Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news talks it B.
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Speaker 1: It's time for all the attitude, all the opinion, all
Speaker 1: the information, all the debates of theis now the Leyton
Speaker 1: Smith Podcast powered by news talks it B.
Speaker 2: Welcome to podcasts two eighty five for May twenty one,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. And let's start with a warning. This
Speaker 2: is a lengthy podcast, but it could have been longer.
Speaker 2: Exercising discipline is sometimes difficult. It's a double interview session
Speaker 2: starting with an update on New Zealand power supply by
Speaker 2: power systems engineer Brian Leyland, who has been on the
Speaker 2: podcast on well more than one occasion. Eighteen months ago,
Speaker 2: he wrote in the New Zealand Herald, virtually every aspect
Speaker 2: of our power system is a cause for concern. Still is,
Speaker 2: and as before, considering the recent discovery that Chinese solar
Speaker 2: farms have built in kill switches accessible to theies who
Speaker 2: could switch off all the farms that they have supplied.
Speaker 2: That's about fifty percent worldwide. Now, to suggest that we
Speaker 2: are confronted with a serious issue is hardly debatable. What
Speaker 2: is debatable is whether it's being handled competently and Brian
Speaker 2: will take it from there. Then we have the suggestion
Speaker 2: that the New Zealand public is growing increasingly skeptical about
Speaker 2: the capacity for democratic institutions to put our best interests
Speaker 2: at heart. Conventions and processes are in place to ensure
Speaker 2: that these institutions are transparent and accountable. Public good policy
Speaker 2: requires that the information underpinning decision making is of the
Speaker 2: best possible standard. But what if those processes are bypassed.
Speaker 2: New Zealand government agency for Economic Growth, the Ministry for Business,
Speaker 2: Innovation and Employment otherwise known as MB is so entranced
Speaker 2: by the promise of biotechnology that has, to all appearances
Speaker 2: short circuited the democratic process and good regulatory practice. This
Speaker 2: has become a case study that may not only reflect
Speaker 2: New Zealand's woes, but mirror the global crises in policy
Speaker 2: and science across the Western world. And of course this discussion,
Speaker 2: and of course this discussion is related to the gene
Speaker 2: Technology Bill, which is a subject to some heated debate
Speaker 2: at this point of time. Now, the words that I've
Speaker 2: been quoting are by j. R. Brunning or Jody Running,
Speaker 2: who is a sociologist and a Trustee of Physicians and
Speaker 2: Scientists for Global Responsibility. She has been on the podcast
Speaker 2: on one occasion, I think from memory, and she's actually
Speaker 2: very thorough. But the other thing to add at this
Speaker 2: point is that the information in this report compelled us,
Speaker 2: I quote compelled us to request that the Ombudsman undertake
Speaker 2: a formal inquiry. So if by chance you have to
Speaker 2: be interested in what goes on well shall we say,
Speaker 2: behind the scenes, then this is a very very interesting discussion.
Speaker 2: But up in a moment. Brian Layland Layton Smith. Now
Speaker 2: the name Brian Leland is familiar to most of you,
Speaker 2: I'm sure, but there are always some who were fresh
Speaker 2: on the scene or who haven't heard of somebody I'm
Speaker 2: talking with. So let me give you a little of
Speaker 2: his background, well much of it, actually, we'll give him.
Speaker 2: We'll give him the full course. He is a New
Speaker 2: Zealander based consulting engineer with experience in all aspects of
Speaker 2: the power industry. His main interest is in hydro power.
Speaker 2: He has experience in wind, solar, tidal and wave power.
Speaker 2: He also has worked on substations and transmission lines on diesel,
Speaker 2: steam and gas turbine stations and he had he's had
Speaker 2: some involvement in nuclear power. I'm particularly interested in that. Actually,
Speaker 2: his academic qualifications include do academic qualifications count for much anymore? Well,
Speaker 2: they do for some people anyway, include a master's degree
Speaker 2: in Power system design and a Distinguished Fellow of Engineering
Speaker 2: New Zealand, a Fellow at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers,
Speaker 2: and a retired Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.
Speaker 2: He's also acted as a consultant on many overseas projects
Speaker 2: in developing countries. This has included work for the World Bank,
Speaker 2: the Asian Development Bank, and as an independent advisor on
Speaker 2: dam projects in India, Pakistan, West Africa and Afghanistan. I'd
Speaker 2: say that that qualifies him to make as much comments,
Speaker 2: if not more than most people in this country involved
Speaker 2: in the electricity industry. Brian, did I missety thing up now?
Speaker 2: That was? You will almost make me feel embarrassed? Well,
Speaker 2: in fact you do. Well, there's no need for it.
Speaker 2: What now? Quote you something from about a year ago,
Speaker 2: maybe ten months and it's from the New Zealand Herald
Speaker 2: and it's written by Samantha g of Radio New Zealand.
Speaker 2: And there's really only one line. I want to read
Speaker 2: New Zealand is heading toward an electricity supply crisis. Now
Speaker 2: you were awarding of that in the middle of last year.
Speaker 2: We spoke about it. But that's the middle of last year.
Speaker 2: We're now a good ten months down the track. What
Speaker 2: might have changed?
Speaker 3: Okay, what has changed is the availability of gas. We
Speaker 3: now know that we've got less gas, and we assumed
Speaker 3: a year ago. We now know also that the combined
Speaker 3: cycle station in Taranake, which is throughout articular meguans, will
Speaker 3: be retired pretty soon. So we've got less gas and
Speaker 3: less capability of burning it. And the latest security of
Speaker 3: supply assessment by Transpower, the draft one says that next
Speaker 3: year is going to be worse than this year, and
Speaker 3: the year after it will be worse still. Now, who
Speaker 3: says that Transpower the system operator?
Speaker 2: And how would Transpower know?
Speaker 3: Well, they are the ones who are in theory. The
Speaker 3: other ones who are trying to keep the lights on.
Speaker 3: But they have no power to build new stations or
Speaker 3: influence to building a new stations.
Speaker 2: But are they assuming that there will be weather that
Speaker 2: doesn't work?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they always assume that there's a possibility of but
Speaker 3: dry year. But it's getting to the stage now where
Speaker 3: even in a normal year there may have to be
Speaker 3: blackouts during peak DeMint periods because we just haven't got
Speaker 3: enough capacity to keep the lights on, but they would
Speaker 3: be fairly short two or three hours and intermittent. But
Speaker 3: a dry year, which is what we've just been through
Speaker 3: and had last year, is much different and you need
Speaker 3: massive rotating blackouts to cope with the fact that you
Speaker 3: haven't gotten that energy.
Speaker 2: You know, there's something about an assumption that sits uncomfortably
Speaker 2: with me. They assume that this will be the case,
Speaker 2: that doesn't plan for if their assumption is wrong.
Speaker 3: They've got a reasonable handle on contingencies and they've factored
Speaker 3: the men, but I think they've been on the generous side.
Speaker 3: Was the contingencies, I would be more pessimistic than they've been.
Speaker 2: In your experience, and you do a bit of public speaking, etc.
Speaker 2: Is the New Zealand population across the board aware of
Speaker 2: how close we are to losing control? No, not at all.
Speaker 3: And before two thousand and three, if we got short
Speaker 3: of power, the first thing they did was ask the
Speaker 3: public to save power, turn off flights, don't do so
Speaker 3: much hot water and all that sort of thing, and
Speaker 3: that used to ease the situation by quite a bit.
Speaker 3: It was got a significant reponse. After two thousand and
Speaker 3: three they decided that they would shut down industry and
Speaker 3: commerce before they asked people to save electricity. So last
Speaker 3: year we shut down Method X and paid a lot
Speaker 3: for the gas, which is it turned out we virtually
Speaker 3: did not need, and we reduced output on the smelter,
Speaker 3: which also cost quite a lot. And this year we've
Speaker 3: done the same. For those who don't know, and they
Speaker 3: claim that we're we're getting through it all right, when
Speaker 3: the real story is we've had shutdowns, just that the
Speaker 3: public didn't see them.
Speaker 2: For those unfamiliar, what is METHODEX or who?
Speaker 3: Method X is the gas? What used to be the
Speaker 3: gas the gasoline plant, but now it makes Method X
Speaker 3: methanol instead of gasoline. And it's been a steady taker
Speaker 3: of gas over the years and provided the steady load
Speaker 3: for the gas fields which make most of their money
Speaker 3: out of the liquids associated liquids, so it needs a
Speaker 3: steady demand.
Speaker 2: So it's done a good job.
Speaker 3: But we shouldn't be shutting it down just because we've
Speaker 3: run out of We haven't stored enough.
Speaker 2: Gas, so why are we shutting it down?
Speaker 3: We're starting it down so the gas can be burned
Speaker 3: in the gas turbine stations to keep the lights on.
Speaker 2: And how long would that last? I think it's several months.
Speaker 3: We've got we've shut shutting methodics down for several months,
Speaker 3: and we've paid for the gas. And as things are
Speaker 3: looking at the moment, we could give it all back tomorrow.
Speaker 3: But we've paid for it and we're stuck with it.
Speaker 2: And that's not a good thing.
Speaker 3: Well, it puts out the price of power. And you
Speaker 3: can remember the way the powers market works, the most
Speaker 3: expensive generator sets the planes for all of them. So
Speaker 3: when gas is scarce, my little hydro scheme is making
Speaker 3: heaps of money because it's I get the high price
Speaker 3: of the gas thing.
Speaker 2: It's crazy, all right. So let's let's just go back
Speaker 2: in history a little bit, because we've discussed it before,
Speaker 2: but it's always I think necessary to update and remind.
Speaker 2: But when did the when did the problem you've mentioned
Speaker 2: two thousand and three? But when did the problem really
Speaker 2: become the issue that it is now, or at least
Speaker 2: the lead into it.
Speaker 3: Probably when we signed the Paris Agreement and decided that
Speaker 3: coal and gas were bad things and that wind and
Speaker 3: solar were good things, and forgot about the need to
Speaker 3: keep the lights on when the wind's not blowing and
Speaker 3: the sun's not shining.
Speaker 2: Who was in government then?
Speaker 3: It was Key that signed the Paris Agreement and it
Speaker 3: was just center the shutdown gas exploration.
Speaker 2: Do you think that John Key would sign it today?
Speaker 3: I have no idea it had to be, but anyone
Speaker 3: would have to be pretty stupid. I mean, the whole
Speaker 3: agreement internationally is falling to pieces, and seventeen out of
Speaker 3: the two hundred odd people that have signed up to
Speaker 3: it or the countries have signed up to it, have
Speaker 3: given returns this year. Fourteen of them are not meeting
Speaker 3: their promises with one of them, but the other nearly
Speaker 3: two hundred, I've forgotten about it. The whole things are
Speaker 3: a massive nothing. Well it always was, it always was,
Speaker 3: but it's billions of dollars a year.
Speaker 2: Can you put a figure on that.
Speaker 3: According to some reports I've seen, the cost of buying
Speaker 3: carbon credits, which apparently we will soon have to do,
Speaker 3: could be ten billion dollars between now and twenty thirty.
Speaker 3: So that's a couple of billion dollars a year. Then
Speaker 3: there's the fact that it's jacked up the power price,
Speaker 3: probably by three or four cents, So everybody's paying three
Speaker 3: or four cents more for power than they otherwise would.
Speaker 3: Then you've got the effect that petrol and diesel and
Speaker 3: all that are also more expensive because of carbon tax.
Speaker 3: So there's that. It's an endless list. Almost everything you
Speaker 3: can think about is affected by the net zero belief.
Speaker 2: All right, So let's assume that you have been appointed
Speaker 2: as the lord of the the realm of power supply?
Speaker 2: What would you do? But would I do? First?
Speaker 3: Is forget about the net zero and also about the
Speaker 3: rumor that man made greenhouse gases caused dangerous global warming.
Speaker 3: And if I could do both of those things, I
Speaker 3: would be searching for gas high speed and burning coal
Speaker 3: and gas and developing geothermal as fast as I could,
Speaker 3: which is happening now, and maybe build some more hydro
Speaker 3: schemes if the greenies would let me the other alternatives.
Speaker 2: Hold it, hold it, Remember where you were going with that.
Speaker 2: But if the greenies would let you, what would what
Speaker 2: would what would be required to put them out of action?
Speaker 2: As far as that's concerned. A government was determination. Can
Speaker 2: you see any on the horizon? No, I thought I'd ask.
Speaker 3: David Seymour, but I'm not quite sure what he believes anyway.
Speaker 2: So where are you going before I interrupted you?
Speaker 3: Okay, if we still wanted to believe in man made
Speaker 3: global warming, I would go nuclear.
Speaker 2: And that's long term worldwide.
Speaker 3: Nuclear is the obvious way to generate all the energy
Speaker 3: we need safely and cheaply. That's it. It'll do it,
Speaker 3: and it'll do it safely.
Speaker 2: Here's the interesting thing, Well, it's only one interesting thing.
Speaker 2: The Australians have just had an election. Of course, the
Speaker 2: Greens got dumped on but they still are in a
Speaker 2: position of power slash influence as far as this is concerned,
Speaker 2: and the majority of Australians it appears, certainly a large
Speaker 2: number are still opposed to nuclear power, something I cannot
Speaker 2: work out with that con tree, you can, I.
Speaker 3: But then the other thing I can't work out is
Speaker 3: why they export millions of tons of coal millions and
Speaker 3: millions and won't burn it, and why they export vast
Speaker 3: qualities of gas from the North Fork Shelf and won't
Speaker 3: open up gas wells in the southeast equally stupid.
Speaker 2: Well, has this has something to do with the structure
Speaker 2: of the Australian political scene. Yeah, I wonder, No, I
Speaker 2: don't wonder, you can't. I was going to say, I
Speaker 2: wonder what it would be like in this country if
Speaker 2: we divided ourselves up into four quarters, for instance, and
Speaker 2: and elected our own local as in state politicians.
Speaker 3: Well, seeing we've got into the elected power system from
Speaker 3: the PowerPoint of view, to be chaos. If it's chaos
Speaker 3: already even worse than it is now that.
Speaker 2: All right, we'll past, will pass on that.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: James Kilty of Transpower was on radio this morning, the
Speaker 2: day we speak, which is Tuesday. What did he have
Speaker 2: to say?
Speaker 3: Well, basically, he said that we are short of power
Speaker 3: and the situation is worse than it was last year.
Speaker 3: But he seems to believe that lots and lots of
Speaker 3: wind and solar and batteries will save the situation. And
Speaker 3: that's simply not true. And the reason is that batteries
Speaker 3: are impossibly expensive when you when you need to make
Speaker 3: up for the fact that the wind hasn't blown for
Speaker 3: the last five days and two thousand mega wats of
Speaker 3: wind are not there, saving extoring enough electricity to keep
Speaker 3: us to keep the lights on during that period is
Speaker 3: impossibly expensive.
Speaker 2: Let's forget for the moment. Let's forget the impossible and
Speaker 2: an expensive part. How difficult would it be impossible?
Speaker 3: Same thing if everybody does it in the world, and
Speaker 3: there's no point in us doing it, and that everybody else does.
Speaker 3: There's not enough rare earth and various other critical materials
Speaker 3: available in the time frame to do the job. And
Speaker 3: it means opening minds at a rapid rate, which you
Speaker 3: can't do. And it's rare which come out mostly come
Speaker 3: out of China. The Americans have got plenty of them,
Speaker 3: but they're Australians, so are the Australians. But their whole
Speaker 3: approvals system means it takes about six or eight years
Speaker 3: to open a new mind.
Speaker 2: So you just can't do it.
Speaker 3: Then we haven't got all the engineers needed to do
Speaker 3: all the reinforcement and build all these new stations. It's
Speaker 3: just simply is impossible from every point of view.
Speaker 2: Okay, let me extract from you then that's an appropriate
Speaker 2: word actually considering the question what these what these rare
Speaker 2: earths actually provide, it's all very well, all very well
Speaker 2: to throw around I don't mean you, but generally throw
Speaker 2: around you know, rare earth, rare earths, But what are
Speaker 2: they especial, especially in relationship to what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, apparently they're not actually all that rare, but
Speaker 3: they're an odd thing. But for instance, all the new
Speaker 3: wind turbine generators and other things rely on high strength
Speaker 3: permanent magnets, which use a product called neodymium, which provides
Speaker 3: very strong magnets. I've got one on my desk and
Speaker 3: it's extremely strong, and all the wind wind turbine generators
Speaker 3: use them. And yet thousands and thousands of tons. Then
Speaker 3: another thing that we'd be short of is copper, because
Speaker 3: you need lots of copper for the windings of the
Speaker 3: generators and for the cables that connect it all together.
Speaker 3: We can't open copper mines fast enough, and I mean
Speaker 3: we'd double or treble the current rate of mining, and
Speaker 3: you probably wouldn't still wouldn't be enough.
Speaker 2: Do we have copper here?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I didn't think so. No, We've probably got rares somewhere.
Speaker 2: But we do have gold. We do have gold, yes,
Speaker 2: so we can buy the copper. Yeah. All right. Now,
Speaker 2: with regard to James Kilty, what else did he have
Speaker 2: to say, particularly not only about nuclear.
Speaker 3: He didn't mention nuclear, He didn't mention further gas exploration,
Speaker 3: which we desperately need because it's the only short term
Speaker 3: thing can dig us out of trouble. And yet he
Speaker 3: didn't mention it. It's very strange. I would have thought
Speaker 3: that he would be hammering on the government store for
Speaker 3: more gas, and he just doesn't seem to understand the
Speaker 3: storage problem and the fact that when the wind doesn't
Speaker 3: blow and the sun doesn't shine, something's got to keep
Speaker 3: the lights on. But there's also another problem because when
Speaker 3: the wind is blowing and when the sun does shine,
Speaker 3: we'll have it. We'll be a wash with electricity if
Speaker 3: there're the ones that are all built, go ahead, three
Speaker 3: thousand odd megawats and so the price will crash to
Speaker 3: nothing on the market. So all these wind farms and
Speaker 3: solar farms won't be earning anything when they're generating the most.
Speaker 2: Well, your average punter might into fear here and say
Speaker 2: what he means, it crashed to nothing. It's their product.
Speaker 2: They can set the price, Yeah, but it's a surface
Speaker 2: of it. They can't.
Speaker 3: Why not, Well, all they can do is refuse to generate,
Speaker 3: and then the price goes up, and then I'm getting
Speaker 3: any of it either. Yeah, Otherwise they all form a
Speaker 3: consortium and agree just how much to generate to keep
Speaker 3: the price at the at the level they would like
Speaker 3: it to be. A see, there is which is which
Speaker 3: is not very good from a novely point of view.
Speaker 2: There it's a sin in a way. That's what the
Speaker 2: generators are doing. Now, there is something that intrigues me
Speaker 2: at the moment across across a much bigger board than
Speaker 2: we're discussing. But the principle, the principle is the same.
Speaker 2: Why is it that so many countries are in trouble
Speaker 2: because of what has not gone before and has now
Speaker 2: caught up with us? What's where? Where? And how did
Speaker 2: it become a major issue that countries like us ended
Speaker 2: up here.
Speaker 3: Okay, for some reason or other and with the connivance
Speaker 3: of a lot of people, not necessarily all getting together
Speaker 3: and plotting against it. But it suits a whole lot
Speaker 3: of people to tell everybody that the wills and in
Speaker 3: the edge of disaster from global warning, it's a terrible
Speaker 3: situation and only I can save you, and you've got
Speaker 3: to do lots of penance, which is the salvation circus
Speaker 3: type argument. The world is going to come to an end.
Speaker 3: Come to me and give me lots of money and women.
Speaker 3: And so they've played on that. Nothing like a good
Speaker 3: crisis to get political support, and that's where it started.
Speaker 3: But there's a whole lot of outfits in the world,
Speaker 3: and a whole lot of so called scientists climate scientists
Speaker 3: who make their living depends on keeping this whole scam
Speaker 3: going and send there's the renewable energy people, the wind
Speaker 3: and solar overseas who get heavily subsidized, and they are
Speaker 3: very interested in keeping this game going and increasing the subsidies.
Speaker 3: And the subsidies for offshore wind are horrenders about forty
Speaker 3: cents a killing with out subsidy. It's crazy. And there's
Speaker 3: a bigger subsidy for offshore wind than there is for
Speaker 3: onshore wind. They're both the same product. Why do you
Speaker 3: pay more for one.
Speaker 2: Than the other?
Speaker 3: Why do you pay more than the market price, which
Speaker 3: is coal fired generation or nuclear?
Speaker 2: Are you familiar with the name David Leggetts vaguely Director
Speaker 2: of Research and Education for the Cornwall Alliance for the
Speaker 2: Stewardship of Creation. He's a retired professor of climatology at
Speaker 2: the University of Delaware and he's involved with the various organizations.
Speaker 2: I read this, I read this this morning. Over the years,
Speaker 2: even before I joined the Cordwell Alliance, I received numerous
Speaker 2: complaints from people sending me emails who I believe are
Speaker 2: well meaning that take issue that take issue with my
Speaker 2: position on carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, as a pollutant,
Speaker 2: and as the single most existential threat to the planet
Speaker 2: as a whole. First, he says, let me state for
Speaker 2: the record that I do not believe that carbon dioxide, methane,
Speaker 2: and nitrous oxide are existential threats to the planet, nor
Speaker 2: are they reasonable threats of any kind. Second, let me
Speaker 2: also state for the record that I do not believe
Speaker 2: carbon dioxide is a pollutant. In fact, if all life
Speaker 2: on Earth ceased to exist, our atmosphere would lose all
Speaker 2: its oxygen content, and the proportion of carbon dioxide in
Speaker 2: our atmosphere would increase above ninety five percent. So what
Speaker 2: he writes, and then goes on, look, I have to
Speaker 2: say this. I've said it before, but in that debate
Speaker 2: that was held by Sky Television and back in two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven, the television debate after showing the first
Speaker 2: climate scam movie, a bunch of us sat around a
Speaker 2: couple of professors Greenie and myself and another another professor
Speaker 2: who was sort of who was on my team if
Speaker 2: you like. And at the end of that I was
Speaker 2: asked for the last words and my comment was simple,
Speaker 2: CO two is not a pollutant. End of story, and
Speaker 2: everyone reckon we run that won the debate, but the
Speaker 2: point being that that has been around for a long time,
Speaker 2: but it's not a pollutant. But it doesn't get much
Speaker 2: traction in mainstream.
Speaker 3: If you look on the stuff website, it will not
Speaker 3: publish anything that questions man made global warming.
Speaker 2: Well stuff are stuffed. Yeah, no no interest in them
Speaker 2: except for the people I know there. Now, is there
Speaker 2: any any more you want to hit on?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: No, I think if everybody realizes that we are in
Speaker 3: a more serious situation and hitting words and that they
Speaker 3: should be okay, loving their MP for more guts, that's it.
Speaker 2: All right. No, I've got I've got, I've got a
Speaker 2: bit more. If I can tell me something, If you
Speaker 2: were to debate the appropriate people, and I make it plural,
Speaker 2: the appropriate pleep, the appropriate people in an open debate
Speaker 2: on this subject, who who is it? And I'm talking
Speaker 2: government people, Who is it? That you would be either
Speaker 2: wanting or find yourself debating with I'm not sure it's
Speaker 2: an amorphous mob. Would it would have to be the minister,
Speaker 2: would it not? For a start?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the minister would be the obvious one.
Speaker 3: And he seems to believe in it, And I would
Speaker 3: simply ask him what evidence does he have other than
Speaker 3: climate models and the consensus of scientists, which is worthless,
Speaker 3: that man made greenhouse gases caused dangerous global warming?
Speaker 2: Why that's the question. And they won't answer it because
Speaker 2: they can't. And I've been through that same experience for
Speaker 2: years now. Why is it that they can't answer it?
Speaker 3: Because nobody has produced convincing evidence based on real world data,
Speaker 3: not climate models, that man made greenhouse gases caused dangerous
Speaker 3: global warming. Nobody as far as like a Maya in
Speaker 3: the world. We put up a ten thousand dollars prize
Speaker 3: for someone who could provide the information.
Speaker 2: We got no takers. No, you didn't. I recall in fact,
Speaker 2: I've made a contribution to that. Yeah, then what are
Speaker 2: we doing? What are we doing with ministers, be they
Speaker 2: ministers of climate or whatever they are, who are totally
Speaker 2: unwilling to have an open discussion about the rights and
Speaker 2: wrongs of their ministry.
Speaker 3: The best thing, I think, and I'm not necessary, right,
Speaker 3: is just to hammer on about the excessive costs of
Speaker 3: net zero. How are we squandering all this money? We
Speaker 3: can't make a difference to climate. Everybody else is falling
Speaker 3: by the wayside and ignoring their obligations.
Speaker 2: Oh, but we've got to do our little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well you've got to persuade them that we can't
Speaker 3: afford to do our little bit. And one of my
Speaker 3: projects is to try and make up a list of
Speaker 3: all the what it does cost us. And I'm sure
Speaker 3: it's something like two to five billion dollars a year.
Speaker 2: Well, I absolutely nothing when you get it. When you
Speaker 2: come to that number, let me know I will. In
Speaker 2: the meantime, spread the word, folks, is the only thing
Speaker 2: that I mean. Just tell people send this interview to
Speaker 2: everyone you know, even if you think they won't listen
Speaker 2: to it. That's my comment, Brian, good to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Good to talk to you too, and you keep flying
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Speaker 2: Always read the label and users directed and see your
Speaker 2: doctor if systems persist. Farmer Broker au Clumb Jody Brunning
Speaker 2: is a trustee of Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility.
Speaker 2: Primary research focus is on the relationship between governance policy
Speaker 2: and the production of scientific technical knowledge for public good
Speaker 2: and she is a prolific worker in this field, and
Speaker 2: I have great admiration for her. Now, for those who
Speaker 2: are unfamiliar, PSGR physicians and scientists for Global Responsibility, and
Speaker 2: they have been well. They were formulated about around about
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine, I think or two thousand, am I right, Yes,
Speaker 2: you are very good. One question that I want to
Speaker 2: I want to ask you how political is the organization?
Speaker 2: What political leaning might PSGR have.
Speaker 4: Well, to be.
Speaker 5: Honest, when we have our agms, which is when we
Speaker 5: come together, the trustees come together, we simply don't actually
Speaker 5: talk about it.
Speaker 4: I guess it's because.
Speaker 5: We are looking at health and we're looking at policy,
Speaker 5: and I guess both national or labor tend to move
Speaker 5: forward in a relatively amorphous fashion, so there is no
Speaker 5: discussion around that. I guess that's the most honest answer
Speaker 5: we get. And we're very limited in how we actually
Speaker 5: approach ministers. I guess I may have briefly spoken to
Speaker 5: email Steve Abel recently, but it's to thank him for
Speaker 5: the work on Select Committee.
Speaker 4: But we really don't do much.
Speaker 2: The reason I asked the question is because we have
Speaker 2: all become well, lots of us have become more deeply
Speaker 2: involved with foreign politics then we might have once been.
Speaker 2: And when it comes to America, of course, there is
Speaker 2: a very much there's a great deal of muck breaking
Speaker 2: that goes on, a great deal of bias and shall
Speaker 2: we say, illegalities. And we like to think that in
Speaker 2: this country we're pretty clean. But I have a feeling
Speaker 2: that things have muddied a little more than they should
Speaker 2: have in some areas, this being one of them, science
Speaker 2: and medicine. And I guess part of the reason for that,
Speaker 2: very strong part of the reason for that way of
Speaker 2: thinking is what we went through in the last few years,
Speaker 2: how we were dealt with, how the crisis was dealt with,
Speaker 2: and what we now know that we were told was
Speaker 2: a no no back during that period.
Speaker 5: You say, look, absolutely, as I have said on this
Speaker 5: Daily Telegraph article, the New Zealand style of government is
Speaker 5: already authoritarian. That's a direct quote from Sir Jeffrey Palmer
Speaker 5: and Andrew Butler Casey. There are no formal constitutional constraints.
Speaker 5: New Zealand has one House of Parliament, which is the
Speaker 5: House of Representatives, of course, and the executive dominates cabinet
Speaker 5: has almost total gemony over parliamentary process. For example, our
Speaker 5: Attorney General General has six ministerial hats. The executive you know,
Speaker 5: the ministries and agencies create the reports for the Select Committee.
Speaker 5: The Select committees have basically no sort of no powers
Speaker 5: to do their own inquisitive inquiry. New Zealand is extraordinarily,
Speaker 5: extraordinarily vulnerable to despotism.
Speaker 2: I would say more so than Australia.
Speaker 5: Well, I think so because we only have one House
Speaker 5: of Parliament and remember our Australia, the Queensland has one
Speaker 5: House of Parliament, which is the state with one House
Speaker 5: of Parliment, and that's in Australia. That's where a lot
Speaker 5: of the COVID laws, the federal the state laws could
Speaker 5: be then they could be sort of cut and pasted
Speaker 5: from Queensland's initiative and so we were super vulnerable basically,
Speaker 5: And because our academia are now largely politically silent, our
Speaker 5: scientists have been silenced because the fund the threat of
Speaker 5: no funding prevents political inquiry that dare I say, into
Speaker 5: technologies that are unsafe and perhaps for me, when I
Speaker 5: saw that May Act created overnight by the Attorney General
Speaker 5: David Parker in twenty twenty and it didn't have the
Speaker 5: protection of people it couldn't.
Speaker 4: It couldn't discern.
Speaker 5: Between a healthy person being safe and someone being at risk.
Speaker 4: And it also.
Speaker 5: Couldn't discern the difference between cases and infection rates and
Speaker 5: actually the risk of hospitalization and death. And that legislation
Speaker 5: could be just draw drawn up, put in overnight, and
Speaker 5: that was okay, And it showed me that we're very
Speaker 5: vulnerable to the next emergency or false flag event.
Speaker 2: It shouldn't have become as any surprise, considering that the
Speaker 2: distinction between a man and a woman was something else
Speaker 2: they lost track of.
Speaker 5: Well, it shows that we're sort of, I guess, a
Speaker 5: bit ideologically vulnerable to the themes of the day that
Speaker 5: seem to drift through the Anglo the Anglo nations in
Speaker 5: particular at the Commonwealth nations. So where where whe're sort
Speaker 5: of see it almost seems as if the central parties
Speaker 5: are being spoon fed the same stuff. And of course
Speaker 5: it always has to it could never contradict large global
Speaker 5: corporations either, So they're sort of fulfilling these global patterns
Speaker 5: which we can all possibly recognize similar patterns that.
Speaker 4: That conform to it.
Speaker 5: I used to be what I called woke, and now
Speaker 5: I'm looking at what we call woe. And it's really
Speaker 5: difficult because we haven't been taught to look critically.
Speaker 4: We've been taught to assemble.
Speaker 5: Information and put it in a place, but the veracity
Speaker 5: of that information, whether it's good qualityduced to it, and
Speaker 5: that's what our young people and I don't think I
Speaker 5: myself has taught that at high school or university either
Speaker 5: to start to really look critically at who produced the
Speaker 5: information and were there any conflicts political or financial of interests.
Speaker 4: I think we haven't done that correctly.
Speaker 2: Well, it's had a long grounding, then, hasn't it The
Speaker 2: ignorance I'm talking Let me quote this the beginning of
Speaker 2: the article that you published a couple of days ago,
Speaker 2: which is really what we're here to discuss. In the
Speaker 2: main anyway, a remarkable situation has arisen in New Zealand.
Speaker 2: The agency tasks with economic growth that controls the science
Speaker 2: funding budget, wants to have the power of administering the
Speaker 2: legislation that would steward the very technologies that it directly
Speaker 2: funds scientists to produce. It is the most perfect form
Speaker 2: of vertical integration, and it says a lot about the
Speaker 2: biggest risk to democracy, the concentration and centralization of power.
Speaker 2: Now there's more I'd like to read, and I might
Speaker 2: get to it shortly, but just looking at that first paragraph,
Speaker 2: the concentration and centralization of power, Now this is a
Speaker 2: what we're discussing here as a scientific field. Is it
Speaker 2: not a surprise that that's the area where this leverage
Speaker 2: seems to be growing as opposed to other matters of politics.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure about that, because when you look at
Speaker 5: what's happened to statsin z for example, they're seeming to
Speaker 5: concentrate power through harmonizing ID numbers across news nilands landscape,
Speaker 5: and we're seeing that happening in the information sharing agreements.
Speaker 4: But it's often I.
Speaker 5: Guess the pattern that is the similar A similar pattern
Speaker 5: there is the technology has become scalable to such an
Speaker 5: extent that it can be done. So I guess I
Speaker 5: have to perhaps I now agree with you, because we
Speaker 5: can produce, for example, gene edited technologies and organisms that
Speaker 5: can be scaled up in a massive place. Whe're then
Speaker 5: seeing the concentration of power to enable that further, so
Speaker 5: we're seeing what I called their vertical integration. It's the
Speaker 5: economic growth agency responsible for trying to increase the amount
Speaker 5: of inventions that go into out into the ether, that
Speaker 5: hopefully make money, and that've taken it upon it themselves.
Speaker 5: That it's just sort of like they said to the APAA,
Speaker 5: So we're going to take control of producing the new
Speaker 5: legislation for GMOs because gene edited techniques and organisms are
Speaker 5: genetically modified. These they produce genetically modified organisms. Gene edited
Speaker 5: organisms are one subset of that, so we shouldn't be
Speaker 5: deceived by pretending there's something else. So it's yeah, it's
Speaker 5: pretty crazy, it's really crazy.
Speaker 2: I want to quote you a bit more of yourself
Speaker 2: because I was impressed with it. The New Zealand public
Speaker 2: is growing increasingly skeptical about the capacity for democratic institutions
Speaker 2: to put our best interest at heart. Conventions and processes
Speaker 2: are in place to ensure that these institutions are transparent
Speaker 2: and accountable. Public good policy requires that the information underpinning
Speaker 2: decision making is of the best possible standard, which is
Speaker 2: always a very vague term as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 2: But what if those processes are bypassed, if processes of
Speaker 2: knowledge gathering un the what if scientists and researchers have
Speaker 2: become so hemmed in by tightly controlled policy, that they're
Speaker 2: more like pawn's in a chess game rather than truth
Speaker 2: seekers driven by curiosity to expand knowledge for the betterment
Speaker 2: of society. How does this entrapment of science come out
Speaker 2: in the wash? Take it from there.
Speaker 5: So the Ministry for Business and in Innovation and Employment
Speaker 5: MV is quite interesting. They gained their powers through secondary legislation.
Speaker 4: They did not hold it.
Speaker 2: So what is secondary legislation.
Speaker 5: So when traditionally when a ministry is it comes into being,
Speaker 5: it's through a primary active legislation and that has a
Speaker 5: purpose and purpose says you must do this, this, and this.
Speaker 4: There's no such purpose for MV.
Speaker 5: They came into into power through an Order in Council
Speaker 5: in twenty twelve and the legislation that produced MB gave
Speaker 5: them the powers over the science enterprise. So this did
Speaker 5: not go through Parliament, so then MB could control the science.
Speaker 5: So that was twenty twelve, and by twenty fourteen they
Speaker 5: released the National Statement of Science Investment. That was twenty
Speaker 5: and so that was the plan from twenty fifteen to
Speaker 5: twenty twenty five and the subject of my master's thesis
Speaker 5: of sociology research project and I interviewed scientists, professors, associate
Speaker 5: professors looking at health research policy, and I was able
Speaker 5: to identify that this national Statement of Science Investment, which
Speaker 5: prioritized innovation, basically produced the desire or the requirement that
Speaker 5: if you're applying for funding in New Zealand, you must
Speaker 5: be assuring the funding committees, which are peer scientists, that
Speaker 5: you are going to produce an innovation.
Speaker 4: And that.
Speaker 5: Entrapped scientists because it required them to look for patents
Speaker 5: and internet and produce intellectual property rights and IP and
Speaker 5: it required that they would not One of the requirements
Speaker 5: was that the science would be excellent. So every scientist
Speaker 5: knows if you're an electrical engineer, you will understand a
Speaker 5: certain form of excellence. If you're a cancer researcher, you'll
Speaker 5: understand a certain form of excellence. Excellence is something that
Speaker 5: you agree with in a tiny subset of a particular discipline.
Speaker 5: So the requirement for excellence and innovation meant that all
Speaker 5: of a sudden you had a lot more applied science,
Speaker 5: a lot less basic science being undertaken. It was much
Speaker 5: more difficult to apply for science for basic research, which
Speaker 5: is what we know is the curiosity driven research, and
Speaker 5: often that basic research is where we find the problems,
Speaker 5: where we understand, for example, what that exposure to that
Speaker 5: chemical or that emission might do to the biological cell,
Speaker 5: the human body, the waterway, and that's how we understand, oh,
Speaker 5: we need to regulate it in a certain way. So
Speaker 5: right now we don't have any of that sort of science.
Speaker 5: So it's no prize that when you identify something that
Speaker 5: is causing harm you then look for the scientist or
Speaker 5: the scientific group the researching that harm. That you will
Speaker 5: not find that in New Zealand today. So then when
Speaker 5: I say pawns in a chess game, it means that
Speaker 5: the basic science that is decided on what our big
Speaker 5: missions are, that is politically decided by MB by the
Speaker 5: menace and in all by their I guess that the
Speaker 5: political scientists such as Sir Peter Blackman that worked for
Speaker 5: them and who who themselves will have their own you know,
Speaker 5: their own babies, their own areas that they really want
Speaker 5: to progress. So we have very narrow forms of basic
Speaker 5: science that's permitted, and we do not get scientists researching
Speaker 5: the toxics, the you know, the EMF the toxics we
Speaker 5: had after COVID finished, you know, in twenty twenty twenty three,
Speaker 5: they were able to set aside twenty million dollars for
Speaker 5: MR and A research. But of course we didn't even
Speaker 5: see two million dollars for research on the mechanisms of
Speaker 5: harm that can occur through injection with a vaccine that
Speaker 5: itself is an MR and a gene edited biologic drum.
Speaker 2: All right, So the leaning that they're taking is as
Speaker 2: opposed to scientific.
Speaker 5: Well, and to be fair, so if you're looking at
Speaker 5: regulatory science, that is always socio political or socio scientific,
Speaker 5: because regulatory scientists need to make everyone happy. And this
Speaker 5: is why we often see regulation scientific information or the
Speaker 5: information being used by regulatory scientists becoming more and more outdated,
Speaker 5: no matter how quickly technology speeds, and we already see
Speaker 5: with this gene technology build no capacity, for example, for
Speaker 5: the regulator to actually have inquisitorial powers to understand, for example,
Speaker 5: what ARI means, for the capacity for gene technology to
Speaker 5: be released at scales to move more quickly, for many,
Speaker 5: many more GMO gene edited organisms to be released into
Speaker 5: the into the environment than previously.
Speaker 4: And ultimately we were talking.
Speaker 5: About the DSIR, which was disabled in nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 5: It was replaced by another ministry that was then disabled
Speaker 5: in twenty twelve, which was replaced by mb These minstry,
Speaker 5: these ministries were more separate from because they were just science.
Speaker 5: Once we had the whole science funding institutions stuck inside
Speaker 5: the Ministry for Economic Growth, it became pervasively political because
Speaker 5: that's economic growth. It can't do anything else but be
Speaker 5: controubled by that minister, and that is the priority of
Speaker 5: that minister.
Speaker 2: Mbie otherwise known as Mimbi.
Speaker 4: Who was the minister, the Honorable Judith Colins.
Speaker 2: See, I couldn't. I couldn't. I went looking because I
Speaker 2: wasn't I wasn't precisely or I wasn't sure, So I
Speaker 2: went searching. I found plenty on memory, but I couldn't
Speaker 2: find the minister.
Speaker 5: So it's really this is why it's really diffuse and difficult.
Speaker 5: So Collins was the minister, so I apologize. Collins was
Speaker 5: the Minister for Science, So of course she's inside MB
Speaker 5: as the Minister for silence science. And at the same
Speaker 5: time she's the Attorney General, she's a King's Counsel, she's
Speaker 5: the Minister for Defense, she's the Minister for digitizing government.
Speaker 5: She was the Minister for Science and then she became
Speaker 5: the Minister for Public Service. She's the Minister for the GCS,
Speaker 5: the n z SIS and the Minister for Space. So
Speaker 5: of course we've never ever in the history of New
Speaker 5: Zealand had an Attorney General with that many ministerial hats,
Speaker 5: and if we want to talk about centralizing government, that's
Speaker 5: a whole other interview. And so she quick clique rushed
Speaker 5: these reforms through and there are very clear moments where
Speaker 5: you can see that she was ordering officials not to
Speaker 5: do certain things. So, for example, MB in twenty twenty
Speaker 5: four deliberately wrote out engagement with the public and that's
Speaker 5: in the regulatory impact Statement on page thirteen, and then
Speaker 5: they handpicked the technical Advisory Group and the stakeholders. Earlier,
Speaker 5: the Productivity Commissioner in the Frontier Firms report had said,
Speaker 5: if we're going to update the gene editing technology legislation,
Speaker 5: we need early consultation with the public and with Maori.
Speaker 5: The Productivity Commissioner was very clear, but at the minister's direction,
Speaker 5: at the Attorney General's direction, that was prohibited. And similarly,
Speaker 5: at ministerial direction, officials did not consider options for reforming.
Speaker 5: There has no the hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act.
Speaker 5: So Collins has said, no one is allowed to talk
Speaker 5: about reforming that has no act. We've got because that
Speaker 5: is of course under the control of the Department of Conservation,
Speaker 5: I think, And it's of course that is stewarded. It's
Speaker 5: administered by the Department of Conservation. But of course the
Speaker 5: EPA has responsibility for it. So what would happen now
Speaker 5: is MB would have responsibility for of course it's it's
Speaker 5: designed the terribly drafted Primary Act. But then MB would
Speaker 5: be responsible for all the secondary of legislation that could
Speaker 5: tumble out, so it wouldn't be the EPA doing that work,
Speaker 5: it would be MB. And so it's due to Collins
Speaker 5: that said, we're not we're not considering options for reforming
Speaker 5: that has no act. And Professor Jack Heineman has pointed
Speaker 5: out that what are the costs of, for example, the
Speaker 5: administration of the cur has no act compared to the
Speaker 5: new legislation, which in this new legislation is so nebulous
Speaker 5: that no one ever will understand where it starts and stops.
Speaker 5: Whereas there has no act, actually has worked, it's a
Speaker 5: nineteen ninety six act.
Speaker 4: It's worked actually very very well.
Speaker 5: For example, New Zealand has avoided all the superweeds that
Speaker 5: America has because of the herbicide tolerant crops. So we've
Speaker 5: avoided that bullet, shall we say, by our strict outside
Speaker 5: we don't let GMOs freely into the environment. But it
Speaker 5: is not a strict ban, and so this is also
Speaker 5: the public have been somewhat misled because it hasn't been
Speaker 5: a strict ban, but it has been a very strict
Speaker 5: case by case assessment basis.
Speaker 2: But there is no doubt. It appears or an expectation
Speaker 2: is a is a better way to put it. It
Speaker 2: is an expectation that some of what is happening in
Speaker 2: the genet field will roll out into the into the wild,
Speaker 2: so to speak, and will be then uncontrollable.
Speaker 5: Yes, and I do believe that MP's have been misled
Speaker 5: and deceived because they believe, and this is quoting a minister,
Speaker 5: that these gene edited organisms will be completely different from
Speaker 5: genetically modified organisms. They're still genetically modified organisms. So what
Speaker 5: we've seen is we haven't seen any any science. So
Speaker 5: you were talking before about science being politicized. Science is trustworthy,
Speaker 5: like law is trustworthy if it follows good process, if
Speaker 5: it follows conventions. This is why when a scientist writes
Speaker 5: up a scientific paper, he or she has to write
Speaker 5: up the methods.
Speaker 4: We have to.
Speaker 5: Understand what other information was looked up to produce the
Speaker 5: information base on which this scientific project was made. And
Speaker 5: then that scientists will declare the values. Is it going
Speaker 5: to be a ninety five percent of probability? For example,
Speaker 5: they will declare precise value, So it's the same for
Speaker 5: governance and law and convention a value. If you look
Speaker 5: at a value for you and me, it might be
Speaker 5: are we protecting children? How do we protect children? Do
Speaker 5: we protect children based on the potential that they could
Speaker 5: be harmed by a genetically modified organism that might be inflammatory,
Speaker 5: so it might cause harm over the long term if
Speaker 5: they didn't know what they were eating and it became
Speaker 5: a big part of their diet. Or are we going
Speaker 5: to say we want to be very protective, so we
Speaker 5: have to declare everything transparently. So I guess I'm mushing
Speaker 5: things up here because I'm trying to get a lot.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 5: So what we haven't seen we haven't we haven't seen
Speaker 5: a robust risk assessment. So what Envy have done is
Speaker 5: they produced a little like a stupid little, i'm going
Speaker 5: to say, stupid little press release in about August twenty
Speaker 5: twenty four. That was their scientific basis and that was
Speaker 5: the last thing we saw before the actual bill was released.
Speaker 5: And in that stupid little press release they said the
Speaker 5: public aren't going to be consulted and they will have
Speaker 5: their time to be consulted once the legislation, the bill
Speaker 5: is released. Now. They also by then the government had
Speaker 5: known that they had the regulatory Impact Statement, where ministers
Speaker 5: themselves knew that there was not an assurance that the
Speaker 5: future bill would be safe, that it would be do
Speaker 5: the job it was meant to do, because there was
Speaker 5: no there was no methods based procedural risk assessment to
Speaker 5: understand the gene editing techniques, the gene editing organisms that
Speaker 5: are going to be what's called risk tiered. They're going
Speaker 5: to be put outside the legislation because they're going to
Speaker 5: pretend they're pretending they're not GMOs. So they're saying these
Speaker 5: are not a GMO because they don't, for example, produce
Speaker 5: a protein. They're not looking at what DNA might still
Speaker 5: be in those organisms. They're not looking at what might
Speaker 5: have happened if they put they spliced DNA in, then
Speaker 5: they took the DNA out and that resulted in a
Speaker 5: reshuffling of the genome and then, for example, that organism
Speaker 5: becomes more vulnerable to sickness or disease. But they don't
Speaker 5: want to talk about that because they put the different
Speaker 5: DNA in and they pulled it back out again, and
Speaker 5: so they don't have to declare the DNA or the
Speaker 5: foreign change because it's been taken out again. So it
Speaker 5: becomes a little bit misleading, a little bit you can't understand.
Speaker 5: So they're pretending that's not a GMO and that doesn't
Speaker 5: have to be declared. It can be risked heered outside.
Speaker 2: Well, hang on hold it. The term GMO was one
Speaker 2: that's applied by it, that's invented, if you like, and applied. Yes,
Speaker 2: So what you're saying is that as they've applied it
Speaker 2: to one thing, they've now rearranged it and they've decided
Speaker 2: to it's not science. It's not science, it's it's engineering driven.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a it's a shell game.
Speaker 5: So if you look at the food stands as Australia
Speaker 5: New Zealand, they're P one zero five five. It's a
Speaker 5: current I think bill or change in proposed change in the.
Speaker 4: Food Standards Australia New Zealand Act.
Speaker 5: And they're proposing that certain classes are GMOs aren't GMOs anymore.
Speaker 5: But if you go back and look over the last
Speaker 5: ten years through all the white papers where they've done
Speaker 5: the assessments of what these new gene edited organisms are
Speaker 5: that might not involve an exact change to their DNA,
Speaker 5: Oh so sorry, they don't produce a protein, they are
Speaker 5: not a GMO, And so they're making that. They're producing
Speaker 5: all these little white papers that don't have a ref
Speaker 5: that that don't have any methods. They're not showing that
Speaker 5: we're doing a review of the scientific literature to understand
Speaker 5: what harm or risk may may arise. So food standards
Speaker 5: have been doing that for the last decade. Then we've
Speaker 5: seen MB do this that play the same trick. We're
Speaker 5: not doing any methods based risk assessment, but we're going
Speaker 5: to tell you that it's going to be risk proportionate.
Speaker 5: Where they get their scientific evidence from is the Royal Society.
Speaker 4: So the Royal Society, with themselves paid by envy, have
Speaker 4: to do there are their sort of I.
Speaker 5: Call it the Royal Society campaign that was between largely
Speaker 5: between twenty sixteen and twenty nineteen, and that campaign was
Speaker 5: not a risk assessment. They were not required to do
Speaker 5: a process of risk assessment.
Speaker 4: The campaign was.
Speaker 5: Desired to open up the conversation and the discussions on
Speaker 5: gene edited techniques and organisms and to help us talk
Speaker 5: about the benefits. And so when we were submitting to
Speaker 5: the gene Technology Bill, it occurred to us that the
Speaker 5: policy formulation process was so bad and that then became
Speaker 5: a large article which we called the hijacking of democracy
Speaker 5: the Case of Gene Technology Regulatory Reform, because what we
Speaker 5: could see is that is the Royal Society did not
Speaker 5: do any form of risk assessment. And then at the
Speaker 5: end of this all their lovely look what we can
Speaker 5: do process, they did a recommendations for law Chaine and
Speaker 5: so that their recommendations for law change were what was
Speaker 5: grabbed by the Harnessing Biotech Manifesto by the National Party
Speaker 5: and then that was what was put into the regulatory
Speaker 5: impact statement. So we have policy light policy that didn't
Speaker 5: do the scientific robust analysis, didn't do the economic analysis,
Speaker 5: didn't do a cost benefit analysis. We know that they
Speaker 5: could turn around tomorrow and start gene editing Romoa Maori species,
Speaker 5: but if they didn't it didn't result in a protein,
Speaker 5: they wouldn't have to declare to Maori what they'd done.
Speaker 5: But then we have that sneaky little problem of gene
Speaker 5: flow into the environment. So Maori would not have any knowledge,
Speaker 5: any control. But it's also the same for our food.
Speaker 5: The food that we export from New Zealand, all those
Speaker 5: exporters that rely on the clean green, that rely on
Speaker 5: that trustworthy basis that we can say it's not GMO,
Speaker 5: would now have to go through a really expensive process
Speaker 5: of verification. And we know that the margins on on.
Speaker 4: Food can be very tight.
Speaker 5: So we could see a decline in export product because
Speaker 5: the export the foreign export markets knew we had we
Speaker 5: had run the race to the bottom, We had become
Speaker 5: most possibly one of the weakest regulatory jurisdictions in the world.
Speaker 4: If this bill would be passed.
Speaker 2: And the Europeans in particular, I understand are will hold
Speaker 2: a much higher higher barrier.
Speaker 4: Yes, and they do.
Speaker 5: And they they've also got the precautionary principle in their legislation.
Speaker 5: They don't they're already doing things that we're not doing.
Speaker 5: They say we will not have glycosytes breid on crops,
Speaker 5: whereas New Zealand has no restrictions in that way. And
Speaker 5: so even though they've got similar legislation, which is concerning
Speaker 5: what they call new breeding new genomic techniques, so the
Speaker 5: Europeans are a little bit more transparent than us. They
Speaker 5: call them new genomic techniques, whereas we nebulously call them
Speaker 5: new breeding techniques, so that we don't actually know what
Speaker 5: the heck we're talking about, because anything could be a
Speaker 5: new breeding technique. So their legislation has been held up
Speaker 5: because they've got all these questions around transparency and traceability,
Speaker 5: where we're not doing any of that.
Speaker 2: Well, that's where it came to the Green Editing Bill
Speaker 2: came to the fore from my perspective was that when
Speaker 2: once we learned that they would not have to identify
Speaker 2: any gene clangers in food in supermarkets, then we lost
Speaker 2: control of what we eat. And that's and that's patently obvious.
Speaker 2: I guess it's time to go back to a basic
Speaker 2: or two. What is their purpose in wanting to do
Speaker 2: this in the first place, Why is the why is
Speaker 2: the government so involved in it?
Speaker 5: So they've identified that the current legislation is too strict
Speaker 5: and they want the legislation to be less strict. And
Speaker 5: basically they admit this in the problem definition.
Speaker 2: For what reason? So what do they wanted to be
Speaker 2: less strict?
Speaker 5: So what we've seen in the last decade is increasing
Speaker 5: numbers of businesses and scientists speaking up about the fact
Speaker 5: that the has NO Act is too restrictive. What we've
Speaker 5: failed to understand and what has not been clear to
Speaker 5: farmers or the public. Most of those people speaking up
Speaker 5: have themselves by the financial investments, or they're biotech lobbyists,
Speaker 5: such as you know William Roliston as a biotechnology lobbyist
Speaker 5: for example, he puts I'm a farmer hat on but
Speaker 5: his his work over the last sort of decades it's
Speaker 5: shown that he really is very focused on biotechnology.
Speaker 2: His name at me again, I didn't catch.
Speaker 4: It, William Rolliston.
Speaker 5: And then we have scientists that come from the Crown
Speaker 5: research institutes such as Plant and Food Research or AG Research.
Speaker 5: And so what their problem is, and it harts back
Speaker 5: to what we were talking about earlier, is their funding
Speaker 5: has become tightened and tightened and titans around them needing
Speaker 5: to produce patents and ip and so they're now they're
Speaker 5: now depending on royalties for the funding to continue as
Speaker 5: part of their investment strategy. They're publicly paid institute, but
Speaker 5: they are more and more depending on the royalties from
Speaker 5: their investments as a way of keeping themselves going. As
Speaker 5: the government titans the what they can actually apply for.
Speaker 5: And rather shockingly part of this, Judith Collins' latest move
Speaker 5: is we're seeing the shift to the fact that the
Speaker 5: scientists would own their own patents. Now this has happened
Speaker 5: in America and it hasn't happened. I thought it actually
Speaker 5: was quite quite excellent that the institutes would own the patents.
Speaker 4: Still, but we're so.
Speaker 5: Financialized, so for example, AG research can't freely go out
Speaker 5: or plant in food research. They can't freely go out
Speaker 5: and undertake public good research. So AG research can't look
Speaker 5: at for a long term funding. They can do short
Speaker 5: term funding that they can fit in when they have
Speaker 5: a little tiny bit of slack.
Speaker 4: But the idea of.
Speaker 5: Looking at a five year, twenty million dollar project to
Speaker 5: prevent weeds, to look at the basic sides for lots
Speaker 5: of different robotics technologies, or to look at integrated pest
Speaker 5: management for weeds, because they know that there is so much,
Speaker 5: so much herbicide resistance in glyco state, there's increasing herbicide
Speaker 5: resistance and all the other other herbicides. But if they
Speaker 5: were just looking at public good work, they couldn't.
Speaker 4: They've got to have IP at the end of it.
Speaker 5: Similarly, plant and food research, they can't go and look
Speaker 5: at the best nutrition for babies in New Zealand because
Speaker 5: there's no IP. If they start looking at what are
Speaker 5: the optimum levels for B vitamins and A A vitamins
Speaker 5: for adolescents or you know, to stop to prevent mental health,
Speaker 5: they would be outside their funding scrope because there's no
Speaker 5: innovation at the end of it. Because it's a generic
Speaker 5: vitamin or minus. All can't be patented. So then they're
Speaker 5: stuck in this cycle and that's why they end up.
Speaker 5: This is why this is my opinion, is that they
Speaker 5: end up talking about genetics all the time because if
Speaker 5: you gene edit, you can then patent that that knowledge
Speaker 5: and then continue and this is the treadmill that they're
Speaker 5: really on. Doctor Elvira Demesis explained that when you're a
Speaker 5: biotechnology science, it's a very very narrow discipline, so it's
Speaker 5: you can't look out and do basic science in other areas,
Speaker 5: and so that then the more biotech scientists you get
Speaker 5: in for example, at research again you're you're limiting what
Speaker 5: you're then going to apply for funding for. So you
Speaker 5: get this sort of this treadmill of this sort of
Speaker 5: area of science, rather than, for example, if they had
Speaker 5: molecular biologists working there that had a broader scope.
Speaker 2: For example, personal question, this is your specialty, this is
Speaker 2: your dealing with this sort of thing. How difficult was it?
Speaker 2: How different and how difficult might this have been to
Speaker 2: put together? And I'm talking the article that you wrote
Speaker 2: that runs nine pages because of what I conceive as
Speaker 2: a confusion for you. How difficult was it to put
Speaker 2: it all together, to structure it?
Speaker 4: It's really hard. So I'm a sociologist.
Speaker 2: I feel better.
Speaker 4: I do not have a science degree.
Speaker 5: Everything that is a scientific references run past someone with
Speaker 5: a science degree.
Speaker 4: We produced.
Speaker 5: So this is the first paper when powerful agencies hijack
Speaker 5: democratic systems. Part one the case of gene technology regulatory reform.
Speaker 5: That was meant to take a month, It took two
Speaker 5: and a half months. One chapter of that was meant
Speaker 5: to be on science system that turned into a second
Speaker 5: forty to fifty page paper to the case of Science
Speaker 5: System Reform, and these took four months to produce, and
Speaker 5: then this article in the Daily Telegraph has taken about
Speaker 5: a week to two weeks to produce, and of course
Speaker 5: it's come off the back of our presentation to the
Speaker 5: Select Committee, where I only presented really to one Health
Speaker 5: Committee member on this. And you'll be able to find
Speaker 5: all the links on the PSCR dot org dot nz website, and.
Speaker 4: So it is.
Speaker 5: It is really hard because the story of when complex
Speaker 5: systems go awry is normally a very very very difficult
Speaker 5: thing to understand. So when we've we've made the complaint
Speaker 5: to the Ombardsman, PSGR have made the complaint to the Ombardsman,
Speaker 5: and we've said that because we're concerned that the actions
Speaker 5: of MV over time may be contrary to public law,
Speaker 5: they may be found to be unreasonable, unjust and improperly discriminatory,
Speaker 5: and we believe mb was wrong to take on the
Speaker 5: powers of policy and law formulation for this new gene
Speaker 5: technology regulations, for the policy and for the bill. So
Speaker 5: we think what's happened is that they're directly undermining public
Speaker 5: law conventions to get this true and what we think
Speaker 5: that the evidence suggests maladministration, so talking to the complex
Speaker 5: muddle and the mess of all this, and so maladministration
Speaker 5: is conduct which is capable of causing injustice and is
Speaker 5: possibly systemic in that it might foreseeably continue if left unremedied.
Speaker 5: And maladministration has also been referred to as usually something
Speaker 5: short of outright corruption.
Speaker 4: But's still wrong.
Speaker 5: So that extends beyond mere illegality to more generally framed
Speaker 5: allegations of injustice. And here I'm quoting Joseph as well.
Speaker 5: So what we've seen is systemic. We've seen it from
Speaker 5: the creation of the problem definition, we've seen it from
Speaker 5: the absence of using the scientific evidence. We've seen it
Speaker 5: in the minister telling the officials what to do. But
Speaker 5: of course when we complain to the ombardsmen, the ombardsmen
Speaker 5: are saying, well, I can't investigate the actions of officials,
Speaker 5: but there is evidence that ministers, while concerned with policy formulation,
Speaker 5: are not exempt from ombardsman investigations. However, the ombudsman's pretending
Speaker 5: that it can't. You know, the fact that a decision
Speaker 5: is taken by a minister does not mean it is
Speaker 5: a policy decision and immune from Ombudsman investigation. So ministerial
Speaker 5: decisions are matters of administration, So it's the ombudsman wants
Speaker 5: to step back. They want to say there's no personal
Speaker 5: interest in this muddle of fast tracking, this muddle of
Speaker 5: failing to consult with the public, this muddle of not
Speaker 5: doing any scientific risk assessment to understand anything about all
Speaker 5: these GMOs that would be the gene edited organisms, for example,
Speaker 5: and there's many more example. I'm being quite limited just
Speaker 5: talking about gene edited organisms that don't produce proteins because
Speaker 5: it's sort of easier to understand.
Speaker 4: But there's other issues that are sort of ear tag.
Speaker 5: To not be in it, such as SDN derived sort
Speaker 5: of their sort of like blueprints for fast tracking gene editing,
Speaker 5: and Jack Herneman's really good at talking about this, and
Speaker 5: so it's sort of like MBA has said, we're going
Speaker 5: to pretend we're doing the science when we're not because
Speaker 5: they don't actually have the scientific expertise inside mb and
Speaker 5: so what the bill has created is this massive pletuau
Speaker 5: of uncertainty, and that primary Act, the bill that we're
Speaker 5: looking it is just fluid, so it's uncontainable, and good
Speaker 5: legislation is meant to create like a set of rails
Speaker 5: for the officials. But this legislation, because so much is
Speaker 5: outside the regulatory purview, the regulator can't look at that
Speaker 5: stuff that's being structured outside of the legislation. But the
Speaker 5: regulator also won't have inquisitorial powers. They forced the regulator
Speaker 5: to only look at what other regulators are also looking at.
Speaker 5: And so during covert when all the regulators had the
Speaker 5: same lockstep procedure of only really looking at fires or
Speaker 5: whatever fires I wanted to declare, they'd look at and
Speaker 5: then they wouldn't even tell us what they were looking at.
Speaker 5: So we've got this regulatory secrecy that means the regulators
Speaker 5: aren't forced to look at the same the latest scientific
Speaker 5: literature on risk. Whereas at the same time you have
Speaker 5: the hypocrisy where we know that the corporations, the developers
Speaker 5: are going to be they're going to be using artificial
Speaker 5: intelligence to scale up, they're going to be doing everything
Speaker 5: they can to get more and more patents released, to
Speaker 5: get more and more money into that corporation, whereas we
Speaker 5: don't see similar powers of the regulator from conception even
Speaker 5: trying to keep up. And when you're a government regulator.
Speaker 5: As I said before, it's a political space, so they
Speaker 5: are trying to navigate keeping everyone happy. But it's also
Speaker 5: a gray area. So when you know, we could talk
Speaker 5: about fluoride. So when fluoride is toxic to me at
Speaker 5: a certain dose, it's completely different from when it's toxic
Speaker 5: to a five year old at a certain dose. So
Speaker 5: we need to understand that we have different ages where
Speaker 5: we're vulnerable. We're vulnerable, different genes are vulnerable to different
Speaker 5: because they've got different pathways of vulnerability.
Speaker 4: And so regulators need to.
Speaker 5: Be able to be to inquire about all the different
Speaker 5: gray areas that mean that what they're doing is never
Speaker 5: going to be certain.
Speaker 4: It's never going to be one hundred percent.
Speaker 5: Certain, which is why the precaution principle is so important.
Speaker 2: Look, is this so complicated that your average partner is
Speaker 2: never going to come to grips with it.
Speaker 5: The trick about anything that's complicated is to start talking,
Speaker 5: because otherwise it's ta do. Otherwise we're no better than Germany,
Speaker 5: you know, before World War Two, Because and that is
Speaker 5: what censorship does to us. As a sociologist, I've always
Speaker 5: been fascinated by undone science, and I guess the work
Speaker 5: I do with PSA is a lot about learn to
Speaker 5: talk about the things in our society, the man made
Speaker 5: things that we want to use them and not get
Speaker 5: sick from using them, but if they actually do make
Speaker 5: us sick, we've got to have enough of a government
Speaker 5: that has enough of a backbone and enough of the
Speaker 5: enough ethical pathways that it will actually research those technologies
Speaker 5: and make sure that we're safe. So we have to
Speaker 5: because we have to do this for our babies. We
Speaker 5: have to talk do this for our rivers, our drinking water,
Speaker 5: our fresh water. So it's about having that courage around
Speaker 5: the dinner table, you know, you know, at the picnic
Speaker 5: to say, you know what I think. Maybe MR and
Speaker 5: A vaccines aren't safe because we never saw the placebo
Speaker 5: for them. We never saw how it impacted a really
Speaker 5: healthy person, whereas how it impacted a sick person.
Speaker 4: For example, we need.
Speaker 5: Fluoride to be tested by the EPA, not by the
Speaker 5: chief Scientists for the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet,
Speaker 5: who doesn't ever do a methodology and show that it
Speaker 5: was a methods based assessment of fluoride safety. We need
Speaker 5: GMOs to be assessed for safety by an agency that's
Speaker 5: not the agency responsible for economic growth, so we can
Speaker 5: start normalizing that. We can say glat to say has
Speaker 5: been found in all these offshore court cases to cause
Speaker 5: cancer in the people that used glasses regularly. We can
Speaker 5: talk about what evidence came out in the discovery process
Speaker 5: in these court cases. In the rest of the world
Speaker 5: was if we look at our own New Zealand EPA,
Speaker 5: their own methodology document doesn't give them the powers.
Speaker 4: To look at the discovery process.
Speaker 5: It doesn't give them the powers to inquire into the
Speaker 5: latest scientific evidence on whether a chemical might harm a
Speaker 5: hormone or a baby at a certain level that is
Speaker 5: different from what the regulatory science that is supplied by
Speaker 5: the corporations.
Speaker 4: So we have to have to we have to have
Speaker 4: the courage to.
Speaker 5: Think differently and speak differently and recognize that uncertainty or
Speaker 5: caution is something we can all talk about. Well, we
Speaker 5: all know that we don't let the toddler run into
Speaker 5: the ocean because we know that's harmful, so we have.
Speaker 4: But we stopped that.
Speaker 5: But it could be okay, The toddler might be okay.
Speaker 5: But it's that when do we start thinking about risk
Speaker 5: and how we how we i hope. I'm saying this
Speaker 5: reasonably clearly, but that the concept of risk is so
Speaker 5: different for everybody. But we need our scientists to have
Speaker 5: the scientific freedom to be able to understand that.
Speaker 2: Just wrap it up. Do you have a personal opinion
Speaker 2: on this should be prepared to express?
Speaker 5: Well, I guess as the author of the two papers
Speaker 5: I've co authored, the first one the Gene Technology Bill
Speaker 5: one with Elvira Domese. But my personal opinion is that, yeah,
Speaker 5: democracy is being short circuited right now. But my and
Speaker 5: my personal concern is that if the Ombardsman rejects this
Speaker 5: on the basic that there is no personal interest, even
Speaker 5: though all the members of PC are interested in this,
Speaker 5: even though it's very likely that it's in general it's
Speaker 5: of interest to the general public, my opinion is that
Speaker 5: we don't have anywhere else to go. And my opinion
Speaker 5: is starting to be is envy above the law? Is
Speaker 5: the attorney general above the law? That's I'm starting to
Speaker 5: question that, which is the rule of law? Democracy only works.
Speaker 4: The rule of law works. But if we can't actually.
Speaker 5: Explore when ministers short circuit policy because they you know,
Speaker 5: they they're on the direction of the minister, we do
Speaker 5: not consider these options. But you can't investigate the actions
Speaker 5: of those ministers. What do we what are we left with?
Speaker 5: Are we left with the democracy or is it as
Speaker 5: Butler and Parma say, is it just authoritarian?
Speaker 4: Are we we open to the despots?
Speaker 2: I don't know, Well, the despots exist on both sides
Speaker 2: or they can. So it's not it's not picking not
Speaker 2: choosing one team over the other. It's a it's a
Speaker 2: protection factor.
Speaker 5: And so one of the biggest things I would ask
Speaker 5: with this bill is that it's a conscience vote because
Speaker 5: we we're seeing what what control does the party whip
Speaker 5: have over what whoever is and who.
Speaker 4: Is informing the party whip?
Speaker 5: This is this is if this is if we're voting
Speaker 5: in our individual and peace, but they have to vote
Speaker 5: look step by a party with that we don't know
Speaker 5: any that is outside Official Information Act. And then if
Speaker 5: we have the Attorney General with six ministerial hats, who
Speaker 5: only needs to be in cabinet with three other people
Speaker 5: to pass legislation, I mean, the centralization of powers shows
Speaker 5: that New Zealand is extraordinarily vulnerable to not being a democracy.
Speaker 5: And so and we've seen, you know, people stop writing
Speaker 5: blogs recently because they're getting huge pressure from the dominant politically.
Speaker 2: There has to be there has to be some action
Speaker 2: on that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I have I have with PHR.
Speaker 5: I've emailed our most eminent public law this is constitutional
Speaker 5: and administrative law experts, to say, please can you provide
Speaker 5: I'm not a lawyer, I'm associatedogists and I'm trying to
Speaker 5: talk about law and I'm trying to say the Onwardsman
Speaker 5: on behalf of the PSGR.
Speaker 4: Please you need to investigate this. This is a very
Speaker 4: big issue.
Speaker 5: We've documented this in fifty pages, and the Ombardsman's just
Speaker 5: wanting to say, well, it's no personal interest to PSH
Speaker 5: failing to engage with this greatest sort of I would
Speaker 5: say obligation to ensure that MB does not keep doing this.
Speaker 5: And I'm trying to find anyone who has expert expertise
Speaker 5: in constitutional or administrative law to come back and support
Speaker 5: us in communicating and communications with the onwardsman.
Speaker 4: It's I think we're in extraordinarily precarious times.
Speaker 2: Later, well you won't. You won't get much of an
Speaker 2: argument out of me for that. So got to quote
Speaker 2: in conclusion with the paragraphs that you wrote new Zealand's
Speaker 2: mb is silent on what best practic this might mean
Speaker 2: in this rapidly advancing field because they haven't assessed it.
Speaker 2: The regulator and the Enforcement and Monitoring agency lack any
Speaker 2: obligation to keep abreast of industry developments, including the integration
Speaker 2: of artificial intelligence, which will further speed up development and
Speaker 2: release of gene editing technologies and organisms. In this world
Speaker 2: where the science is swiftly advancing, we should be able
Speaker 2: to ask why the case by case approach is currently
Speaker 2: considered to boo An unfortunate conflict of interest in the
Speaker 2: Select Committee process is that the Gene Technology Select Committee
Speaker 2: Report will be overseen and produced by MBIE. Mb letters
Speaker 2: we have written it in our sitting with the Ombudsmen
Speaker 2: of New Zealand. We know that there is a possibility
Speaker 2: that our complaint may be dismissed because firstly MBIE is
Speaker 2: a powerful agency and it will not appreciate being investigated.
Speaker 2: But also because this is a science thing. The science
Speaker 2: thing can boondoggle well meaning MPs and officials. It doesn't
Speaker 2: need to for people who don't have it, who haven't subscribed,
Speaker 2: where will they find this particular article.
Speaker 5: So this article is currently on the day in the
Speaker 5: Daily Telegraph dot co dot MZ. I believe, and it's
Speaker 5: called when the Economic Growth Agency captures biotech regulation.
Speaker 4: A serious question of science.
Speaker 5: And the reason I said a serious question of science
Speaker 5: is because when I was listening to the Oral Select
Speaker 5: Committee processes, all of the MB funded scientists and science
Speaker 5: organizations and the you know, the biotech investors kept talking
Speaker 5: and urging the Oral the Select Committee to be scientific
Speaker 5: and to follow good scientific process. But of course they've
Speaker 5: never declared that the science hadn't been done. So yes,
Speaker 5: So you can find on the Daily Telegraph, but also
Speaker 5: ps gr n Z p s g r n Z
Speaker 5: dot substack dot com.
Speaker 4: You'll find.
Speaker 5: You'll find links to psgr's work. And I think actually
Speaker 5: I may have put the first part first part of
Speaker 5: this article on my own personal substat j R b
Speaker 5: r u n I n g JR running dot substat
Speaker 5: dot com. But that's also you can search for Talking
Speaker 5: Risk on substack and find me Jody.
Speaker 2: We've gone twice the lenks I expected, but it's I
Speaker 2: think it's important, it's necessary, and I want to thank
Speaker 2: you for your time and the more power to more
Speaker 2: power to your work.
Speaker 5: I'm very grateful Laighton and psgr welcomes members associate members,
Speaker 5: members are scientists, members are not scientists. And I just really,
Speaker 5: really I thank you for having a coria because the
Speaker 5: science thing, as you said, it's a science thing that
Speaker 5: actually it's about good process. It's about trust, being trustworthy
Speaker 5: and accountable and fear and that's what democracy is. So
Speaker 5: this is we need to be able to talk about this.
Speaker 5: So I'm so grateful, thank you a pleasure.
Speaker 2: And I might just add, by the way that I've
Speaker 2: had to explain to well, I've tried to explain to
Speaker 2: a lot of people over a period of time that
Speaker 2: you don't have to be an economist to understand economics.
Speaker 2: You don't have or procedure, you don't have to be
Speaker 2: a doctor necessarily or almost anything to be able to
Speaker 2: rationalize your way through to the fact through the fact
Speaker 2: that there is something amiss.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And as we talked about, remember the basic research,
Speaker 5: the basic science is not being funded, so we're ending
Speaker 5: up with lots and lots of technical experts. When you
Speaker 5: have lots and lots of technical experts, they find it
Speaker 5: very hard to join the dots which are political, which
Speaker 5: are ethical, which are legal, which are moral and so
Speaker 5: we actually have to start understanding that science is not
Speaker 5: this ideology that we worship.
Speaker 4: Science.
Speaker 5: To be trustworthy, science must follow good process and it's
Speaker 5: just like democracy. To be trustworthy, it has to be
Speaker 5: transparent and accountable, so people can be curious and they
Speaker 5: can be skeptical. And so you're exactly right late, and thank.
Speaker 2: You framed beautifully, Thank you so much. A podcast five,
Speaker 2: and the mailroom and the missus producer is here and waiting,
Speaker 2: how are you late?
Speaker 4: And I'm great? How are you?
Speaker 2: Will you look great? And if you're great, I'm great.
Speaker 4: That's the way it goes.
Speaker 2: Why don't you go great?
Speaker 4: Start?
Speaker 6: Jackie says, I feel inspired to write and thank you
Speaker 6: for your wonderful interview with doctor Pierre Corey. It fills
Speaker 6: me with hope to know that some of this information
Speaker 6: is starting to see the light of day. Also, latent
Speaker 6: that you crossed over with the link of pattern recognition,
Speaker 6: as you and pet Pierre discussed from climate scam to
Speaker 6: what truly is the COVID scam? I am someone like
Speaker 6: many others for whom the COVID scenario did not make
Speaker 6: any sense. From very early on, I remember watching footage
Speaker 6: of Dr Pierre Corey with his colleagues from the FLCCC.
Speaker 6: That's the Frontline COVID Critical Care Alliance, he says in
Speaker 6: brackets in the early days discussing their ideas and success
Speaker 6: using repurposed alternative treatments using age old trusted medicines like
Speaker 6: hydroxychloricon and ivermectin. How different the worldwide health or outcome
Speaker 6: could have been if only these wonderful experienced doctors were
Speaker 6: not shut down as they were. This also brings to
Speaker 6: my mind to remind you that we in New Zealand
Speaker 6: have our very own team of independent, thinking, courageous doctors
Speaker 6: in the form of nzdsos and Jackie goes on to
Speaker 6: give us a few a few names there. She says
Speaker 6: they have worked tirelessly in a similar way to the
Speaker 6: FLCCZ Alliance, speaking out, documenting, questioning every step of the
Speaker 6: way on behalf of New Zealanders. I know that they
Speaker 6: are currently working extremely hard collating information to be presented
Speaker 6: to the Royal Commission Inquiry Part two at the request
Speaker 6: of the Commission. Their journey must have been very similar
Speaker 6: to that of your guest Dr Cory. I for one,
Speaker 6: feel and debted to them for their efforts, expertise and
Speaker 6: sacrifices on our behalf finally late, and thank you again
Speaker 6: for your wonderful podcast and the opportunity for further discussion
Speaker 6: and thought provoking commentary.
Speaker 4: And that's from Jackie.
Speaker 2: Jackie brilliantly said thank you. Practically every email this week
Speaker 2: was about per Corey, and it's not surprising. I was
Speaker 2: thrilled to receive your podcast interviewing Doctor per Cory this week,
Speaker 2: having read doctor Cory's book, The War on ivermecnan and
Speaker 2: similarly morphing, as did Dr Corey from a vaccine committed
Speaker 2: Old Jeff into a New Jeff. The book was fascinating,
Speaker 2: illuminating and profound. The man, in my opinion, is a
Speaker 2: humanitarian hero, as is a previous interviewee of yours, doctor
Speaker 2: Paul Merrick Layton. The thrust of my email is to
Speaker 2: pose this question. At this stage of the slowly dwindling
Speaker 2: COVID pandemic, there is so much evidence that A mrn
Speaker 2: A vaccines are just plain dangerous and b repurposed cheap
Speaker 2: drugs like ivermectin work. Even if these two assertions are
Speaker 2: not one hundred percent driveable at this point in time,
Speaker 2: then at the very least, there is certainly enough intelligent
Speaker 2: questioning around these matters. So why then, are governments, including
Speaker 2: the New Zealand government, so blithely and casually recommending continued
Speaker 2: COVID jabs? Layton like me, I'll wager you will not
Speaker 2: have another clot shot? Am I right? Best regards, Jeff, Jeff,
Speaker 2: you are correct one hundred percent, Laydon.
Speaker 6: Steve says, thank you for hosting Pierre Corey on the podcast.
Speaker 6: Such a courageous and inspiring man. Though, as you pointed
Speaker 6: out in your conversation with Professor Thomas Barodi way back
Speaker 6: in August twenty twenty, Barodi was ahead of Cory with
Speaker 6: his cocktail of ivermecton, doxy cyclin and zinc. His ideas, however,
Speaker 6: were buried completely by the Australian authorities. What is not
Speaker 6: widely known is that at the time of the first
Speaker 6: SARS outbreak in the early two thousands, the US Defense
Speaker 6: Advanced Research Projects Agency began researching countermeasures for coronaviruses, and
Speaker 6: by twenty sixteen had concluded that ivermectin also, but to
Speaker 6: a lesser extent, hydroxychloroquine, was highly effective against such infections.
Speaker 6: That information was passed on by the way to the CDC.
Speaker 6: Obviously this would have been known to Fauci and all
Speaker 6: those responsible for the global COVID response, including the WHO
Speaker 6: Gates and our own Ashley Bloomfield, but they all deliberately
Speaker 6: suppressed that information and arranged to persecute and prosecute those
Speaker 6: who tried to disclose it to the world. Surely this
Speaker 6: must rank as one of the most evil acts in history.
Speaker 6: Tens of millions of lives would have been saved, and
Speaker 6: there would have been no need for the COVID injections,
Speaker 6: which were, by their very natured delay, deliberately designed two
Speaker 6: cause harm. A COVID awakening is happening slowly.
Speaker 4: Around the world, and there.
Speaker 6: Will be increasing calls for accountability that when the public
Speaker 6: understands quite how deliberately and maliciously i've emecton and hydroxy
Speaker 6: chloroquine were suppressed, it will surely call for the most
Speaker 6: extreme penalties for those responsible.
Speaker 4: And that is from Steve.
Speaker 2: Steve excellent. Now I've got a question for you. How
Speaker 2: is the everyday average well punter, as I say occasionally,
Speaker 2: how are they going to come across that? How are
Speaker 2: they going to find that out? Which media in this country,
Speaker 2: and I mean mainstream media. Which media in this country
Speaker 2: is blowing the trumpet on this? Can you point me
Speaker 2: to one, because I'm unfamiliar with it now. I don't
Speaker 2: spend a lot of time on mainstream media, I must admit,
Speaker 2: so maybe I've missed something. But my guess is that
Speaker 2: much of the mainstream media, if not most of it,
Speaker 2: is more more intent on burying their attitude to it
Speaker 2: at the time and their compliance with the powers that be,
Speaker 2: and they don't particularly want to be, shall we say, exposed.
Speaker 2: There was criminal activity. You're quite right. It is a
Speaker 2: very very evil thing. There was criminal activity, and there
Speaker 2: are people, even in this country, as we've said before,
Speaker 2: and better people than me have said it, who should
Speaker 2: be behind bars. Now. Now this letter asks for anonymity,
Speaker 2: so I don't see why not. Greetings, what's new? Nothing?
Speaker 2: Of course, another simply stunning discussion, this time between you
Speaker 2: and perre Corey. Great to hear him talking with you.
Speaker 2: His protocols have been on my fridge since they first
Speaker 2: came out and have been shared with many, albeit some
Speaker 2: of the medications have been challenging but not impossible to obtain.
Speaker 2: Name withheld. Please if you read this out even now,
Speaker 2: I don't want to drop myself in it. However, his
Speaker 2: protocol and the comments of others Tess Laurie, Peter mccullor,
Speaker 2: a doctor Chetty South Africa, gave me assurance I was
Speaker 2: correct in not taking a drug that had potential heart
Speaker 2: harm and has been proven and admitted. Having had one
Speaker 2: heart attack, I don't want another one. And when my
Speaker 2: longtime doctor would not give advice on boosting my immune
Speaker 2: system instead said get vexed, I lost faith and confidence
Speaker 2: in the industrial medical complex. Go well, keep up the
Speaker 2: good work from anonymous.
Speaker 6: Leyton Trish says after listening to Pierre Corey took about
Speaker 6: the misinformation on the cures for COVID, it reminded me
Speaker 6: of a book I've recently read. It's called Pharma Nomics,
Speaker 6: A real eye opener to the way pharmaceutical companies work.
Speaker 6: The ordinary citizen would be shocked. When did medicine become
Speaker 6: something that was something to be negotiated for the highest
Speaker 6: price and people wonder why it costs so much. It
Speaker 6: is well worth a read. I thoroughly enjoyed Pier Corey
Speaker 6: such enthusiasm and that's from trash.
Speaker 2: The enthusiasm aspect of doctor Corey was mentioned by a
Speaker 2: number of people. Actually it was you know, it was
Speaker 2: actually uplifting. Now, thanks for introducing doctor pier Corey to us.
Speaker 2: His description of the sinister force he faced during COVID
Speaker 2: was chilling when he said, I quote, that was when
Speaker 2: I finally realized I was up against something. I didn't
Speaker 2: know what it was, but it wasn't good, and it
Speaker 2: wasn't scientific, it wasn't humanitarian. I knew there was a
Speaker 2: force that was working against what we were trying to do,
Speaker 2: which has helped people and the world. So I started
Speaker 2: to get the feeling like there was something out there
Speaker 2: that was working against us. That was the first time
Speaker 2: I realized this was not just a scientific argument. Close quote.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if Pierre realized it or not, but
Speaker 2: he had just succinctly described evil and this reality of
Speaker 2: COVID hell was made more jarring in Jasindra Dern's recent
Speaker 2: self worshiping Yale speech about herself and her own leadership.
Speaker 2: I have never heard so much self delusional tripe like this.
Speaker 2: I can't believe she actually said, I'm proud that our
Speaker 2: approach to COVID saved and estimated twenty thousand lives. Then
Speaker 2: she spews a full Kamala Harris word salad, saying, right now,
Speaker 2: we need the power of your impostor syndrome. I don't
Speaker 2: get that, but I'll stay with it because I don't Ptoine.
Speaker 2: Right now, we need the power of your impostor syndrome
Speaker 2: because it's also your curiosity and your humility. We need
Speaker 2: your sensitivity because it's also your kindness and your empathy.
Speaker 2: I see what you mean about the word salad. What
Speaker 2: the hell is that? He says. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson reported a different story in Spectator Australia is
Speaker 2: saying to Kiwi's Addern's legacy is not one of kindness
Speaker 2: and empathy. On top of the heartlessness of the COVID years,
Speaker 2: it is one of a significant increase in national debt
Speaker 2: forty seven percent of GDP according to IMF figures, up
Speaker 2: from the low thirties in twenty eighteen. Recessions and economic malays.
Speaker 2: One thing I do agree with adern though. The world
Speaker 2: has indeed become a dumpster fire because delusional, narcissistic communist
Speaker 2: leaders like herself keep committing political arson. More Doctor Pierre
Speaker 2: Corey's fewer to Sinda Aderns, please thank you now just
Speaker 2: one word. I don't disagree with anything that you said,
Speaker 2: and more and more people are coming to realize the
Speaker 2: correctness of it. As for Michael Jackson, I'm in touch
Speaker 2: with him at the moment, and we'll have him on
Speaker 2: the podcast in a week or two, is my anticipation,
Speaker 2: Missus Producer. That's it, lovely, Later, we've got I think
Speaker 2: we've got a few more for next week if we
Speaker 2: need them. All work. Thanks, thanks, thank you to see
Speaker 2: you then.
Speaker 4: Bie.
Speaker 2: Now, before we go, some comments on Joe Biden and
Speaker 2: his prostate cancer. And I make these comments at this
Speaker 2: point anyway, because most of you know that I got
Speaker 2: diagnosed with prostate cancer and had my prostate out something
Speaker 2: like twenty three years ago. Gosh, is it really that long? Anyway,
Speaker 2: I have a vested interest in it, So let me
Speaker 2: refer to let me refer to some commentary.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: First of all, my thought. The first thing that I
Speaker 2: said to Missus Producer when the announcement was my well
Speaker 2: she told me when the announcement was made was that
Speaker 2: he's had this for a long time. There's nothing new,
Speaker 2: It's just another thing that's been hidden from the public.
Speaker 2: That was my thought immediately. It's my thought now. Apart
Speaker 2: from that. I've garnered some commentary from some American commentators
Speaker 2: as it happened, starting with Kurt Schlichter, who was on
Speaker 2: the podcast a few weeks ago. And I love his
Speaker 2: work because he's brutal, or he's prepared to be brutal
Speaker 2: when it's appropriate, and I think this particular situation calls
Speaker 2: for it. He covers it, so I'm not going to
Speaker 2: try except to quote him. What a remarkable coincidence that
Speaker 2: Joe Biden's wranglers discovered that he had cancer right in
Speaker 2: the middle of the revelations about how he was totally senile,
Speaker 2: and everyone around him, including his very real doctor wife,
Speaker 2: covered it up. Yeah right, his puppet masters knew even
Speaker 2: if that human Router barger a spell it for you,
Speaker 2: r U t ab A. In fact, let me pause
Speaker 2: here for a moment and check it. Check its meaning. Well,
Speaker 2: we learned something every day. Rutter Barger is a Swedish vegetable.
Speaker 2: And I don't know to who he is referring. Is
Speaker 2: his wife got Swedish blood? I don't know. Doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: Stage four prostate cancer does not sneak up on you.
Speaker 2: It's easy to detect. I know my PSA, he says,
Speaker 2: it's zero point zero seven. I got a tested a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks ago. I get a tested every year.
Speaker 2: Weird that I have better medical care than the president
Speaker 2: of the United States, Right, But you don't believe that.
Speaker 2: And I don't believe that the hacks, the frauds, and
Speaker 2: Charlatan's demanding that you believed that, certainly don't believe it.
Speaker 2: There are two categories of people who heard the news
Speaker 2: and immediately told us that we need to slow our
Speaker 2: role on demanding accountability for the rudderless presidency in solemn
Speaker 2: deference to the ultra convenient revelation. The first kind are
Speaker 2: nice people, too nice. Some are serial Fredricon invertebrates who
Speaker 2: always counsel weakness, submission, and silence. Some believe Christian charity
Speaker 2: requires not any prayers for him and his family, but
Speaker 2: a free pass on this massive wrongdoing for everyone involved.
Speaker 2: Others have an understandable sensitivity to the subject because they
Speaker 2: had family members who suffered the same terrible illness that
Speaker 2: Joe Biden has been revealed to have, Even though everybody
Speaker 2: around him must have known he had it four years
Speaker 2: and simply lied to cover it up. Now let me
Speaker 2: cut to the end. But but, but, but but you're
Speaker 2: picking on a guy with a stutter who has prostate cancer. Well,
Speaker 2: the fake fussy pearl clutching over us being meanies isn't
Speaker 2: going to work anymore. I, for one, remember their grave disappointment.
Speaker 2: This is some sarcasm. I for one remembered their grave
Speaker 2: disappointment when Donald Trump was almost murdered and when an
Speaker 2: innocent man was Just the other day, I stumbled on
Speaker 2: a Twitter thread of leftist morons explaining how the whole
Speaker 2: Butler shooting thing was a giant head fake, designed to
Speaker 2: do something because of reasons and shut up your all
Speaker 2: racists and literally Hitler. If Trump got a prostate cancer diagnosis,
Speaker 2: every Blue state and Ivy League college campus will declare
Speaker 2: a holiday. The difference is that we're not celebrating his disease.
Speaker 2: We're just not granting a blanket pardon because of it.
Speaker 2: And that's what it boils down to. Now, just quickly,
Speaker 2: I refer to another another piece that goes thus, Several
Speaker 2: physicians and experts took to Twitter to cast dispersion, stating
Speaker 2: that the timing of the announcement, as well as the
Speaker 2: seriousness of the diagnosis of the former president simply didn't
Speaker 2: add up. They weren't swallowing the official story coming from
Speaker 2: a politician, hook line and sinker, as they may have
Speaker 2: done in the past. How could an easily detectable and
Speaker 2: treatable form of cancer reach such a grave state without
Speaker 2: anyone catching it in the most medically monitored human on
Speaker 2: the planet. Even CNN wasn't buying it as they broke
Speaker 2: into immediate coverage. Doc brambab speculated that Biden perhaps was
Speaker 2: seeking treatment in secret and the hormone treatments may have
Speaker 2: contributed to his cognitive to climb. Cancer expert doctor Stephen
Speaker 2: Key also wrote, this is the commentary I first read. Actually,
Speaker 2: Doctor Stephen Key quay that it's highly likely Biden's cancer
Speaker 2: diagnosis came sometime during the duration of his term, and
Speaker 2: even possibly at the beginning or even before. The highest
Speaker 2: probability is that the diagnosis has been known for many years,
Speaker 2: but a calculated decision was made to not announce it,
Speaker 2: not treat it, and hope after the re election the
Speaker 2: treatment could be done when it was still a local disease.
Speaker 2: An unfortunate turn of events, he wrote, and I think finally,
Speaker 2: Nick Mark, a medical practitioner, wrote on Twitter, as someone
Speaker 2: who follows presidential health reporting, I noticed something odd. Unlike
Speaker 2: his predecessors, Biden's physicians never reported PSA aha, and he
Speaker 2: included an extensive thread showing that not taking or reporting
Speaker 2: a PSA test for a president is rare. What's more,
Speaker 2: journalists up to swallowing whatever story is fed to them
Speaker 2: by the former president's aides took to promoting skeptical experts
Speaker 2: of the former president's sudden diagnosis. Whether it's the medical
Speaker 2: fought out from heavy handed pandemic policy, there is a
Speaker 2: welcome dose of skepticism coming from a community that has
Speaker 2: been in dire need of thought reform. Would things be
Speaker 2: different if Joe Biden was still the president we were
Speaker 2: all all taking his doctor's word at face value. Maybe,
Speaker 2: But thanks to medical experts openly questioning, this new Biden
Speaker 2: diagnosis after ignoring his decline for so long is a
Speaker 2: welcome change, and we should hope that it continues. Concluding
Speaker 2: with trust, the science is no longer good enough, and
Speaker 2: it certainly should not be good enough for the ongoing
Speaker 2: cover up of the former president's health one of the
Speaker 2: most abused phrases. I think in the last well at
Speaker 2: least decade, if not longer, trust the science skepticism is necessary.
Speaker 2: So that will take us out for podcasts number two
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty five and if you'd like to comment
Speaker 2: latent at newstalksb dot co dot nz or Carolyn with
Speaker 2: a y at newstalksb dot co dot nz. We shall
Speaker 2: return in a few days with podcast two eight six.
Speaker 2: Until then, as always, thank you for listening and we'll
Speaker 2: talk soon.
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