So it was bound to happen. After 23 days the New Zealand police got their shit together and forced the anti-Mandate protestors out, and with it the only substantive dissent that we have seen over the past 2 years of authoritarianism. Now I used to live just up the road, Molesworth St, and walked down through Parliament grounds most days. I didn’t want to see it trashed, or participate in this particular protest.

But certain political figures kept saying they had a right to protest, despite the NZ Bill of Rights being ignored under the authoritarian Ardern regime. In fact, they only had safety in numbers, otherwise the police thugs would have moved them out on the first day. In the end they put up a fight, and it took all day to clear, and into the evening the violence continued. Ardern cynically called a press conference at 5:30 pm, so the TV cameras would be on her when the riot squad moved in with batons and then loaded up the rubber bullets. She repeated the nonsense that it was all about vaccine misinformation spread on social media. The truth was people there had lost family members after being injected with the Pfizer drug; others had had terrible side effects, and were being forced to go through it again because of the mandates, if they wanted to keep their jobs, or wanted to go to their mother’s funeral, or get a haircut.

So to the actual factual reports, as summarised in Medsafe’s ‘safety report’ on the Pfizer drug (which is now only published monthly). As of 31 January 2022, amongst the many clinical conditions reported were 63 heart attacks, and 561 cases of pericarditis or myocarditis; and there were a further 14 reported deaths in January, bringing the total to 147 in less than a year. Not one politician has acknowledged the medical conditions caused by Comirnaty, and certainly not any of the deaths, even the 1 or 2 that the Medsafe officials accept as ‘likely’; all the other reports are ‘unlikely’ or left in limbo. And all that is in the cause of the official line, and pre-determined outcome, that the vaccine is always safe and effective.

In truth, the Covid vaccines are now ineffective at providing immunity, especially with the rise of Omicron. When Ardern imposed her so-called Protection framework last year, there were only about 200 cases per day, mostly in Auckland. Most of the cases are still in Auckland, but there are now over 20 000 cases per day. This has seen the rapid collapse in the policy framework established in 2020. Testing facilities have been overwhelmed, and the Ministry of Health had to send PCR tests to Australia that were 7 days old, because their own system failed. Due to the number of cases the contact tracing system has been abandoned and all the workers have been made redundant. Most of the reported cases are from rapid antigen tests, but there is still a shortage of these as the virus rips through schools. The hospital emergency departments are about to be overwhelmed, and the virus death toll now rises by more than the vaccine casualties. Ardern has also abandoned the quarantine facilities for returning citizens.

But she still claims that the mandates are necessary, even when there is a desperate shortage of nurses and midwives; most other politicians have realised how pointless it was sacking health workers, if not the many other workers who made a good choice not to risk the Pfizer drug in their bodies. Interestingly, while the legal challenge by the nurses, citing the Bill of Rights Act, had already failed a similar law suit by policemen and Defence personnel succeeded this week. Strange that: just when there would have been sackings of frontline policemen they get a legal lifeline; curiously timed just before they decide to clear the Mandate protest, so no division in their ranks is evident. The judge, Francis Cooke, made it clear that he of course supported the Pfizer vaccine, paying adherence to the ‘safe and effective’ mantra.

Few people in New Zealand are interested in political history, least of all the career opportunists who now control the Labour Party. But there have been riots in central Auckland, in 1932 and 1985, for differing reasons; and the National Party criminalised dissent and any support for striking Waterfront workers during the 151 days of an employer lockout in 1951. The dictator Ardern claims that fire on the Parliamentary lawn won’t define her term in office, but her cruel and dogmatic policies surely will.