New Zealand Government Covid 'Experts': Snapshots of their Meetings

A quick look at some of what is recorded in minutes of meetings behind closed doors at the Beehive in 2021

The New Zealand Covid19 Technical Advisory Group and the associated ‘Covid19 Vaccine and Immunisation Programme Steering Group’ meetings happened regularly (weekly/fortnightly) at the height of the craziness (2020-2021). Let’s look at who these people were and some of what they discussed.

The daily ‘briefings’ from (now, Sir) Ashley Bloomfield, then-Director General for Health, were apparently founded upon the outcomes from those regular meetings. They were often chaired by Sir Ashley himself, and members attending were senior in the various NZ Gov Covid ‘response’: Covid-19 Vaccine and Immunisation Programme ‘National Director’ Ms Jo Gibbs, (Dr) Caroline McElney, Dr Ian Town, Wendy Illingworth, Astrid Koorneef and many others from within Gov and externals.

Strangely enough, the central protagonists named above seem to dominate the content, with very little if anything noted in the minutes as being sourced from the many others present.

Some of the documents related to these meetings are available here. But let me warn you, the minutes are poorly written (the staff are unlike to have received any training in this skill - or maybe have been skilled in deliberately being bad at it). And it is little surprise that some of what is discussed, because it is shortened and misses context, is utterly meaningless. (Perhaps even to the people who were there at the time).

But two things stick out to me when reading through these sad records:

• The repeated self-congratulations around the table about the wonderful jobs they are all doing and the long hours they are all working;

  and,

• The complete lack of any ethical considerations in the highly unethical and subjective claims these people are making.

It is interesting to see that, as page 12 of this pdf from an OIA tells us, as early as Sept 7th 2021, there was an underlying assumption that jab mandates were going to be enforced:

Earlier records suggest the Committee’s “Coms Team’ included liaisons with the Behavioural Insights Team - that’s the UK Nudge Unit that I’ve written about before. Reading through these meeting minutes we can see how the individuals grow an awareness of their power over changing the public’s perceptions. For example, already strategic meetings were arranged between Ministers, Unions and other representatives of the larger commercial companies in New Zealand. I can say with some confidence now, that at that stage, staff were unaware of their own Union’s liaisons and plans to sabotage their roles.

There were Government-initiated ‘pilot’ schemes involving staff interventions with dairy giant Fonterra, and transport giant Mainfreight (more on that another day). And other types of Gov arrangements with commerce, including the cheap-as-chips out-of-town retailer, The Warehouse.

Specifically, The Warehouse is noted in the below extract from minutes as achieving brownie points with Sir Ashley because they played the Government’s fear-mongering covid pro-jab adverts on constant repeat on their in-store pseudo-radio station. This behavioural science strategy, of playing nauseating subliminal messaging, along with those stupid yellow circles on the floor, was likely a very effective strategy to win some people over.

Take from Page 12 of these Meeting Minutes via OIA release

Let’s not forget that despite claiming there would be no mandates, it wasn’t long before Jabcinda agreed that a two-tier Kiwi society of jabbed and unjabbed is “Yup, yup, exactly what it is”:

(I still find it strange that the interviewer didn’t gasp at those words).

The month following their mention in these minutes, by Nov 2021, The Warehouse Group announced all staff had to be ‘vaccinated’ to keep their jobs, after a $100 incentive had failed to capture everyone’s attention. [Personally, like many such stores in NZ, for 3 years I have boycotted all branches of The Warehouse since their policy decision to discriminate not only their staff, but also their customers.]

The Warehouse were also providing sugary incentives for the Government’s pro-jab obsession and supporting the cringeworthy Super Saturday jab-a-thon event that I mentioned last week:

Karma led to The Warehouse having to repay $68m in covid subsidies.

Meeting attendees were told the ‘unvaccinated’ would be re-labelled as ‘vulnerable’ in the Coms instructions, because in this way the group were to be seen as weak and uneducated. And still the theme throughout the meetings seemed to be that exemptions of any kind, even when someone had suffered a serious adverse reaction to the first injection, were somehow not only ‘unnecessary’ but also could potentially be ‘fraudulent’:

Then there’s this statement from Chief Science Advisor, Dr Ian Town, claiming that apparently there “aren’t many grounds” for exemptions from the jab mandates (no, not even if you have had a serious adverse reaction to a previous dose). And teenagers were next on his hit list, despite the lack of scientific evidence to support this:

You’ll be totally reassured by this 2 min clip from Dr Town himself, explaining how fabulously safe and effective the Pfizer mRNA jabs are:

And here, on 14th Sept, the Covid-19 Vaccine and Immunisation Programme ‘National Director’, Ms Jo Gibbs claimed that “the modelling needs to be clear” if we the public want to “enjoy things and have no restrictions” [like attending a funeral, or going to visit a relative in hospital, Jo?] … then we need to be ‘vaccinated’. Not only that, but she said in terms of addressing those pesky ‘hard to reach’ younger people (18-40 year olds) still unjabbed, apparently “nothing is off the table.” (The mind boggles - how did other attendees react to this statement, nervous laughter perhaps)?

Overall, these records will form something for the future accountability that must come, when all this fraud is exposed. But already I am seeing some people back-pedalling, apologising, or being scrubbed from the Internet completely. Let’s see how this plays out for these people in the coming few months. I have a feeling there maybe some drama.