Who knew it would take an Australian online media personality to reveal the apparent authoritarianism in the New Zealand public service?
Is the Rule of Law being subverted by high-ranking public servants?
And what are our Opposition politicians going to do about it? Will they stand up for the people, or will they let Freedom of Movement, Freedom of Speech, and Freedom of Choice continue to be eroded?
Kiwi media reported that Australian online media personality Avi Yemini, who works for Rebel News Australia, was stopped from entering the country after Immigration New Zealand refused to allow him entry and stopped him from boarding his flight at Melbourne Airport.
The whole sorry saga is outlined here by Cameron Slater in the BFD and also by Yemini himself on the Rebel News Australia YouTube channel.
To cut a long story short, the New Zealand Herald ran an article about Yemini that supposedly gave Immigration NZ enough ammunition to make sure he didn’t make it to Wellington to cover the 23 August 2022 protest march to Parliament for Rebel News’ 750,000 followers.
Immigration stated that Yemini was not of proper standing and had a previous criminal conviction precluding his entry into the country.
But that wasn’t the full story. The full story is that the New Zealand Police got Interpol Wellington to contact Interpol Canberra to ‘dish the dirt’ on Yemini in order to manufacture a reason for the New Zealand authorities to keep him out of the country, as the leaked emails show.
Whether you like Yemini or not, the question must be asked – how could a few high-ranking cops work to prevent him from entering the country, even when the threshold for his preclusion was not actually met, as per our Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement with Australia (under C.E.R.)
Do our Opposition MPs understand the seriousness of this breach of individual rights? Do they understand that the public service is taking it upon themselves to act against the exercising of free speech?
As it happened, they tried the same thing on Yemini’s Rebel News colleague, Rukshan Fernando, but failed. Fernando joined the march to Parliament and covered it for Rebel News Australia.
The Rule of Law still exists in this country, or so we thought.
The Police have a role to protect New Zealand from people entering this country who intend to bring violence or cause harm to Kiwis, sure. But there was absolutely no evidence that Avi Yemini intended to bring violence or cause harm to Kiwis.
Those who follow his channels know all he was going to bring was an inquiring mind as to why Kiwis have taken to the streets against this particular Labour Government.
It has never been the role of the New Zealand Police or Interpol Wellington to shut down free speech and freedom of movement, where that speech and movement did not threaten to harm, or indeed harm, other New Zealanders. What is it to the Police that an online commentator has a particular opinion or point of view of this Government? In a democratic society, we all have the right to voice our opinion and to exercise our right to free speech.
At the very least, the Police and Interpol must come forward and
a) speak to the veracity of the leaked emails and
b) if those emails are legitimate, explain their actions. There are very real questions to answer!
There are also very real questions for Immigration New Zealand to answer, if the sole reason to exclude Yemini from New Zealand was obtained from a New Zealand Herald article published 24 hours earlier.
Our opposition MPs have all of this week to question the Government’s actions and highlight these issues during Question Time tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday in Parliament.
Let’s see if they’ve got the courage to hold this overreaching Labour Government to account. We shall see.
Updated 30 Aug 2022
Image credit: AAPIMAGE – Joel Carrett
2 Responses
” Let’s see if any of our opposition MPs have the courage to hold this overreaching Labour Govt to account”.
That is indeed the question of the hour, and we shall see, however if the recent total lack of real opposition
to the Ardern Govt’s dictatorial actions is any guideline, few will be holding their breath.
During conversations on the subject of the lack of any real parliamentary opposition,
some have been astonished that ACT, and particularly David Seymour, have failed to take advantage
of the current political climate to position themselves as an actual freedom aligned party.
And
nothing in Mr Luxon’s public utterances give any indication that a National govt would be anything other
than Labour Lite.
We shall see
It’s about time that the left -right, red-blue, political narrative was ditched forever! Just look at the state of our country…. The tyrant criminals posing as our leaders, have just pulled the ‘ biggest fraud, worldwide medical hoax’, probably in world history and have begun to dismantle our ‘ Freedoms,’ which our fore-fathers went off to protect and defend, for what…..?? The display by the government, police and nwo/un imported thugs, to quell the peaceful protests was disgusting, to say the least. Our country will never be the same again. Are these lying politician tyrants ever going to be held to account? When are KIWI voters going to stop voting for the worn out ‘ red-blue narrative,’ of ‘passed used by’ politics, in our system? Time is nearly up, and there will no longer be any opportunity to change the corrupt system we have.