't stored enough.
Gas, so why are we shutting it down?
We're starting it down so the gas can be burned in the gas turbine stations to keep the lights on.
And how long would that last? I think it's several months.
We've got we've shut shutting methodics down for several months, and we've paid for the gas. And as things are looking at the moment, we could give it all back tomorrow. But we've paid for it and we're stuck with it.
And that's not a good thing.
Well, it puts out the price of power. And you can remember the way the powers market works, the most expensive generator sets the planes for all of them. So when gas is scarce, my little hydro scheme is making heaps of money because it's I get the high price of the gas thing.
It's crazy, all right. So let's let's just go back in history a little bit, because we've discussed it before, but it's always I think necessary to update and remind. But when did the when did the problem you've mentioned two thousand and three? But when did the problem really become the issue that it is now, or at least the lead into it.
Probably when we signed the Paris Agreement and decided that coal and gas were bad things and that wind and solar were good things, and forgot about the need to keep the lights on when the wind's not blowing and the sun's not shining.
Who was in government then?
It was Key that signed the Paris Agreement and it was just center the shutdown gas exploration.
Do you think that John Key would sign it today?
I have no idea it had to be, but anyone would have to be pretty stupid. I mean, the whole agreement internationally is falling to pieces, and seventeen out of the two hundred odd people that have signed up to it or the countries have signed up to it, have given returns this year. Fourteen of them are not meeting their promises with one of them, but the other nearly two hundred, I've forgotten about it. The whole things are
a massive nothing. Well it always was, it always was, but it's billions of dollars a year.
Can you put a figure on that.
According to some reports I've seen, the cost of buying carbon credits, which apparently we will soon have to do, could be ten billion dollars between now and twenty thirty. So that's a couple of billion dollars a year. Then there's the fact that it's jacked up the power price, probably by three or four cents, So everybody's paying three or four cents more for power than they otherwise would.
Then you've got the effect that petrol and diesel and all that are also more expensive because of carbon tax. So there's that. It's an endless list. Almost everything you can think about is affected by the net zero belief.
All right, So let's assume that you have been appointed as the lord of the the realm of power supply? What would you do? But would I do? First?
Is forget about the net zero and also about the rumor that man made greenhouse gases caused dangerous global warming. And if I could do both of those things, I would be searching for gas high speed and burning coal and gas and developing geothermal as fast as I could, which is happening now, and maybe build some more hydro schemes if the greenies would let me the other alternatives.
Hold it, hold it, Remember where you were going with that. But if the greenies would let you, what would what would what would be required to put them out of action? As far as that's concerned. A government was determination. Can you see any on the horizon? No, I thought I'd ask.
David Seymour, but I'm not quite sure what he believes anyway.
So where are you going before I interrupted you?
Okay, if we still wanted to believe in man made global warming, I would go nuclear.
And that's long term worldwide.
Nuclear is the obvious way to generate all the energy we need safely and cheaply. That's it. It'll do it, and it'll do it safely.
Here's the interesting thing, Well, it's only one interesting thing. The Australians have just had an election. Of course, the Greens got dumped on but they still are in a position of power slash influence as far as this is concerned, and the majority of Australians it appears, certainly a large number are still opposed to nuclear power, something I cannot work out with that con tree, you can, I.
But then the other thing I can't work out is why they export millions of tons of coal millions and millions and won't burn it, and why they export vast qualities of gas from the North Fork Shelf and won't open up gas wells in the southeast equally stupid.
Well, has this has something to do with the structure of the Australian political scene. Yeah, I wonder, No, I don't wonder, you can't. I was going to say, I wonder what it would be like in this country if we divided ourselves up into four quarters, for instance, and and elected our own local as in state politicians.
Well, seeing we've got into the elected power system from the PowerPoint of view, to be chaos. If it's chaos already even worse than it is now that.
All right, we'll past, will pass on that.
Now.
James Kilty of Transpower was on radio this morning, the day we speak, which is Tuesday. What did he have to say?
Well, basically, he said that we are short of power and the situation is worse than it was last year. But he seems to believe that lots and lots of wind and solar and batteries will save the situation. And
that's simply not true. And the reason is that batteries are impossibly expensive when you when you need to make up for the fact that the wind hasn't blown for the last five days and two thousand mega wats of wind are not there, saving extoring enough electricity to keep us to keep the lights on during that period is impossibly expensive.
Let's forget for the moment. Let's forget the impossible and an expensive part. How difficult would it be impossible?
Same thing if everybody does it in the world, and there's no point in us doing it, and that everybody else does. There's not enough rare earth and various other critical materials available in the time frame to do the job. And it means opening minds at a rapid rate, which you can't do. And it's rare which come out mostly come out of China. The Americans have got plenty of them,
but they're Australians, so are the Australians. But their whole approvals system means it takes about six or eight years to open a new mind.
So you just can't do it.
Then we haven't got all the engineers needed to do all the reinforcement and build all these new stations. It's just simply is impossible from every point of view.
Okay, let me extract from you then that's an appropriate word actually considering the question what these what these rare earths actually provide, it's all very well, all very well to throw around I don't mean you, but generally throw around you know, rare earth, rare earths, But what are they especial, especially in relationship to what we're talking about.
Yeah, okay, apparently they're not actually all that rare, but they're an odd thing. But for instance, all the new wind turbine generators and other things rely on high strength permanent magnets, which use a product called neodymium, which provides very strong magnets. I've got one on my desk and it's extremely strong, and all the wind wind turbine generators
use them. And yet thousands and thousands of tons. Then another thing that we'd be short of is copper, because you need lots of copper for the windings of the generators and for the cables that connect it all together. We can't open copper mines fast enough, and I mean we'd double or treble the current rate of mining, and you probably wouldn't still wouldn't be enough.
Do we have copper here?
No?
I didn't think so. No, We've probably got rares somewhere. But we do have gold. We do have gold, yes, so we can buy the copper. Yeah. All right. Now, with regard to James Kilty, what else did he have to say, particularly not only about nuclear.
He didn't mention nuclear, He didn't mention further gas exploration, which we desperately need because it's the only short term thing can dig us out of trouble. And yet he didn't mention it. It's very strange. I would have thought that he would be hammering on the government store for more gas, and he just doesn't seem to understand the storage problem and the fact that when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine, something's got to keep
the lights on. But there's also another problem because when the wind is blowing and when the sun does shine, we'll have it. We'll be a wash with electricity if there're the ones that are all built, go ahead, three thousand odd megawats and so the price will crash to nothing on the market. So all these wind farms and solar farms won't be earning anything when they're generating the most.
Well, your average punter might into fear here and say what he means, it crashed to nothing. It's their product. They can set the price, Yeah, but it's a surface of it. They can't.
Why not, Well, all they can do is refuse to generate, and then the price goes up, and then I'm getting any of it either. Yeah, Otherwise they all form a consortium and agree just how much to generate to keep the price at the at the level they would like it to be. A see, there is which is which is not very good from a novely point of view.
There it's a sin in a way. That's what the generators are doing. Now, there is something that intrigues me at the moment across across a much bigger board than we're discussing. But the principle, the principle is the same. Why is it that so many countries are in trouble because of what has not gone before and has now caught up with us? What's where? Where? And how did it become a major issue that countries like us ended up here.
Okay, for some reason or other and with the connivance of a lot of people, not necessarily all getting together and plotting against it. But it suits a whole lot of people to tell everybody that the wills and in the edge of disaster from global warning, it's a terrible situation and only I can save you, and you've got to do lots of penance, which is the salvation circus type argument. The world is going to come to an end. Come to me and give me lots of money and women.
And so they've played on that. Nothing like a good crisis to get political support, and that's where it started. But there's a whole lot of outfits in the world, and a whole lot of so called scientists climate scientists who make their living depends on keeping this whole scam going and send there's the renewable energy people, the wind and solar overseas who get heavily subsidized, and they are very interested in keeping this game going and increasing the subsidies.
And the subsidies for offshore wind are horrenders about forty cents a killing with out subsidy. It's crazy. And there's a bigger subsidy for offshore wind than there is for onshore wind. They're both the same product. Why do you pay more for one.
Than the other?
Why do you pay more than the market price, which is coal fired generation or nuclear?
Are you familiar with the name David Leggetts vaguely Director of Research and Education for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. He's a retired professor of climatology at the University of Delaware and he's involved with the various organizations.
I read this, I read this this morning. Over the years, even before I joined the Cordwell Alliance, I received numerous complaints from people sending me emails who I believe are well meaning that take issue that take issue with my position on carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, as a pollutant, and as the single most existential threat to the planet
as a whole. First, he says, let me state for the record that I do not believe that carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are existential threats to the planet, nor are they reasonable threats of any kind. Second, let me also state for the record that I do not believe carbon dioxide is a pollutant. In fact, if all life on Earth ceased to exist, our atmosphere would lose all its oxygen content, and the proportion of carbon dioxide in
our atmosphere would increase above ninety five percent. So what he writes, and then goes on, look, I have to say this. I've said it before, but in that debate that was held by Sky Television and back in two thousand and seven, the television debate after showing the first climate scam movie, a bunch of us sat around a couple of professors Greenie and myself and another another professor who was sort of who was on my team if
you like. And at the end of that I was asked for the last words and my comment was simple, CO two is not a pollutant. End of story, and everyone reckon we run that won the debate, but the point being that that has been around for a long time, but it's not a pollutant. But it doesn't get much traction in mainstream.
If you look on the stuff website, it will not publish anything that questions man made global warming.
Well stuff are stuffed. Yeah, no no interest in them except for the people I know there. Now, is there any any more you want to hit on?
No?
No, I think if everybody realizes that we are in a more serious situation and hitting words and that they should be okay, loving their MP for more guts, that's it.
All right. No, I've got I've got, I've got a bit more. If I can tell me something, If you were to debate the appropriate people, and I make it plural, the appropriate pleep, the appropriate people in an open debate on this subject, who who is it? And I'm talking government people, Who is it? That you would be either wanting or find yourself debating with I'm not sure it's an amorphous mob. Would it would have to be the minister, would it not? For a start?
Yeah, I think the minister would be the obvious one. And he seems to believe in it, And I would simply ask him what evidence does he have other than climate models and the consensus of scientists, which is worthless, that man made greenhouse gases caused dangerous global warming?
Why that's the question. And they won't answer it because they can't. And I've been through that same experience for years now. Why is it that they can't answer it?
Because nobody has produced convincing evidence based on real world data, not climate models, that man made greenhouse gases caused dangerous global warming. Nobody as far as like a Maya in the world. We put up a ten thousand dollars prize for someone who could provide the information.
We got no takers. No, you didn't. I recall in fact, I've made a contribution to that. Yeah, then what are we doing? What are we doing with ministers, be they ministers of climate or whatever they are, who are totally unwilling to have an open discussion about the rights and wrongs of their ministry.
The best thing, I think, and I'm not necessary, right, is just to hammer on about the excessive costs of net zero. How are we squandering all this money? We can't make a difference to climate. Everybody else is falling by the wayside and ignoring their obligations.
Oh, but we've got to do our little bit.
Yeah, well you've got to persuade them that we can't afford to do our little bit. And one of my projects is to try and make up a list of all the what it does cost us. And I'm sure it's something like two to five billion dollars a year.
Well, I absolutely nothing when you get it. When you come to that number, let me know I will. In the meantime, spread the word, folks, is the only thing that I mean. Just tell people send this interview to everyone you know, even if you think they won't listen to it. That's my comment, Brian, good to talk to you. Good to talk to you too, and you keep flying the flag. Hi gave. Bucklin is a natural oral vaccine in a tablet form called bacterial I say it it'll
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I have great admiration for her. Now, for those who are unfamiliar, PSGR physicians and scientists for Global Responsibility, and they have been well. They were formulated about around about nineteen ninety nine, I think or two thousand, am I right, Yes, you are very good. One question that I want to I want to ask you how political is the organization? What political leaning might PSGR have.
Well, to be.
Honest, when we have our agms, which is when we come together, the trustees come together, we simply don't actually talk about it.
I guess it's because.
We are looking at health and we're looking at policy, and I guess both national or labor tend to move forward in a relatively amorphous fashion, so there is no discussion around that. I guess that's the most honest answer we get. And we're very limited in how we actually approach ministers. I guess I may have briefly spoken to email Steve Abel recently, but it's to thank him for the work on Select Committee.
But we really don't do much.
The reason I asked the question is because we have all become well, lots of us have become more deeply involved with foreign politics then we might have once been. And when it comes to America, of course, there is a very much there's a great deal of muck breaking that goes on, a great deal of bias and shall we say, illegalities. And we like to think that in
this country we're pretty clean. But I have a feeling that things have muddied a little more than they should have in some areas, this being one of them, science and medicine. And I guess part of the reason for that, very strong part of the reason for that way of thinking is what we went through in the last few years, how we were dealt with, how the crisis was dealt with, and what we now know that we were told was a no no back during that period.
You say, look, absolutely, as I have said on this Daily Telegraph article, the New Zealand style of government is already authoritarian. That's a direct quote from Sir Jeffrey Palmer and Andrew Butler Casey. There are no formal constitutional constraints. New Zealand has one House of Parliament, which is the House of Representatives, of course, and the executive dominates cabinet has almost total gemony over parliamentary process. For example, our
Attorney General General has six ministerial hats. The executive you know, the ministries and agencies create the reports for the Select Committee. The Select committees have basically no sort of no powers to do their own inquisitive inquiry. New Zealand is extraordinarily, extraordinarily vulnerable to despotism.
I would say more so than Australia.
Well, I think so because we only have one House of Parliament and remember our Australia, the Queensland has one House of Parliament, which is the state with one House
of Parliment, and that's in Australia. That's where a lot of the COVID laws, the federal the state laws could be then they could be sort of cut and pasted from Queensland's initiative and so we were super vulnerable basically, And because our academia are now largely politically silent, our scientists have been silenced because the fund the threat of no funding prevents political inquiry that dare I say, into technologies that are unsafe and perhaps for me, when I
saw that May Act created overnight by the Attorney General David Parker in twenty twenty and it didn't have the protection of people it couldn't.
It couldn't discern.
Between a healthy person being safe and someone being at risk.
And it also.
Couldn't discern the difference between cases and infection rates and actually the risk of hospitalization and death. And that legislation could be just draw drawn up, put in overnight, and that was okay, And it showed me that we're very vulnerable to the next emergency or false flag event.
It shouldn't have become as any surprise, considering that the distinction between a man and a woman was something else they lost track of.
Well, it shows that we're sort of, I guess, a bit ideologically vulnerable to the themes of the day that seem to drift through the Anglo the Anglo nations in particular at the Commonwealth nations. So where where whe're sort of see it almost seems as if the central parties
are being spoon fed the same stuff. And of course it always has to it could never contradict large global corporations either, So they're sort of fulfilling these global patterns which we can all possibly recognize similar patterns that.
That conform to it.
I used to be what I called woke, and now I'm looking at what we call woe. And it's really difficult because we haven't been taught to look critically.
We've been taught to assemble.
Information and put it in a place, but the veracity of that information, whether it's good qualityduced to it, and that's what our young people and I don't think I myself has taught that at high school or university either to start to really look critically at who produced the information and were there any conflicts political or financial of interests.
I think we haven't done that correctly.
Well, it's had a long grounding, then, hasn't it The ignorance I'm talking Let me quote this the beginning of the article that you published a couple of days ago, which is really what we're here to discuss. In the main anyway, a remarkable situation has arisen in New Zealand. The agency tasks with economic growth that controls the science funding budget, wants to have the power of administering the legislation that would steward the very technologies that it directly
funds scientists to produce. It is the most perfect form of vertical integration, and it says a lot about the biggest risk to democracy, the concentration and centralization of power. Now there's more I'd like to read, and I might get to it shortly, but just looking at that first paragraph, the concentration and centralization of power, Now this is a
what we're discussing here as a scientific field. Is it not a surprise that that's the area where this leverage seems to be growing as opposed to other matters of politics.
I'm not sure about that, because when you look at what's happened to statsin z for example, they're seeming to concentrate power through harmonizing ID numbers across news nilands landscape, and we're seeing that happening in the information sharing agreements.
But it's often I.
Guess the pattern that is the similar A similar pattern there is the technology has become scalable to such an extent that it can be done. So I guess I have to perhaps I now agree with you, because we can produce, for example, gene edited technologies and organisms that can be scaled up in a massive place. Whe're then seeing the concentration of power to enable that further, so
we're seeing what I called their vertical integration. It's the economic growth agency responsible for trying to increase the amount of inventions that go into out into the ether, that hopefully make money, and that've taken it upon it themselves. That it's just sort of like they said to the APAA, So we're going to take control of producing the new legislation for GMOs because gene edited techniques and organisms are
genetically modified. These they produce genetically modified organisms. Gene edited organisms are one subset of that, so we shouldn't be deceived by pretending there's something else. So it's yeah, it's pretty crazy, it's really crazy.
I want to quote you a bit more of yourself because I was impressed with it. The New Zealand public is growing increasingly skeptical about the capacity for democratic institutions to put our best interest at heart. Conventions and processes are in place to ensure that these institutions are transparent and accountable. Public good policy requires that the information underpinning decision making is of the best possible standard, which is always a very vague term as far as I'm concerned.
But what if those processes are bypassed, if processes of knowledge gathering un the what if scientists and researchers have become so hemmed in by tightly controlled policy, that they're more like pawn's in a chess game rather than truth seekers driven by curiosity to expand knowledge for the betterment of society. How does this entrapment of science come out in the wash? Take it from there.
So the Ministry for Business and in Innovation and Employment MV is quite interesting. They gained their powers through secondary legislation.
They did not hold it.
So what is secondary legislation.
So when traditionally when a ministry is it comes into being, it's through a primary active legislation and that has a purpose and purpose says you must do this, this, and this.
There's no such purpose for MV.
They came into into power through an Order in Council in twenty twelve and the legislation that produced MB gave them the powers over the science enterprise. So this did not go through Parliament, so then MB could control the science. So that was twenty twelve, and by twenty fourteen they
released the National Statement of Science Investment. That was twenty and so that was the plan from twenty fifteen to twenty twenty five and the subject of my master's thesis of sociology research project and I interviewed scientists, professors, associate professors looking at health research policy, and I was able to identify that this national Statement of Science Investment, which prioritized innovation, basically produced the desire or the requirement that
if you're applying for funding in New Zealand, you must be assuring the funding committees, which are peer scientists, that you are going to produce an innovation.
And that.
Entrapped scientists because it required them to look for patents and internet and produce intellectual property rights and IP and it required that they would not One of the requirements was that the science would be excellent. So every scientist knows if you're an electrical engineer, you will understand a certain form of excellence. If you're a cancer researcher, you'll
understand a certain form of excellence. Excellence is something that you agree with in a tiny subset of a particular discipline. So the requirement for excellence and innovation meant that all of a sudden you had a lot more applied science,
a lot less basic science being undertaken. It was much more difficult to apply for science for basic research, which is what we know is the curiosity driven research, and often that basic research is where we find the problems, where we understand, for example, what that exposure to that chemical or that emission might do to the biological cell, the human body, the waterway, and that's how we understand, oh,
we need to regulate it in a certain way. So right now we don't have any of that sort of science. So it's no prize that when you identify something that is causing harm you then look for the scientist or the scientific group the researching that harm. That you will
not find that in New Zealand today. So then when I say pawns in a chess game, it means that the basic science that is decided on what our big missions are, that is politically decided by MB by the menace and in all by their I guess that the political scientists such as Sir Peter Blackman that worked for them and who who themselves will have their own you know, their own babies, their own areas that they really want
to progress. So we have very narrow forms of basic science that's permitted, and we do not get scientists researching the toxics, the you know, the EMF the toxics we had after COVID finished, you know, in twenty twenty twenty three, they were able to set aside twenty million dollars for MR and A research. But of course we didn't even see two million dollars for research on the mechanisms of harm that can occur through injection with a vaccine that itself is an MR and a gene edited biologic drum.
All right, So the leaning that they're taking is as opposed to scientific.
Well, and to be fair, so if you're looking at regulatory science, that is always socio political or socio scientific,
because regulatory scientists need to make everyone happy. And this is why we often see regulation scientific information or the information being used by regulatory scientists becoming more and more outdated, no matter how quickly technology speeds, and we already see with this gene technology build no capacity, for example, for the regulator to actually have inquisitorial powers to understand, for example, what ARI means, for the capacity for gene technology to
be released at scales to move more quickly, for many, many more GMO gene edited organisms to be released into the into the environment than previously.
And ultimately we were talking.
About the DSIR, which was disabled in nineteen ninety two. It was replaced by another ministry that was then disabled in twenty twelve, which was replaced by mb These minstry, these ministries were more separate from because they were just science. Once we had the whole science funding institutions stuck inside the Ministry for Economic Growth, it became pervasively political because
that's economic growth. It can't do anything else but be controubled by that minister, and that is the priority of that minister.
Mbie otherwise known as Mimbi.
Who was the minister, the Honorable Judith Colins.
See, I couldn't. I couldn't. I went looking because I wasn't I wasn't precisely or I wasn't sure, So I went searching. I found plenty on memory, but I couldn't find the minister.
So it's really this is why it's really diffuse and difficult. So Collins was the minister, so I apologize. Collins was the Minister for Science, So of course she's inside MB as the Minister for silence science. And at the same time she's the Attorney General, she's a King's Counsel, she's the Minister for Defense, she's the Minister for digitizing government. She was the Minister for Science and then she became the Minister for Public Service. She's the Minister for the GCS,
the n z SIS and the Minister for Space. So of course we've never ever in the history of New Zealand had an Attorney General with that many ministerial hats, and if we want to talk about centralizing government, that's a whole other interview. And so she quick clique rushed these reforms through and there are very clear moments where you can see that she was ordering officials not to
do certain things. So, for example, MB in twenty twenty four deliberately wrote out engagement with the public and that's in the regulatory impact Statement on page thirteen, and then they handpicked the technical Advisory Group and the stakeholders. Earlier, the Productivity Commissioner in the Frontier Firms report had said, if we're going to update the gene editing technology legislation, we need early consultation with the public and with Maori.
The Productivity Commissioner was very clear, but at the minister's direction, at the Attorney General's direction, that was prohibited. And similarly, at ministerial direction, officials did not consider options for reforming. There has no the hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. So Collins has said, no one is allowed to talk about reforming that has no act. We've got because that is of course under the control of the Department of Conservation,
I think, And it's of course that is stewarded. It's administered by the Department of Conservation. But of course the EPA has responsibility for it. So what would happen now is MB would have responsibility for of course it's it's designed the terribly drafted Primary Act. But then MB would be responsible for all the secondary of legislation that could tumble out, so it wouldn't be the EPA doing that work,
it would be MB. And so it's due to Collins that said, we're not we're not considering options for reforming that has no act. And Professor Jack Heineman has pointed out that what are the costs of, for example, the administration of the cur has no act compared to the new legislation, which in this new legislation is so nebulous that no one ever will understand where it starts and stops. Whereas there has no act, actually has worked, it's a nineteen ninety six act.
It's worked actually very very well.
For example, New Zealand has avoided all the superweeds that America has because of the herbicide tolerant crops. So we've avoided that bullet, shall we say, by our strict outside we don't let GMOs freely into the environment. But it is not a strict ban, and so this is also the public have been somewhat misled because it hasn't been a strict ban, but it has been a very strict case by case assessment basis.
But there is no doubt. It appears or an expectation is a is a better way to put it. It is an expectation that some of what is happening in the genet field will roll out into the into the wild, so to speak, and will be then uncontrollable.
Yes, and I do believe that MP's have been misled and deceived because they believe, and this is quoting a minister, that these gene edited organisms will be completely different from genetically modified organisms. They're still genetically modified organisms. So what we've seen is we haven't seen any any science. So you were talking before about science being politicized. Science is trustworthy, like law is trustworthy if it follows good process, if
it follows conventions. This is why when a scientist writes up a scientific paper, he or she has to write up the methods.
We have to.
Understand what other information was looked up to produce the information base on which this scientific project was made. And then that scientists will declare the values. Is it going to be a ninety five percent of probability? For example, they will declare precise value, So it's the same for governance and law and convention a value. If you look at a value for you and me, it might be
are we protecting children? How do we protect children? Do we protect children based on the potential that they could be harmed by a genetically modified organism that might be inflammatory, so it might cause harm over the long term if they didn't know what they were eating and it became a big part of their diet. Or are we going to say we want to be very protective, so we have to declare everything transparently. So I guess I'm mushing things up here because I'm trying to get a lot.
Right.
Yeah, thank you.
So what we haven't seen we haven't we haven't seen a robust risk assessment. So what Envy have done is they produced a little like a stupid little, i'm going to say, stupid little press release in about August twenty twenty four. That was their scientific basis and that was the last thing we saw before the actual bill was released. And in that stupid little press release they said the public aren't going to be consulted and they will have their time to be consulted once the legislation, the bill
is released. Now. They also by then the government had known that they had the regulatory Impact Statement, where ministers themselves knew that there was not an assurance that the future bill would be safe, that it would be do the job it was meant to do, because there was no there was no methods based procedural risk assessment to understand the gene editing techniques, the gene editing organisms that
are going to be what's called risk tiered. They're going to be put outside the legislation because they're going to pretend they're pretending they're not GMOs. So they're saying these are not a GMO because they don't, for example, produce a protein. They're not looking at what DNA might still
be in those organisms. They're not looking at what might have happened if they put they spliced DNA in, then they took the DNA out and that resulted in a reshuffling of the genome and then, for example, that organism becomes more vulnerable to sickness or disease. But they don't want to talk about that because they put the different DNA in and they pulled it back out again, and so they don't have to declare the DNA or the
foreign change because it's been taken out again. So it becomes a little bit misleading, a little bit you can't understand. So they're pretending that's not a GMO and that doesn't have to be declared. It can be risked heered outside.
Well, hang on hold it. The term GMO was one that's applied by it, that's invented, if you like, and applied. Yes, So what you're saying is that as they've applied it to one thing, they've now rearranged it and they've decided to it's not science. It's not science, it's it's engineering driven.
Yeah, it's a it's a shell game.
So if you look at the food stands as Australia New Zealand, they're P one zero five five. It's a current I think bill or change in proposed change in the.
Food Standards Australia New Zealand Act.
And they're proposing that certain classes are GMOs aren't GMOs anymore. But if you go back and look over the last ten years through all the white papers where they've done the assessments of what these new gene edited organisms are that might not involve an exact change to their DNA, Oh so sorry, they don't produce a protein, they are not a GMO, And so they're making that. They're producing all these little white papers that don't have a ref
that that don't have any methods. They're not showing that we're doing a review of the scientific literature to understand what harm or risk may may arise. So food standards have been doing that for the last decade. Then we've seen MB do this that play the same trick. We're not doing any methods based risk assessment, but we're going to tell you that it's going to be risk proportionate. Where they get their scientific evidence from is the Royal Society.
So the Royal Society, with themselves paid by envy, have to do there are their sort of I.
Call it the Royal Society campaign that was between largely between twenty sixteen and twenty nineteen, and that campaign was not a risk assessment. They were not required to do a process of risk assessment.
The campaign was.
Desired to open up the conversation and the discussions on gene edited techniques and organisms and to help us talk about the benefits. And so when we were submitting to the gene Technology Bill, it occurred to us that the policy formulation process was so bad and that then became a large article which we called the hijacking of democracy the Case of Gene Technology Regulatory Reform, because what we could see is that is the Royal Society did not
do any form of risk assessment. And then at the end of this all their lovely look what we can do process, they did a recommendations for law Chaine and so that their recommendations for law change were what was grabbed by the Harnessing Biotech Manifesto by the National Party and then that was what was put into the regulatory impact statement. So we have policy light policy that didn't do the scientific robust analysis, didn't do the economic analysis,
didn't do a cost benefit analysis. We know that they could turn around tomorrow and start gene editing Romoa Maori species, but if they didn't it didn't result in a protein, they wouldn't have to declare to Maori what they'd done. But then we have that sneaky little problem of gene flow into the environment. So Maori would not have any knowledge, any control. But it's also the same for our food.
The food that we export from New Zealand, all those exporters that rely on the clean green, that rely on that trustworthy basis that we can say it's not GMO, would now have to go through a really expensive process of verification. And we know that the margins on on.
Food can be very tight.
So we could see a decline in export product because the export the foreign export markets knew we had we had run the race to the bottom, We had become most possibly one of the weakest regulatory jurisdictions in the world.
If this bill would be passed.
And the Europeans in particular, I understand are will hold a much higher higher barrier.
Yes, and they do.
And they they've also got the precautionary principle in their legislation. They don't they're already doing things that we're not doing. They say we will not have glycosytes breid on crops, whereas New Zealand has no restrictions in that way. And so even though they've got similar legislation, which is concerning what they call new breeding new genomic techniques, so the
Europeans are a little bit more transparent than us. They call them new genomic techniques, whereas we nebulously call them new breeding techniques, so that we don't actually know what the heck we're talking about, because anything could be a new breeding technique. So their legislation has been held up because they've got all these questions around transparency and traceability, where we're not doing any of that.
Well, that's where it came to the Green Editing Bill came to the fore from my perspective was that when once we learned that they would not have to identify any gene clangers in food in supermarkets, then we lost control of what we eat. And that's and that's patently obvious. I guess it's time to go back to a basic or two. What is their purpose in wanting to do this in the first place, Why is the why is the government so involved in it?
So they've identified that the current legislation is too strict and they want the legislation to be less strict. And basically they admit this in the problem definition.
For what reason? So what do they wanted to be less strict?
So what we've seen in the last decade is increasing numbers of businesses and scientists speaking up about the fact that the has NO Act is too restrictive. What we've failed to understand and what has not been clear to
farmers or the public. Most of those people speaking up have themselves by the financial investments, or they're biotech lobbyists, such as you know William Roliston as a biotechnology lobbyist for example, he puts I'm a farmer hat on but his his work over the last sort of decades it's shown that he really is very focused on biotechnology.
His name at me again, I didn't catch.
It, William Rolliston.
And then we have scientists that come from the Crown research institutes such as Plant and Food Research or AG Research. And so what their problem is, and it harts back to what we were talking about earlier, is their funding has become tightened and tightened and titans around them needing to produce patents and ip and so they're now they're now depending on royalties for the funding to continue as
part of their investment strategy. They're publicly paid institute, but they are more and more depending on the royalties from their investments as a way of keeping themselves going. As the government titans the what they can actually apply for. And rather shockingly part of this, Judith Collins' latest move is we're seeing the shift to the fact that the scientists would own their own patents. Now this has happened
in America and it hasn't happened. I thought it actually was quite quite excellent that the institutes would own the patents.
Still, but we're so.
Financialized, so for example, AG research can't freely go out or plant in food research. They can't freely go out and undertake public good research. So AG research can't look at for a long term funding. They can do short term funding that they can fit in when they have a little tiny bit of slack.
But the idea of.
Looking at a five year, twenty million dollar project to prevent weeds, to look at the basic sides for lots of different robotics technologies, or to look at integrated pest management for weeds, because they know that there is so much, so much herbicide resistance in glyco state, there's increasing herbicide resistance and all the other other herbicides. But if they were just looking at public good work, they couldn't.
They've got to have IP at the end of it.
Similarly, plant and food research, they can't go and look at the best nutrition for babies in New Zealand because there's no IP. If they start looking at what are the optimum levels for B vitamins and A A vitamins for adolescents or you know, to stop to prevent mental health, they would be outside their funding scrope because there's no innovation at the end of it. Because it's a generic vitamin or minus. All can't be patented. So then they're stuck in this cycle and that's why they end up.
This is why this is my opinion, is that they end up talking about genetics all the time because if you gene edit, you can then patent that that knowledge and then continue and this is the treadmill that they're
really on. Doctor Elvira Demesis explained that when you're a biotechnology science, it's a very very narrow discipline, so it's you can't look out and do basic science in other areas, and so that then the more biotech scientists you get in for example, at research again you're you're limiting what
you're then going to apply for funding for. So you get this sort of this treadmill of this sort of area of science, rather than, for example, if they had molecular biologists working there that had a broader scope.
For example, personal question, this is your specialty, this is your dealing with this sort of thing. How difficult was it? How different and how difficult might this have been to put together? And I'm talking the article that you wrote that runs nine pages because of what I conceive as a confusion for you. How difficult was it to put it all together, to structure it?
It's really hard. So I'm a sociologist.
I feel better.
I do not have a science degree.
Everything that is a scientific references run past someone with a science degree.
We produced.
So this is the first paper when powerful agencies hijack democratic systems. Part one the case of gene technology regulatory reform. That was meant to take a month, It took two
and a half months. One chapter of that was meant to be on science system that turned into a second forty to fifty page paper to the case of Science System Reform, and these took four months to produce, and then this article in the Daily Telegraph has taken about a week to two weeks to produce, and of course it's come off the back of our presentation to the Select Committee, where I only presented really to one Health
Committee member on this. And you'll be able to find all the links on the PSCR dot org dot nz website, and.
So it is.
It is really hard because the story of when complex systems go awry is normally a very very very difficult
thing to understand. So when we've we've made the complaint to the Ombardsman, PSGR have made the complaint to the Ombardsman, and we've said that because we're concerned that the actions of MV over time may be contrary to public law, they may be found to be unreasonable, unjust and improperly discriminatory, and we believe mb was wrong to take on the powers of policy and law formulation for this new gene
technology regulations, for the policy and for the bill. So we think what's happened is that they're directly undermining public law conventions to get this true and what we think that the evidence suggests maladministration, so talking to the complex muddle and the mess of all this, and so maladministration is conduct which is capable of causing injustice and is possibly systemic in that it might foreseeably continue if left unremedied.
And maladministration has also been referred to as usually something short of outright corruption.
But's still wrong.
So that extends beyond mere illegality to more generally framed allegations of injustice. And here I'm quoting Joseph as well. So what we've seen is systemic. We've seen it from the creation of the problem definition, we've seen it from the absence of using the scientific evidence. We've seen it
in the minister telling the officials what to do. But of course when we complain to the ombardsmen, the ombardsmen are saying, well, I can't investigate the actions of officials, but there is evidence that ministers, while concerned with policy formulation, are not exempt from ombardsman investigations. However, the ombudsman's pretending that it can't. You know, the fact that a decision is taken by a minister does not mean it is
a policy decision and immune from Ombudsman investigation. So ministerial decisions are matters of administration, So it's the ombudsman wants to step back. They want to say there's no personal interest in this muddle of fast tracking, this muddle of failing to consult with the public, this muddle of not doing any scientific risk assessment to understand anything about all these GMOs that would be the gene edited organisms, for example,
and there's many more example. I'm being quite limited just talking about gene edited organisms that don't produce proteins because it's sort of easier to understand.
But there's other issues that are sort of ear tag.
To not be in it, such as SDN derived sort of their sort of like blueprints for fast tracking gene editing, and Jack Herneman's really good at talking about this, and so it's sort of like MBA has said, we're going to pretend we're doing the science when we're not because they don't actually have the scientific expertise inside mb and so what the bill has created is this massive pletuau of uncertainty, and that primary Act, the bill that we're
looking it is just fluid, so it's uncontainable, and good legislation is meant to create like a set of rails for the officials. But this legislation, because so much is outside the regulatory purview, the regulator can't look at that stuff that's being structured outside of the legislation. But the regulator also won't have inquisitorial powers. They forced the regulator to only look at what other regulators are also looking at.
And so during covert when all the regulators had the same lockstep procedure of only really looking at fires or whatever fires I wanted to declare, they'd look at and then they wouldn't even tell us what they were looking at. So we've got this regulatory secrecy that means the regulators aren't forced to look at the same the latest scientific
literature on risk. Whereas at the same time you have the hypocrisy where we know that the corporations, the developers are going to be they're going to be using artificial intelligence to scale up, they're going to be doing everything they can to get more and more patents released, to get more and more money into that corporation, whereas we don't see similar powers of the regulator from conception even trying to keep up. And when you're a government regulator.
As I said before, it's a political space, so they are trying to navigate keeping everyone happy. But it's also a gray area. So when you know, we could talk about fluoride. So when fluoride is toxic to me at a certain dose, it's completely different from when it's toxic to a five year old at a certain dose. So we need to understand that we have different ages where
we're vulnerable. We're vulnerable, different genes are vulnerable to different because they've got different pathways of vulnerability.
And so regulators need to.
Be able to be to inquire about all the different gray areas that mean that what they're doing is never going to be certain.
It's never going to be one hundred percent.
Certain, which is why the precaution principle is so important.
Look, is this so complicated that your average partner is never going to come to grips with it.
The trick about anything that's complicated is to start talking, because otherwise it's ta do. Otherwise we're no better than Germany, you know, before World War Two, Because and that is
what censorship does to us. As a sociologist, I've always been fascinated by undone science, and I guess the work I do with PSA is a lot about learn to talk about the things in our society, the man made things that we want to use them and not get sick from using them, but if they actually do make us sick, we've got to have enough of a government that has enough of a backbone and enough of the enough ethical pathways that it will actually research those technologies
and make sure that we're safe. So we have to because we have to do this for our babies. We have to talk do this for our rivers, our drinking water, our fresh water. So it's about having that courage around the dinner table, you know, you know, at the picnic to say, you know what I think. Maybe MR and A vaccines aren't safe because we never saw the placebo for them. We never saw how it impacted a really healthy person, whereas how it impacted a sick person.
For example, we need.
Fluoride to be tested by the EPA, not by the chief Scientists for the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, who doesn't ever do a methodology and show that it was a methods based assessment of fluoride safety. We need GMOs to be assessed for safety by an agency that's not the agency responsible for economic growth, so we can start normalizing that. We can say glat to say has been found in all these offshore court cases to cause
cancer in the people that used glasses regularly. We can talk about what evidence came out in the discovery process in these court cases. In the rest of the world was if we look at our own New Zealand EPA, their own methodology document doesn't give them the powers.
To look at the discovery process.
It doesn't give them the powers to inquire into the latest scientific evidence on whether a chemical might harm a hormone or a baby at a certain level that is different from what the regulatory science that is supplied by the corporations.
So we have to have to we have to have the courage to.
Think differently and speak differently and recognize that uncertainty or caution is something we can all talk about. Well, we all know that we don't let the toddler run into the ocean because we know that's harmful, so we have.
But we stopped that.
But it could be okay, The toddler might be okay. But it's that when do we start thinking about risk and how we how we i hope. I'm saying this reasonably clearly, but that the concept of risk is so different for everybody. But we need our scientists to have the scientific freedom to be able to understand that.
Just wrap it up. Do you have a personal opinion on this should be prepared to express?
Well, I guess as the author of the two papers I've co authored, the first one the Gene Technology Bill one with Elvira Domese. But my personal opinion is that, yeah, democracy is being short circuited right now. But my and my personal concern is that if the Ombardsman rejects this on the basic that there is no personal interest, even though all the members of PC are interested in this, even though it's very likely that it's in general it's of interest to the general public, my opinion is that
we don't have anywhere else to go. And my opinion is starting to be is envy above the law? Is the attorney general above the law? That's I'm starting to question that, which is the rule of law? Democracy only works.
The rule of law works. But if we can't actually.
Explore when ministers short circuit policy because they you know, they they're on the direction of the minister, we do not consider these options. But you can't investigate the actions of those ministers. What do we what are we left with? Are we left with the democracy or is it as Butler and Parma say, is it just authoritarian?
Are we we open to the despots?
I don't know, Well, the despots exist on both sides or they can. So it's not it's not picking not choosing one team over the other. It's a it's a protection factor.
And so one of the biggest things I would ask with this bill is that it's a conscience vote because we we're seeing what what control does the party whip have over what whoever is and who.
Is informing the party whip?
This is this is if this is if we're voting in our individual and peace, but they have to vote look step by a party with that we don't know any that is outside Official Information Act. And then if we have the Attorney General with six ministerial hats, who only needs to be in cabinet with three other people to pass legislation, I mean, the centralization of powers shows that New Zealand is extraordinarily vulnerable to not being a democracy.
And so and we've seen, you know, people stop writing blogs recently because they're getting huge pressure from the dominant politically.
There has to be there has to be some action on that.
Yeah, and I have I have with PHR.
I've emailed our most eminent public law this is constitutional and administrative law experts, to say, please can you provide I'm not a lawyer, I'm associatedogists and I'm trying to talk about law and I'm trying to say the Onwardsman on behalf of the PSGR.
Please you need to investigate this. This is a very big issue.
We've documented this in fifty pages, and the Ombardsman's just wanting to say, well, it's no personal interest to PSH failing to engage with this greatest sort of I would say obligation to ensure that MB does not keep doing this. And I'm trying to find anyone who has expert expertise in constitutional or administrative law to come back and support us in communicating and communications with the onwardsman.
It's I think we're in extraordinarily precarious times.
Later, well you won't. You won't get much of an argument out of me for that. So got to quote in conclusion with the paragraphs that you wrote new Zealand's mb is silent on what best practic this might mean in this rapidly advancing field because they haven't assessed it. The regulator and the Enforcement and Monitoring agency lack any obligation to keep abreast of industry developments, including the integration of artificial intelligence, which will further speed up development and
release of gene editing technologies and organisms. In this world where the science is swiftly advancing, we should be able to ask why the case by case approach is currently considered to boo An unfortunate conflict of interest in the Select Committee process is that the Gene Technology Select Committee Report will be overseen and produced by MBIE. Mb letters we have written it in our sitting with the Ombudsmen
of New Zealand. We know that there is a possibility that our complaint may be dismissed because firstly MBIE is a powerful agency and it will not appreciate being investigated. But also because this is a science thing. The science thing can boondoggle well meaning MPs and officials. It doesn't need to for people who don't have it, who haven't subscribed, where will they find this particular article.
So this article is currently on the day in the Daily Telegraph dot co dot MZ. I believe, and it's called when the Economic Growth Agency captures biotech regulation.
A serious question of science.
And the reason I said a serious question of science is because when I was listening to the Oral Select Committee processes, all of the MB funded scientists and science organizations and the you know, the biotech investors kept talking and urging the Oral the Select Committee to be scientific and to follow good scientific process. But of course they've
never declared that the science hadn't been done. So yes, So you can find on the Daily Telegraph, but also ps gr n Z p s g r n Z dot substack dot com.
You'll find.
You'll find links to psgr's work. And I think actually I may have put the first part first part of this article on my own personal substat j R b r u n I n g JR running dot substat dot com. But that's also you can search for Talking Risk on substack and find me Jody.
We've gone twice the lenks I expected, but it's I think it's important, it's necessary, and I want to thank you for your time and the more power to more power to your work.
I'm very grateful Laighton and psgr welcomes members associate members, members are scientists, members are not scientists. And I just really, really I thank you for having a coria because the science thing, as you said, it's a science thing that actually it's about good process. It's about trust, being trustworthy and accountable and fear and that's what democracy is. So this is we need to be able to talk about this. So I'm so grateful, thank you a pleasure.
And I might just add, by the way that I've had to explain to well, I've tried to explain to a lot of people over a period of time that you don't have to be an economist to understand economics. You don't have or procedure, you don't have to be a doctor necessarily or almost anything to be able to rationalize your way through to the fact through the fact that there is something amiss.
Absolutely, And as we talked about, remember the basic research, the basic science is not being funded, so we're ending up with lots and lots of technical experts. When you have lots and lots of technical experts, they find it very hard to join the dots which are political, which are ethical, which are legal, which are moral and so we actually have to start understanding that science is not this ideology that we worship.
Science.
To be trustworthy, science must follow good process and it's just like democracy. To be trustworthy, it has to be transparent and accountable, so people can be curious and they can be skeptical. And so you're exactly right late, and thank.
You framed beautifully, Thank you so much. A podcast five, and the mailroom and the missus producer is here and waiting, how are you late?
And I'm great? How are you?
Will you look great? And if you're great, I'm great.
That's the way it goes.
Why don't you go great?
Start?
Jackie says, I feel inspired to write and thank you for your wonderful interview with doctor Pierre Corey. It fills me with hope to know that some of this information is starting to see the light of day. Also, latent that you crossed over with the link of pattern recognition, as you and pet Pierre discussed from climate scam to what truly is the COVID scam? I am someone like many others for whom the COVID scenario did not make
any sense. From very early on, I remember watching footage of Dr Pierre Corey with his colleagues from the FLCCC. That's the Frontline COVID Critical Care Alliance, he says in brackets in the early days discussing their ideas and success using repurposed alternative treatments using age old trusted medicines like hydroxychloricon and ivermectin. How different the worldwide health or outcome could have been if only these wonderful experienced doctors were
not shut down as they were. This also brings to my mind to remind you that we in New Zealand have our very own team of independent, thinking, courageous doctors in the form of nzdsos and Jackie goes on to give us a few a few names there. She says they have worked tirelessly in a similar way to the FLCCZ Alliance, speaking out, documenting, questioning every step of the
way on behalf of New Zealanders. I know that they are currently working extremely hard collating information to be presented to the Royal Commission Inquiry Part two at the request of the Commission. Their journey must have been very similar
to that of your guest Dr Cory. I for one, feel and debted to them for their efforts, expertise and sacrifices on our behalf finally late, and thank you again for your wonderful podcast and the opportunity for further discussion and thought provoking commentary.
And that's from Jackie.
Jackie brilliantly said thank you. Practically every email this week was about per Corey, and it's not surprising. I was thrilled to receive your podcast interviewing Doctor per Cory this week, having read doctor Cory's book, The War on ivermecnan and similarly morphing, as did Dr Corey from a vaccine committed Old Jeff into a New Jeff. The book was fascinating, illuminating and profound. The man, in my opinion, is a humanitarian hero, as is a previous interviewee of yours, doctor
Paul Merrick Layton. The thrust of my email is to pose this question. At this stage of the slowly dwindling COVID pandemic, there is so much evidence that A mrn A vaccines are just plain dangerous and b repurposed cheap drugs like ivermectin work. Even if these two assertions are not one hundred percent driveable at this point in time, then at the very least, there is certainly enough intelligent
questioning around these matters. So why then, are governments, including the New Zealand government, so blithely and casually recommending continued COVID jabs? Layton like me, I'll wager you will not have another clot shot? Am I right? Best regards, Jeff, Jeff, you are correct one hundred percent, Laydon.
Steve says, thank you for hosting Pierre Corey on the podcast. Such a courageous and inspiring man. Though, as you pointed out in your conversation with Professor Thomas Barodi way back in August twenty twenty, Barodi was ahead of Cory with his cocktail of ivermecton, doxy cyclin and zinc. His ideas, however,
were buried completely by the Australian authorities. What is not widely known is that at the time of the first SARS outbreak in the early two thousands, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency began researching countermeasures for coronaviruses, and by twenty sixteen had concluded that ivermectin also, but to a lesser extent, hydroxychloroquine, was highly effective against such infections. That information was passed on by the way to the CDC.
Obviously this would have been known to Fauci and all those responsible for the global COVID response, including the WHO Gates and our own Ashley Bloomfield, but they all deliberately suppressed that information and arranged to persecute and prosecute those who tried to disclose it to the world. Surely this must rank as one of the most evil acts in history.
Tens of millions of lives would have been saved, and there would have been no need for the COVID injections, which were, by their very natured delay, deliberately designed two cause harm. A COVID awakening is happening slowly.
Around the world, and there.
Will be increasing calls for accountability that when the public understands quite how deliberately and maliciously i've emecton and hydroxy chloroquine were suppressed, it will surely call for the most extreme penalties for those responsible.
And that is from Steve.
Steve excellent. Now I've got a question for you. How is the everyday average well punter, as I say occasionally, how are they going to come across that? How are they going to find that out? Which media in this country, and I mean mainstream media. Which media in this country is blowing the trumpet on this? Can you point me to one, because I'm unfamiliar with it now. I don't spend a lot of time on mainstream media, I must admit,
so maybe I've missed something. But my guess is that much of the mainstream media, if not most of it, is more more intent on burying their attitude to it at the time and their compliance with the powers that be, and they don't particularly want to be, shall we say, exposed. There was criminal activity. You're quite right. It is a very very evil thing. There was criminal activity, and there are people, even in this country, as we've said before, and better people than me have said it, who should
be behind bars. Now. Now this letter asks for anonymity, so I don't see why not. Greetings, what's new? Nothing? Of course, another simply stunning discussion, this time between you and perre Corey. Great to hear him talking with you. His protocols have been on my fridge since they first came out and have been shared with many, albeit some of the medications have been challenging but not impossible to obtain. Name withheld. Please if you read this out even now,
I don't want to drop myself in it. However, his protocol and the comments of others Tess Laurie, Peter mccullor, a doctor Chetty South Africa, gave me assurance I was correct in not taking a drug that had potential heart harm and has been proven and admitted. Having had one heart attack, I don't want another one. And when my longtime doctor would not give advice on boosting my immune system instead said get vexed, I lost faith and confidence
in the industrial medical complex. Go well, keep up the good work from anonymous.
Leyton Trish says after listening to Pierre Corey took about the misinformation on the cures for COVID, it reminded me of a book I've recently read. It's called Pharma Nomics, A real eye opener to the way pharmaceutical companies work. The ordinary citizen would be shocked. When did medicine become something that was something to be negotiated for the highest price and people wonder why it costs so much. It
is well worth a read. I thoroughly enjoyed Pier Corey such enthusiasm and that's from trash.
The enthusiasm aspect of doctor Corey was mentioned by a number of people. Actually it was you know, it was actually uplifting. Now, thanks for introducing doctor pier Corey to us. His description of the sinister force he faced during COVID was chilling when he said, I quote, that was when I finally realized I was up against something. I didn't know what it was, but it wasn't good, and it
wasn't scientific, it wasn't humanitarian. I knew there was a force that was working against what we were trying to do, which has helped people and the world. So I started to get the feeling like there was something out there that was working against us. That was the first time I realized this was not just a scientific argument. Close quote.
I'm not sure if Pierre realized it or not, but he had just succinctly described evil and this reality of COVID hell was made more jarring in Jasindra Dern's recent self worshiping Yale speech about herself and her own leadership. I have never heard so much self delusional tripe like this. I can't believe she actually said, I'm proud that our approach to COVID saved and estimated twenty thousand lives. Then she spews a full Kamala Harris word salad, saying, right now,
we need the power of your impostor syndrome. I don't get that, but I'll stay with it because I don't Ptoine. Right now, we need the power of your impostor syndrome because it's also your curiosity and your humility. We need your sensitivity because it's also your kindness and your empathy. I see what you mean about the word salad. What
the hell is that? He says. On the other hand, Michael Jackson reported a different story in Spectator Australia is saying to Kiwi's Addern's legacy is not one of kindness and empathy. On top of the heartlessness of the COVID years, it is one of a significant increase in national debt forty seven percent of GDP according to IMF figures, up from the low thirties in twenty eighteen. Recessions and economic malays.
One thing I do agree with adern though. The world has indeed become a dumpster fire because delusional, narcissistic communist leaders like herself keep committing political arson. More Doctor Pierre Corey's fewer to Sinda Aderns, please thank you now just one word. I don't disagree with anything that you said, and more and more people are coming to realize the
correctness of it. As for Michael Jackson, I'm in touch with him at the moment, and we'll have him on the podcast in a week or two, is my anticipation, Missus Producer. That's it, lovely, Later, we've got I think we've got a few more for next week if we need them. All work. Thanks, thanks, thank you to see you then.
Bie.
Now, before we go, some comments on Joe Biden and his prostate cancer. And I make these comments at this point anyway, because most of you know that I got diagnosed with prostate cancer and had my prostate out something like twenty three years ago. Gosh, is it really that long? Anyway, I have a vested interest in it, So let me refer to let me refer to some commentary.
No.
First of all, my thought. The first thing that I said to Missus Producer when the announcement was my well she told me when the announcement was made was that he's had this for a long time. There's nothing new, It's just another thing that's been hidden from the public. That was my thought immediately. It's my thought now. Apart from that. I've garnered some commentary from some American commentators as it happened, starting with Kurt Schlichter, who was on
the podcast a few weeks ago. And I love his work because he's brutal, or he's prepared to be brutal when it's appropriate, and I think this particular situation calls for it. He covers it, so I'm not going to try except to quote him. What a remarkable coincidence that Joe Biden's wranglers discovered that he had cancer right in the middle of the revelations about how he was totally senile, and everyone around him, including his very real doctor wife,
covered it up. Yeah right, his puppet masters knew even if that human Router barger a spell it for you, r U t ab A. In fact, let me pause here for a moment and check it. Check its meaning. Well, we learned something every day. Rutter Barger is a Swedish vegetable. And I don't know to who he is referring. Is his wife got Swedish blood? I don't know. Doesn't matter. Stage four prostate cancer does not sneak up on you. It's easy to detect. I know my PSA, he says,
it's zero point zero seven. I got a tested a couple of weeks ago. I get a tested every year. Weird that I have better medical care than the president of the United States, Right, But you don't believe that. And I don't believe that the hacks, the frauds, and Charlatan's demanding that you believed that, certainly don't believe it.
There are two categories of people who heard the news and immediately told us that we need to slow our role on demanding accountability for the rudderless presidency in solemn deference to the ultra convenient revelation. The first kind are nice people, too nice. Some are serial Fredricon invertebrates who
always counsel weakness, submission, and silence. Some believe Christian charity requires not any prayers for him and his family, but a free pass on this massive wrongdoing for everyone involved. Others have an understandable sensitivity to the subject because they had family members who suffered the same terrible illness that Joe Biden has been revealed to have, Even though everybody around him must have known he had it four years and simply lied to cover it up. Now let me
cut to the end. But but, but, but but you're picking on a guy with a stutter who has prostate cancer. Well, the fake fussy pearl clutching over us being meanies isn't going to work anymore. I, for one, remember their grave disappointment.
This is some sarcasm. I for one remembered their grave disappointment when Donald Trump was almost murdered and when an innocent man was Just the other day, I stumbled on a Twitter thread of leftist morons explaining how the whole Butler shooting thing was a giant head fake, designed to do something because of reasons and shut up your all racists and literally Hitler. If Trump got a prostate cancer diagnosis, every Blue state and Ivy League college campus will declare
a holiday. The difference is that we're not celebrating his disease. We're just not granting a blanket pardon because of it. And that's what it boils down to. Now, just quickly, I refer to another another piece that goes thus, Several physicians and experts took to Twitter to cast dispersion, stating that the timing of the announcement, as well as the seriousness of the diagnosis of the former president simply didn't
add up. They weren't swallowing the official story coming from a politician, hook line and sinker, as they may have done in the past. How could an easily detectable and treatable form of cancer reach such a grave state without anyone catching it in the most medically monitored human on the planet. Even CNN wasn't buying it as they broke into immediate coverage. Doc brambab speculated that Biden perhaps was seeking treatment in secret and the hormone treatments may have
contributed to his cognitive to climb. Cancer expert doctor Stephen Key also wrote, this is the commentary I first read. Actually, Doctor Stephen Key quay that it's highly likely Biden's cancer diagnosis came sometime during the duration of his term, and
even possibly at the beginning or even before. The highest probability is that the diagnosis has been known for many years, but a calculated decision was made to not announce it, not treat it, and hope after the re election the treatment could be done when it was still a local disease. An unfortunate turn of events, he wrote, and I think finally, Nick Mark, a medical practitioner, wrote on Twitter, as someone
who follows presidential health reporting, I noticed something odd. Unlike his predecessors, Biden's physicians never reported PSA aha, and he included an extensive thread showing that not taking or reporting a PSA test for a president is rare. What's more, journalists up to swallowing whatever story is fed to them by the former president's aides took to promoting skeptical experts
of the former president's sudden diagnosis. Whether it's the medical fought out from heavy handed pandemic policy, there is a welcome dose of skepticism coming from a community that has been in dire need of thought reform. Would things be different if Joe Biden was still the president we were all all taking his doctor's word at face value. Maybe, But thanks to medical experts openly questioning, this new Biden diagnosis after ignoring his decline for so long is a
welcome change, and we should hope that it continues. Concluding with trust, the science is no longer good enough, and it certainly should not be good enough for the ongoing cover up of the former president's health one of the most abused phrases. I think in the last well at least decade, if not longer, trust the science skepticism is necessary. So that will take us out for podcasts number two hundred and eighty five and if you'd like to comment latent at newstalksb dot co dot nz or Carolyn with
a y at newstalksb dot co dot nz. We shall return in a few days with podcast two eight six. Until then, as always, thank you for listening and we'll talk soon.
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