Nothing to say, yet
Transcription
In this conversation, the speakers discuss an interview that was taken down and reposted on a Facebook page called Elodio World. They also talk about the English Civil War and how the end of the kings should have been the end of the divine right of kings. However, people still believe in this concept. They mention research done on Acts of Charles II and how history has been hidden since 1649. They also discuss the legality of the Australian Taxation Office and how it may not exist. They question the validity of laws and orders in New Zealand since 1986. They mention an interview with Sian Elias and Geoffrey Palmer discussing the crown and the Queen's role in law. The speakers suggest challenging the legality of the Firearms Act and question the interpretation of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I was just listening to your interview, Liz, with Miles, god, really good interview. Oh right, yes, I came over, yeah. Yeah, really good interview. I've posted that in Elodio World. Oh good, thank you. And I'll share it around as well. Yes, he took it down because it wasn't what I'd said, it was something he said about a friend and she didn't want it in. Oh, did he get that bit out? Yeah, apparently so. Yes, I made it about two weeks ago. Well, he made it about two weeks ago. No, you're good. I mean, he sort of interrupted too much for my liking. No, everybody says things. Just let you talk, yeah. You know, it sometimes seems like I like to say it in my own voice, but I quite like to talk to people. I don't mind being interviewed. It can be very distracting, you know, you get going on a path. On a call. Yes, that can be, because you'll lose it and go on to something else. Yeah, I think that's what people find difficult. If you go to, where's the interview? There's a page on Facebook called Elodio World. I'll grab it for you. Oh, thank you. I'll post it in here as well. I only just put it on Elodio World just two minutes ago. Oh, fantastic. Because I was busy watching it and then I thought, oh, we'll be able to post it. Yeah, well, my friend in the UK, I don't know how it happened that we started talking about the English Civil War. And one of the things that I found very interesting about it was that King Charles I had actually had his head cut off. That should have been the end of it, right? That should have been the end of the kings. Because, you know, basically it was the end of what was called the divine right of kings. And that was a very important concept. But the thing is, people still think it still exists. And since I've done this interview, Karen and I have done some more research. Well, she has in the UK and has had a look at what happened. I was always wondering, how did Charles II get restored after that? Because it seemed like that should have been the end of it. And sure enough, she found the 1649 Act that said no more kings, to crown another king was treason. And then I did this interview, and it's quite long, it's about an hour and a half. And we were talking about various things. And one of the questions is, well, how is it that, you know, it's all been forgotten, etc.? What she's found in the last week or so is Acts of Charles II. And basically, what was told to the people was that what was called the interregnum was to be legally forgotten. So that means that it was never taught in law school. History was told to be forgotten. You can imagine 300 years ago, right? A lot of the people didn't read and write in England at that time, but a lot did. But, you know, a generation or two, and things can be... I mean, look at the state of our history. In 40 years, it's just about being reversed. A whole lot of bullshit is told in school. Well, they weren't allowed to teach it in law school, obviously, about anything that happened, about any of the laws. Because there were 10 years of lawmaking. They got rid of the House of Lords. They got rid of what were called the ecclesiastical lords. So you had some parts of the House of Lords who were there because they were ministers of the Church of England, I suppose. And they had special courts. Those got abolished. You had many, many of the lands that the king had taken. Well, all of his lands, basically. All of the lands that had been basically stolen from the people over the years had been taken and sold to pay the army, etc. And all of this has been what's called legally hidden since 1649. So that is well. I think I just got that recording from Miles because he had taken it down. He died of depression, maybe. Probably poisoned or something. Absolute chicanery. But what was very, very important was the fact of 1649 and the end of that line of kings was that there was an act put in place that made it treasonous. To proclaim a king. So you couldn't actually put a king in place and bring it back. You couldn't bring a king back because the very bringing back has to be signed off. And any act of Parliament now is signed off by the head of state. Now, this is what I want to talk to you a little bit about. The title of tonight's Zoom. The fact that the tyranny is voluntary. We'll get on to about. Good evening, Kevin. We'll get on to the news we had from Australia in a minute. But just getting back to this very mysterious six and six capital A of the Imperial Laws Application Act 1988. I have looked at it a number of times. It seems to be really that the sovereign and the Privy Council, obviously in England. Whoever is the sovereign, Charles III, I don't know how much longer he'll be about once the English get their act together. He can make laws for the Privy Council, which is kind of like private council. That's what Privy Council means. So his private council of advisors, he can make laws for them. And then there's this other thing in section six that says that the sovereign and right of New Zealand can, with the advice of the Executive Council, which, you know, is who? Are they? Do they mean executive by that? Can put their signature to secondary legislation. So when you look at it as a whole, and this is what we're going to be testing in court. Does that mean that since 1988, there has been no need? Sorry, not no need. There has been no royal assent. Because there is no place for it in section six of the Imperial Laws Application Act. We're talking about laws made in England that affect imperial laws that are parts of the Act of New Zealand. One of them would have been the succession. I think it's called the oath of succession or the agreement about the succession. There would be no Roman Catholics in the crown. Right. That got changed in England and it got changed here. So that was one of the imperial acts. It's still it's part of the 1688 Imperial Laws Application Act. It's which is in Schedule 1 of the Act. OK, the 1688 Act. So they can make changes to imperial law in England that changes here. The only thing that seems to be left for the Governor-General to do is to make orders in council and secondary legislation with the support of this thing called the Sovereign and Right of New Zealand. Now, who is the Sovereign and Right of New Zealand? It's obviously somebody different from the Sovereign in England. Right. So how are we going to test it is a little bit interesting. Right. I had a I happened to talk to someone fairly early this morning. And I didn't realise that they were saying that there was a court case going on today. And this person who was in the court case is going to be a member, is joining up as a member. And this is how we're going to deal with it. Right. So this is to do with the Midwifery Council. So the Midwifery Council, as we know, I've got three midwives who are members. And we're taking a case against their employer, Nga Hau Birthing Centre. And that hasn't that hasn't happened yet. However, apparently the Ministry of Health has been pursuing this particular midwife in the district court under a criminal charge of practicing without a practicing midwifery. Without a without a practicing certificate or I'm not sure of the exact charge yet. I haven't got it completely right yet. But without an APC. I'm not sure what she says. It's curious how right it is. Yeah. OK. OK. So I was saying to this woman when we had a talk, we're going to go, we'll go for a strikeout. Right. And I haven't even sort of thought it through. But what we'll do is the union will take it. We'll take it as a strikeout, as that is not. You've all heard the word jurisdiction, which is the noun. OK. Have you got the thing? Have you got jurisdiction? Have you got the right to hear this? There's also another word, which is an adjective called justiciable. OK. Is it justiciable? I don't believe it's justiciable by the district court. It should be in the employment areas. Right. It should be in the authority because they have what's called sole and exclusive jurisdiction, which means other courts butt out. Now, I told our friend at about 8 o'clock this morning, at about 10 o'clock, I got a tape recorder. I got a recording on the phone and there's people in court and my name's being mentioned. So she was in court telling the judge, Ms Lambert, she's an employment lawyer and she says you haven't got jurisdiction. Oh, my goodness. And the judge was saying, it was quite upset with her and was saying, it's up to the court to say that. Because what I actually said was, of course, these matters have to be heard in court, meaning the right court. OK. So I'm saying that taking them into the district court is, you know, we're going to have a go at getting it struck out. But, of course, it then sort of, my name got bandied about for telling the district court. So anyway, it's set down for the 1st of September. So what we're going to do is we're going to base it possibly on, start talking about what the courts have actually, sorry, what the orders, how the orders came into being. As we know, the orders were all supposed to be secondary legislation that were signed off by the Governor General in council. None of that happened. We also know from section 6 capital A2 that for the purpose that all of the secondary legislation is supposed to be for the purposes of the Legislation Act 2019, you've got to see the publication requirements. And here we go again back to the New Zealand Gazette. That is a lovely segue into the news that we got this morning from Australia. It's been a fantastic start to the day. Someone sent me, have you got a copy of that one there, that posting? You're muted at the moment. Oops. I'll just go grab it. Okay. So there's great ructions happening in South Australia and it's in the realm of tax law or tax non-law or voluntary taxation, right? Now, we know that taxation is voluntary because we've seen it a few times, but the IOD always throws up their hands and says, no, no, no, no, you've got to abide by the statutes and all of this stuff. Now, put in a nutshell, the Australians have got a group called Australian Tax Investigation, I think the group's called. So they decided to find out the genesis of the Australian Tax Office, the Institute of Taxation Research. Thank you. Oh, here we are. Now, can we get it up as, have you got it in the chat, have you? Yep, it's in the chat. I'll have a look at the chat and I'll read it out and we'll examine it. Right. Here we go. And this is all about delegations and gazettes and all that lovely stuff that we're so familiar with. Right. I'll just get it to the top here. OK. Breaking news. The ITR, Institute of Taxation Research, has now received irrefutable proof through an exhaustive Freedom of Information Act search that the Australian Taxation Office was never officially gazetted in 1973 at its formation. Legally, therefore, the ATO does not exist. A barrister in Sydney presented this information to a judicial registrar who was hearing a liquidation proceeding. Because, of course, the taxation office is always wanting to liquidate people and take their money, all sorts of ways. When you're down, they give you a couple of extra kicks, right? A liquidation proceeding. The registrar adjourned the case immediately after appearing visibly shaken. Only a matter of hours later, an airline pilot who was in the federal court in Melbourne against the ATO, was contacted by solicitors representing that august body and informed that they were not proceeding with the case. I wonder why. A quote from an earlier FOI Act request. They probably mean a, you know, they put FOI, but it's actually official. It's called AOI, I see it. Informed that they were not proceeding. An earlier FOI Act request asking for certified copies of documents that established the Australian Taxation Office. In response, Mr. R.J. Tompkins, ATO solicitor, reports, with regard to the creation of the Australian Taxation Office, ATO, I was able to ascertain that the ATO was created as a branch of the Commonwealth Public Service by an executive instrument in 1973. Officers of the Commonwealth Public Service are assigned to the ATO, and the Commissioner of Taxation is put in charge of those offices by Section 25.4 of the Public Service Act 1922. An extensive search of ATO library and records management systems failed to identify any document relevant to this part of your request. Similarly, so this is what's coming from the solicitor. Similarly, inquiries to the Commissioner's Office, People and Structures Branch, and Delegations and Authorizations Officer, and the Parliamentary Business Unit did not identify any document. On the advice of the Australian Government Solicitor's Office, I contacted the Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor-General in an attempt to identify and obtain a copy of the executive instrument. This office referred me to the Federal Executive Council, who then suggested I contact Australian Archives. A detailed search of all offices failed to locate the relevant document. Accordingly, this is the solicitor, I am obliged in terms of Section 24A of the Act to deny access to this part of your application on the grounds that I was not able to locate the requested document. It was from this official FOI Act request that the ITR, now this is going back to them again, was eventually able to identify that the ATO, the Australian Tax Office, was never legally formed, and therefore has been illegally eliciting taxes since its formation. The ITR takes the view that all the tax laws in the country are illegal anyway, under an illegal constitution, and that therefore taxes are voluntary. Now I think the reason why he says it's an illegal constitution is because it's set up with the Crown in place. The constitutions do not have crowns, OK, because there has been no crown legally in place since 1649. Exactly, Jessie. And it's all been covered. OK, so of course we can, Aunty Jessie. OK, of course we can use it. They've been hiding this fact, and it looks like ours would have had to have been, because they use the same administrative system all of the time, ours would have had to have been gazetted in the New Zealand Gazette. Now I'm not going to call them the government anymore, I'm just going to call them the administrators, OK? The administrators, because this is where we get back to again. In the actual letter that I wrote to, she was Governor-General Patsy Reddy at the time, at the time Kelvin and I did the move on New Freeland on the Able Tasman National Park, one of the four cases that I put before them about Elodio was the extensive investigation Chief Justice at the time, Chief Justice Sian Elias had done, which showed that, in actual fact, all British, all Crowns, all the acts of the Crown, all of the setting up of government, if you like, in each country, has been administration only. They have no rights over land, because, of course, you couldn't go declaring the Queen is owning this place when you didn't have a Queen, or you didn't have a King. And you couldn't go giving somebody a trading flag in the name of the Prince of, what was it, William IV, OK? Because William IV was a traitor to the English people. They took back all of the freedom that the English people had won in the English Civil War. OK? So, very, very interesting day. We're going to be able to talk about what sort of, and I think it's going to open up for us, the ability to question, in the district court as well, the validity of the acts, you know, not the acts, the orders. And even if, I mean, because we found out that the Governor-General did not make any orders in Council that allowed any of these. And now it looks like, looking at Section 6 and Section 6A, especially Section 6, that the Governor-General hasn't actually, there's been no Royal Assents to any, even to the Acts of Parliament since 1986. But there have been, if you look at the Government website and you look at the explanation of what secondary legislation is, they say something like about 95% of all of the legislation in New Zealand is secondary legislation. So, they've really been playing us for a fool since 1986, I would say, 1986, yeah. Because at that time, the Governor-General should have retired. It should have been, you shouldn't have had government opened and closed by the Governor-General. You shouldn't have had any group of politicians calling themselves political parties going and asking the Governor-General if they could form a government, et cetera, et cetera. We have been legally free since 1986. And all of this stuff about orders, et cetera, was the Administration playing us for fools. Also, Tracey B says, don't forget the interview of Elsie suggesting Andrew Costa for being crowned in right of New Zealand. Oh, Elsie. This is, Elsie is, I don't know why you call her Elsie, this is Sian Elias. There's this interview, right, and it's a transcript of them talking because the ums and ahs are in there as well. Somebody must have got around to interviewing Sian Elias and Geoffrey Palmer back in the day about the crown, because as I've said a number of times before, the crown is such a mysterious body, right. So Sian Elias got around to suggesting that Andrew Costa might be the candidate to be the crown in right of New Zealand and head of the executive branch, right. Now, that's rather novel. Geoffrey Palmer is even more pompous and stupid. He is supposed to be the big constitutional lawyer, big cheese constitutional lawyer in New Zealand. He seems to be of the view, probably because they don't know about 1649, that the Queen is the source of all law. This, of course, was back before she died. Didn't make any difference anyway, dead or alive, it's all rubbish. But yeah, so Geoffrey Palmer, obviously, has made huge amounts of money and he's very, very like, and they are very, very like those weavers, you know, in the story of the Empress New Clothes. Weaving fantastic garments out of nothing and clothing the crown with these gorgeous sounding titles and, you know, glorious this and fabulous that and source and fountainhead. That's what he said, not the source of law, the fountainhead of law. The Queen, Elizabeth II, fountainhead. Well, he didn't say Elizabeth II, he said the Queen is the fountainhead of law. Never heard, obviously, of the divine right of kings being swept away by the English Civil War. That's what it was fought over. Right. So does that mean a new firearms? I think, Michael, it needs to be challenged on looking at Section 6A. If they've got the Firearms Act, if it says it's got royal assent, I think it needs to be questioned in terms of Section 6. It really does. Also, our Constitution, which is based, as I've said all of the time, going back to, starting in 1275, takes us back to, you know, all equal under God. No one above the law, you know. 1688 modified it by making sure that the courts, the Parliament and everybody was under the law. And we can see it, of course, when we look at Section 3 of the Bill of Rights Act of New Zealand. New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, Section 3, all of the who's bound, bound, thinking bound. Okay. Bound means like bound and shackled. Right. It means kept in one place. Can't do much. Right. But we just didn't really know what these things meant because we didn't understand the language. Right. And the lawyers who, you know, got taught in law school got rushed through it in about three months flat. And it was the most important thing of all because it really should have been, we should have spent a year in understanding about what the basis of our law today is and where it came from and everything like that. But all the political correctness and I think the puzzlement really in the end of the law, of the law schools and everything about what was going on. But in actual fact, if you wanted to find out why the Crown seemed to have so much power and all of that, then it would have been fairly easy to actually do a bit of a search. And find out, you know, what, how legally did Charles II get restored? Right. Well, that is the answer. And yeah. And even in his own so-called Act, Acts of the Realm of 1661, it says that that was to be legally forgotten. The interregnum was to be legally forgotten. So there we are. So lots of fun things ahead. And the firearms act, the taxation, you know, people can, when they refuse to pay rates or taxes, they need to be quoting. We're going to have to try and find a way to put it into some sort of simpler form, I suppose. But certainly the questions need to be, the questions need to be asked in the courts. The judge this morning was correct. What Liz Lambert says about anything is nothing until the courts decide on it. I have to, I respect the courts. I say everybody's, oh, thank you. There's the ordinances, Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum. OK. So, yeah, always get your day in court. Get your day in court. Oh, they're very, yeah, don't file tax returns. That's been, that's actually been voluntary, definitely voluntary since, I don't know, many years now. It's back in the 90s, I think they said. You know, if you're an individual taxpayer, don't bother. We've got it sorted with the PAYE. Oh, the PAYE. Oh, yeah, that'll be interesting to see where the executive order was that brought in the PAYE. But even if it was, even if it was, even if the Governor-General in every case has been signing off Acts of Parliament, they've always been wrong historically. But you can see with the 1988 Imperial Laws Occupation Act, Section 6, that it appears under Section 6 that she can only have a hand in what's called secondary legislation. Nothing about signing off Acts of Parliament. OK, Parliament's not even mentioned. It's all about, it's all about the sovereign and right of New Zealand and the Executive Council and the Sovereign and the Privy Council, which I think must be two different bodies. So what about GST for companies? No. No. And the thing is, if you're not going to pay businesses, if you're not going to pay business tax, because that's voluntary, obviously, you've just been used as tax collectors for the state, then you shouldn't charge GST because you're supposed to be gathering that. GST is being tax collectors for the state. It's really obvious because you have to hand it over. You just keep the balance in between. Well, it's not the balance in between, is it? If you collect more GST than you pay, you have to pay that balance, right? If you collect the same amounts, right, if your GST balance is out, then there's no return of GST. But if you collect more than you're paying, then you have to pay, right? But the thing is that all it is, is tax collecting. It's, but it's very, the corporates love it because they get to keep it for a month. And if you've got, you know, millions and millions of GST receipts in your bank account, you can invest that and make money on it. And then you just keep the, you know, whatever you've made on the investment and pay the rest off to IRD. The IRD always hunt people for offshore money coming into New Zealand, even though they cash it via exchange rates here. The IRD offshore money, yeah. Well, I told you about, what did I tell you about the, I think I, it's on one of the interviews I've done somewhere about testing how IRD takes the, what's called the residence withholding tax. So I tested the system by writing cheques for millions of dollars and putting them through the system. This was in the, you know, before they stopped people writing cheques, just to test it, just to test what happened. And sure enough, you write a cheque for $7 million, which you can't do anymore, of course, and put it into the system. It generates a whole lot of interest, depending on the cash exchange rate, the official exchange rate. Yeah, they've got a, they've got a big site. Yes. Right. So, yeah, there's, it's a funny little recording. It's going to be interesting to go to the, because we'll go as a union. We'll write up the, probably won't appear in court, write up the, write up the strikeout application in the name of the union. I was just, I was just having a look through the Gazette, Liz, to see, there's a few notices way back about who has to, who has to pay tax. So they kind of make it sound on there like, yeah, everybody has to pay tax. So I guess it's a matter of finding the documents to back that up, eh, I guess. Yeah, well, Kelvin has some interesting stuff on it. You know, I mean, there is, there's statements, they don't make that statement much anymore, you know. What did they say? Yes, it's voluntary, but we just, you know, trust you to do it. That's, that's what we mean by voluntary. But you do because of the tax laws of New Zealand. But, you know, they've been, they've had to run with this idea that there's got to be royal assent to acts of Parliament. Doesn't look like there has been since 1986, right? They had to keep up that front, though. Okay. Is that why they got rid of Chex? Yes, Michael. I had a friend who had a friend, and I'm here to you. It wasn't just hearsay. She worked for the ANZ. And she said, when I, when we were talking about it, she said, oh, she did. We had this visit from, from TOPS, you know, we were told, do not take any more Chex. Okay, do not, any big amounts of money, do not put them through the system. Okay. And big business still uses letter of credit, letters of credit, which is basically a cheque. So obviously the big boys are still allowed to do it, but we're not. Yeah, well, those letters of credit are basically, yeah, they're big letters of credit. And, you know, this is, this is, we don't want to bring down the, because those letters of credit are based on real, are based on real, you know, they're backed up by real value. I mean, if you're trading overseas and you want to buy something, you can't go sending them New Zealand dollars. So you just get a letter of credit, right? That you say, yes, I have this, you know, I have these goods here and they're worth this much and you pay me and I'll send them, you know. So I'm not saying, you know, I'm not looking to bring down commerce, but what I am saying is that they use this commerce, this idea of commerce to just beat you about the head with and turn you into slaves, you know. Yeah, when in actual fact they have no right. No. Well, they continue to make interest on nothing, don't they? Yes. Well, yeah, well, that's right. And there was nothing. I mean, I just had bits of paper that I put my signature on and, but it was the actual, it's the magnetic coding on the bottom of them that informs the system that there's a signature coming through here. And this is the encoding of that signature. So because that encoding on the bottom of the cheque was attaching it to your account, right? And as long as it's got, because I was a bank teller at one stage and sometimes people would forget to sign the cheques. We couldn't do anything with them. Okay. It's a signature that actually creates, that tells the system, create this credit. Right? Because what is a cheque? It's just a letter of credit. It's a promise to pay. It's a promise to pay. I wasn't, but, you know, I got arrested for it. And I just went and explained it to the police and they kindly took a recording of it. And I got that off them. But they actually, this was when I lived in Huntly. And I had to quite surreptitiously go to the Huntly court one day because at that stage my mum was still alive and the poor thing would have had kittens. But she, yeah, so I went and then they waited right until the end of the day. This was the Huntly District Court. They waited right until the end of the day. And then they, you know, I was in the dock and the judge was a bit of shuffling around with papers and the cops were talking to the judge and he said, oh, you know, the police have decided to withdraw this land that you're free to go. And that was it. But what laws did you break? Because other than a promise to pay. Well, they were saying using a document for pecuniary advantage. But all I'd done was observe it. I hadn't taken any, like the money would turn up, I think it was about, say it was a $7 million check or something. So it would turn up in your account and the appropriate amount of interest would be paid on it. Right. And then it would be reversed out. But before it got reversed out, immediately within, the IRD would take 25% of that interest as residents holding tax. But I mean, people do this with credit cards all the time. I mean, they're basically doing the same thing. So they'll, well, they've got to pay the credit card. So they get a cash advance on another credit card to pay that credit card. And they just cycle through the credit cards that way. So really it's no different than what you were doing. Yeah, except I wasn't spending any of it. Yeah, and they didn't get charged. If I'd spent any of it, I would have been using a document for pecuniary advantage. Well, so did those people with credit cards. Yeah, well, I knew I wasn't, right, because I'd checked it out that I wasn't going to be doing anything unlawful. I was just doing an experiment. Well, we can put you on Wikipedia for taking down the checks system in New Zealand now. Yeah, I guess so. Yep. Oh, funny. Oh, very good. Very good. You can't help wise. Cheapest way to beat them. Yep. All right. It's going to be interesting to watch. Oh, yes, it certainly is. It's a wild, wild world. But, you know, we're on the right ship. We're on our straight and steady course and we will get through, guys. Yep. Yep, absolutely. So, yeah, and I know people are worrying about, oh, gosh, what, you know, what if it, oh, that's the other thing that happened in the court this morning. I didn't hear it on the little seven minute snippet I was sent, but apparently these people got, who were in court, got accused of anarchism. And anarchism is, what did they call it? It's got a label now. They call it sovereign citizen anarchism. OK. So I've said to the participants, please get a record of that because we want to throw it back at them and say, no, the anarchism is not occurring within the populace. It's occurring at the very highest levels of our country. And I'm talking about the treason documents here, and I'm thinking of a way we can perhaps get them into court as proof that this is happening. That the courts have been compromised at the very, very highest levels by anarchists, by Marxists, by cultural Marxists and crazy people who thought they could get away with this. Yeah, that's right. Worrying is like rocking chairs. It gives you, like rocking chairs, it gives you something to do, but doesn't get you anywhere. More sad news today. One of our light to dark warriors. Sorry about that, Lynette. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know. This is why we've got to keep fighting, guys. There's no giving in to them. No giving in to them. Hell no. Steve says, I'm still trying to conceptualise how COVID is not a workplace hazard. Been reading lots of definitions. Wonder whether you have reference. Yeah, OK. Steve, there's a case. Have we got it up on our website, the WorkSafe Nima case? Oh, I think I've got it there. I'll go see. This is a case, Steve, that relates back to the White Island explosion. And WorkSafe were going around, I did a Zoom about it, where I talked about it, were going around suing everybody in sight. And they sued NIMA. Now, NIMA is the, what's it mean, that acronym? It's National Emergency. National something or other. National Emergency Management Authority, I think. Yeah, that's it. There we go. Agency. Right. OK. And they decided it in 2022. Now, you remember that's what's happened in 20, we talked about the other day, 19, was it? No, earlier. But anyway, they're still on the throes of suing people. Well, they sued, WorkSafe sued NIMA under section 36.2. Do you want me to screen share it? Yeah, yeah, please. OK. 36.2c of the Health and Safety at Work Act. Now, this mentions others. OK, so it talks about workers and others, anybody who comes into the workplace. Well, first, the judge was saying, well, for a start, NIMA hasn't got any workplace on White Island. Oops, where have we gone? Hasn't got any workplace on White Island. Here we go on. What have I done? Oh, here we go. Let's get it up again. Yeah, so it hasn't got any workplace on White Island. And this was in the, this is a section 147 application. Not sure what that application refused to, but anyway. And so can we go up a little bit in the case, please, Anne, or down a bit in the case? Many people, now it's quite nicely written, this one. Many people would agree that if a personal organisation has failed in its job, that it has placed people seriously at risk, there should be a way to investigate and, if necessary, hold that personal organisation accountable. There are different laws that allow you to do that, depending on what the allegations are. One is 36.2 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. WorkSafe has chosen that law to prosecute NIMA. NIMA did not carry out any work physically on Whakari. It did not send any workers to Whakari. It never placed any person on Whakari. Today's hearing is not about whether NIMA did its job properly. It may or it may not have. It is only about whether WorkSafe can use this law to prosecute NIMA. NIMA argues that it cannot and, therefore, the charge should be dismissed. Then it goes on about civil defence duties. WorkSafe allegations are between 4 April and 10 December 2019. NIMA had a duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act to ensure the health and safety of tourists and tour operators at Whakari and not put at risk from work it carried out as part of its business or undertaking. That this duty extended to identifying and analysing the risk to life from volcanic hazards at Whakari and taking steps to eliminate or reduce the magnitude or likelihood of that risk. That NIMA failed to do that and that this failure exposed people to the risk of death or serious injuries from volcanic activity. Remember volcanic activity is an act of God. You might say that so are pandemics. Except we know that this one was started out of a lab leak. But anyway, for the purposes of this, let's just put the pandemic in the place of the volcano blowing up. So, specifically, WorkSafe alleges NIMA failed to consult, cooperate or coordinate with GNS and Whakari management regarding the implications of volcanic activity and communicate the risk posed by volcanic activity to the public. Do these allegations against NIMA engage section 36.2? No, says the judge. WorkSafe argues they do. That the 36.2 reference to other persons not being put at risk from work being carried out as part of the business and undertaking means exactly that. That on plain reading other persons must include Whakari visitors and tour operators. That work means work without differentiating between the process of carrying out work and the result of that work product. So arising, and I've talked about this idea before, about a workplace hazard is something that arises from either the work activity or the result of the product. So they're talking, he doesn't seem to divide them up. It argues that 36.2 is separate from the provision relating to workers, that the use of 36.2 of not put at risk from work is substantially different drafting and therefore 36.2 is intended as a standalone provision and should be read in that way. However, it ignores the effect of the word other in 36.2. Plainly, 36.2 was regarded to be read alongside 36.1. What 36.2 means is a question of statutory interpretation, and this is what I'm saying. A question of statutory interpretation means WorkSafe can say what they want. NEMA can say what they want. The statutory interpretation is done by the court, right? So he says, I must interpret what the provision means. The meaning of the section comes from the words that are used, but also from the purpose of the Act itself. Now, this is another thing that's been going all through this, is the purpose of an Act. Remember, the purpose of the 2020 Act was to stop the transmission of COVID-19. Even if a meaning may appear clear from the words that are used, I must still be satisfied that this meaning is consistent with Parliament's intentions. WorkSafe argues that its interpretation is consistent with purpose. However, what follows suggests otherwise. Indicators within the Health and Safety at Work Act. So he talks about the title, the regulatory agency is WorkSafe, the purpose of the Act is important. The main purpose is to provide for a balanced framework to secure the health and safety of workers and workplaces. OK, so there's nothing about others there, is there? And then it sets out a series of steps. One of those is protecting workers and other persons against harm to their health, safety and welfare by eliminating or minimising risks arising from work or prescribed high-risk time. OK, nothing in there about others, and it's all about work and the workplace, right? WorkSafe argues that this reference to other persons supports its argument. However, Parliament has structured the purpose, how Parliament has structured the purpose suggests otherwise. Yes, there is reference to other persons being safe from harm at work, but that reference is secondary to the opening statement of purpose. In other words, protecting other persons is part of the overall aim of securing the health and safety of workers and workplaces. So, in a way, it's kind of saying protect workers and workplaces from others, if you know what I mean. The Act's purpose would have been drafted much differently if workers and workplaces had not been the main aim. Section 36 itself contains six subsections. Each other subsection almost exclusively refers to the worker or workplace safety. The duty that WorkSafe supports goes far beyond worker and workplace safety. This is where your questions seep. It would create significant additional obligations on businesses. There are countless ways that such a duty could be breached. At the very least, such a duty would require significant regulation or at least significant statutory guidance. It would require and impose a wide-ranging monitoring regime. It is unlikely that the only reference to such a duty, then, would be a single subsection in 36. If Parliament had intended a wider duty, there would have been much more reference to it in the Act. Now, also, paragraph 15. The Act would have made it clear. By way of example, Parliament has made it clear in one location in the Act. In relation to high-risk plant, the Act says a reference to work health and safety includes a reference to public health and safety. Parliament clearly understood the need to use very clear language if it was to extend a duty. This is the only place in the Act where it has expressly extended it. So, he's talking about public safety is in relation to high-risk plant. It's the only place where it's referenced in the Health and Safety at Work Act. So, what was this high-risk plant got to do with? Where is the high-risk plant in a workplace that said, well, you know, so there's public health risk in the workplace? What was the pandemic supposed to be? It was supposed to be a public health risk, right? The Act is not to cover that. Now, then he talks a little bit about the stringency of the Health and Safety at Work Act. It's illegal to insure against fines under the Act. It is unlikely that Parliament's purpose in enacting the provision was to prevent suppliers from insuring themselves against the consequences of faulty work product. If it was, much of the marketplace today is committing an offence for which they are not being prosecuted. So, what he's getting at here is that it's for workplace hazards where they have control, but they're not allowed to insure themselves. Not against faulty work product, you know. The consequences of faulty work product. So, if you produced, I don't know, an electric junk that was sure to blow up, you've got a manufacturer's warranty, you've got an insurance policy, right? The whole point of the Act is to keep workers safe at work. But what they did, Steve, was they used the Health and Safety at Work Act to create this idea that businesses would be sued by WorkSafe, just like they did with NEMA, if somebody had got COVID-19 at work. Obviously, that can't be the case. If we can go to the next paragraph where he talks about giving themselves vast obligations. WorkSafe argues that its interpretation does not result in wide-open definition, creating unrealistic duties. It says that this would not result in broad public safety duty at all because any duty would be limited or contained by influence and control reasonable for steps and foreseeability. Well, look at this, right? Of course, the control was being exercised by WorkSafe over the businesses, right? The businesses got all panicked and were imagining things. Well, they weren't really imagining things because WorkSafe was going around saying, if you don't close your business or you don't make sure people are vaccinated, you're going to get a fine under the 2020 Act, right? What were they called? Infringements. Now, a little bit further down, the judge talks about the Australian Act that it's based on. It's right at the very bottom where he says that, you know, WorkSafe hasn't produced anything about any evidence that they've, you know. WorkSafe argues that Parliament intended 36 to be limited in the way that NEMA says that you would have expected it to have said so. However, it is much more likely that if Parliament intended WorkSafe's interpretation to be preferred, there would have been clear signs of it. Extending the duty beyond what used to be called occupational health and safety would be significant and controversial. The Act creates strict liability offence. It imposes a higher standard of care. Insurance is unlawful. WorkSafe's own obligations to monitor and improve safety conditions would be potentially vast, okay? Now, he talks about it as being a WorkSafe obligation to monitor and improve safety conditions, right? And this is why WorkSafe itself can be sued if they haven't monitored and improved safety conditions at all. This is where they can, you know, you can go and take a case yourself, like Erica had done, and you can also take a criminal prosecution through the courts. I'm just wanting to find a bit where he talks about... I can infer Parliament can keep on going for a minute. See, Liz, this one's a bit coloured in the fact that when you're skipping on a live volcano, you have to accept a certain amount of risk yourself because there are some things you can't manage. It's a bit like skydiving. If you jump out of an aeroplane, you can follow all the procedures and everything else and manage the risk as best you can, but accidents still will happen. And there's an inherent risk in high-risk sports and walking on volcanoes. Right. Now, this is the one I'm looking for. An additional observation, he heads it. He says, this is not a point that is featured in arriving at my decision, but I do observe that WorkSafe's main objective under the WorkSafe New Zealand Act 2013 is to promote and contribute to securing our health and safety, the health and safety of workers and workplaces. Additionally, we're performing its various functions under health and safety legislation to act in a way that furthers relevant objectives or purposes of that legislation. Now, he says in paragraph 28, the reference only to workers and workplaces in Section 9A perhaps tells its own story. But if WorkSafe is right about how Section 36.2 should be interpreted, how far that duty extends Section 9 means that WorkSafe, as its primary aim, must promote and contribute to the safety of those impacted by a breach of that duty. Part of that role would be to issue guidance to the marketplace. And he says, WorkSafe does not advance any evidence of any guidance it has issued to anyone based on a duty to people beyond the workplaces, workers or work activity, other than in one instance. OK, so he's saying that they didn't, you know, issue guidance about it. Now, what they did, of course, do, this was, I wonder if he thought about what they'd done in the, what they'd actually done in the COVID pandemic. I wonder if he thought about WorkSafe and the role they played, right? OK, so he says, we have not yet reached the point where Parliament or higher courts have extended the duty under 36.2 beyond what Parliament intended. I think that the higher courts have, actually, and I'm talking about the judgments in the high court, the judicial reviews, where they're talking about public safety, right? That there's a duty to have public safety against the rights of the individual, right? The rights of the public, you know, or public health against the rights of the individual. I think that that one sentence there is very telling, right? If you wanted a case, Steve, that said, what is the limits of, you know, why isn't it a, what is the health and safety risk in the workplace under the Act? It's certainly not COVID-19, OK? And what he says is, in those last two sentences there, 29 and 30, we have not yet reached the point where Parliament, and of course, in the 2020 Act, there's nothing about saying COVID-19 is going to be a workplace hazard, OK? That would be clear. The higher courts have, or the higher courts have extended this duty. Yes, they did, actually. They extended it in those judgments. So those judgments have got to fail, I believe. That means the must grant members' application, the charge against it is dismissed. So, yeah, the application must have been for dismissal of the charge. That's what Section 147, or whatever it was at the beginning, I said, I don't know what it was. OK, so thanks for that question, Steve. I know it was quite long-winded, but it's an important one, and that's going to be a case that we hear a lot more of in the future. Because COVID-19 could only be a workplace hazard if you were working in a lab where they were growing it or something. Yeah, that would be it. That would be it. It would be a product. It would be the product of the work process in that case. That's a very good, that's the exact example we need, Emma. And we'll put that in the arguments. Working in a lab. It becomes the product of the workplace. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. OK, so, you know, I hope all of those crazy lab technicians in China have an Act like ours where they can sue their bosses. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, now that's not a bad one. That's not a bad one. Because all of the, you know, and also those guys in, what do you call it, Fort Detrick, they were also working on it, weren't they? Oh, OK, were they? Yeah. So all those gain-of-functioners, you know, you better join the union. If you got infected with anything nasty and started growing tails or wings or any knucky stuff like that, you know, come aboard. The trouble is with WorkSafe is they seem to have gotten the Health and Safety Act to use reasonable and practical as the driving criteria. We're there trying to say you must manage everything, which it just isn't possible. But when it's not even a workplace hazard, you don't even have to think about whether it's reasonable or practical. You don't get past square one. Yes. And this is the same thing with the Resource Management Act. And, you know, what became blindingly obvious when I was down at Ohenewai last week, they were on it. They truly, they said we have a thousand points that we're going to argue with on the, you know, against the Council of Melbourne. Oh my God. What? Where did reasonable and practical go in that? In the lawyer's pocket. In the lawyer's pocket. In the lawyer's pocket. Emma, you're so perceptive now. But there's a whole industry, you know, growing up around all this crap. I mean, it's like traffic management. Oh. Every two years you have to go and redo your qualifications and they keep extending what's required. It's now about $6,000. Are you a traffic manager? No, well, I'm part of project management. We're working on the roads. We have traffic management people. Yeah, to re-qualify a guy was $6,000 for the main guy every two years and everyone has to re-qualify. Because apparently after two years you become stupid again and you have to re-qualify. And I'm still trying to figure out why that doesn't happen with degrees. Because I think you should have to redo your degree every two years if that's the case. Oh, I absolutely agree, Michael. I think that every year or two lawyers should have to go back to school for refreshments. Or with doctors, you know. You're holding people's lives in your hands. But it should be cheap. It should be cheap. But I was driving about Auckland today and I was thinking, whew, thank God for traffic management. Because it was sort of a cross. The train went past and then you're thinking, have I got enough room or am I going to be stuck in the middle of the, you know, because people stopped for the train to go. And then I thought, gee, how many people? How do all of the lights work so you don't get people across the intersections? That's traffic management, isn't it? Yeah, those are all calculated and pre-programmed beforehand. You do a good job. But there's a lot of weird stuff that goes on with traffic management because I know that the highways, the people that control the highways, didn't have enough money in their funds for the traffic management they wanted. So they considered changing the standards. So it tends to be very variable. And there's one contractor that tends to drive the standard and they increase the complexity and the requirement for plant to drive a lot of the small players out. So there's a lot of dirty play that goes on. Why don't we have more roundabouts is my question. Because in general, foreign tourists and visitors don't know what to do when they get to. They don't know which way they're going, yeah. They have roundabouts in the UK and America and all those places. Yeah, it's deliberately slowing the traffic down. Councils actually have it in their policies to slow traffic down. Yeah, but the biggest problem is the traffic flows aren't balanced. You can end up waiting forever trying to get in from the least flow road. Yeah, but at least with lights you get a turn, don't you? We don't have lights. We just have main roads with big like BP's and McDonald's and all that stuff. And then you can't get out. Yeah. And big trucks. They've got a big truck park in there and they can't get out either. Usually they just go. They count 70 cars and go. They're bigger than everyone else so the other people have to stop. I saw that twice today. Yeah, you're not going to argue. But I've found people don't seem to have road rage or anything. They let you in. I always thought that you should have a thank you, sort of a thank you for letting me in sign that you could do. You know, I have a little. Anyway. Usually people blip their hazard lights. I mean, I always get interested in people's jobs, that's the thing. Usually as a thank you they blip their hazard lights at you. Oh, I can. Yeah, Lynette, the emergency blimmin' warning thing went off and it said something about a fire at Favona and I think I don't even know where Favona even is. I thought it was a place. It's Otahu somewhere. Oh, is that where it was? Is that where anybody know where Favona is? Favona Road. Oh, is that what it is? Because it says Favona and I thought where is that? I thought it was in Mangere. Oh, was it? Oh, yes, you're right. Otahu and Mangere are pretty close-ish. I couldn't resist it. After testing the bloody thing, I had to use it. Oh, no, it's going to be fun now. We're going to get, ooh, maybe five minutes. We're shifting over to dumb phones now. So now they know that they can hassle Aucklanders with the emergency thing. I thought I'd ring them up. It must be quite local though because I didn't get one. It doesn't always work all of the time. Yeah. We should all ring them back and ask them what the problem is. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Can you tell us where it is so we can go and have a look? Yeah. Okay, so exciting times, eh, guys? At least it wasn't a tsunami. What's that about tsunamis? New Zealand's got a lot of shallow water. Deep enough to drown, though, guys, don't go walking in. Yeah. Tell them you crashed your car when it went off. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good idea. Will they pay my car insurance? What? Yeah. Yeah. Tell them that you crashed your car when it went off. I like that one. Roundabouts are quicker than lights, in my opinion. An interesting emergency on Sunday. Yeah. Yeah, Sunday. So you can't have a Sunday of peace. It's got to have something exciting going on. Yeah. Watch the Counterspin latest. Yeah. Okay. That's cool. Okay, yeah, I think Kelvin is probably going to be, he's got a special interest in tax, so I think he'll probably follow the tax stuff up. That would be really good. Yeah, but it's, you know, this is the thing, why we don't get this stuff is because even if you're a lawyer, unless you're particularly looking for it, and it's so dry, you know, I mean, how? Constitutional law, everybody's like, oh. But if they'd known what it was going to mean, yeah, I think they would have. You make it really interesting, Liz, I don't know. Yeah, must be. Yeah. You're lucky. It's real interesting when you talk about no tax, isn't it? It is. Yeah. Yeah. No. Because people pay millions and millions, don't they? Oh, accountants. Yeah, what are accountants going to do? Sorry, accountants. Yep, that's it. Might have to get a real job. Yeah, I reckon. No, some accountants are very good. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, it's the tax department that's paying. Gee, keep an eye, anybody get any more word out of Australia about what's going on there about tax, please share. Retrain them on cones. We just had. I like it, I like it. They're doing, they're replacing some of the power poles up this way and the amount of trucks and traffic control and all the gears all shiny and new and like, wow, yeah, look at that. You know, there'd be 10 trucks and 10 traffic control and when we live out in the rural, it's insane. Are you, Fiona, are you talking about retraining the accountants on cones? There's lots of cones. There's lots and lots of cones that need management. Accountants, yeah. Oh, accountants. Shouldn't they learn to code? Isn't that what was the suggestion? You know, all of the people. Actually, the people moving the cones about are a lot more useful than the coders. Yeah. Yeah. We got told, I'll just butt in, but we got told by somebody who works in roading that when they put in their tenders now for roading jobs, the cost of the traffic management is something like 40 or 50% of the job. So that's what we're paying for. We're paying traffic management for all this roading. That's the extra cost to have moving cones and trucks, moving cones all day. And, you know, two people at each end. They've got to have, they've got to have two people at each end because I think if one has to go to the toilet, they've got to have somebody step in. That's true. Well, you know, the health and safety hazards around going to the toilet, just ask Erica. But she is right. I mean, on a small job with an intersection, the traffic management costs far outweigh the job. And the setup takes longer and the takedown takes longer in many cases in the job if it's, you know, a relatively small one like a single pole or something. It's ridiculous. It's only started happening in the last 12 months. It's absolutely insane. We've lived around here for 25 years and I've never seen that amount of cones and trucks and traffic management bullshit. Yeah, I mean, I know the stuff and I come up to sites now and some of them as confusing as hell where I'm supposed to go. And I've been trained in it and I'm sort of looking and going, well, what the hell is going on? The biggest one I had was in the earthquakes where a whole lot of contractors made all the roads one way, but they're all the same direction one way. And once you got into an area, you couldn't get out. You can't get out back where you were. And there was one that led out, but it took me about half an hour, three quarters an hour to find it. Oh, man. Oh, dear. We have had four cones around a piece of three metres in Akaroa for two years. Someone's forgotten to come back and seal it. That's what's happened there. My daughter lives down in Pitirangi, in the depths. And, yeah, terrible things happened there, of course. But, yeah, first they fixed the slip and then the slip flipped. The new bit flipped. And now they're down to one road in and one road out, but mostly going one way. But what they do is they don't have people standing there all the time. They have these little traffic lights and you drive up to it. And if there's nothing at the other end, it'll turn green. I mean, what's wrong with that? I wish I'd invented those traffic lights. Except they'll never get the other half of the road repaired, I'd say. There's just thousands, thousands of them all over the country. And some of them they put in and they stay for, like, years now. Again, they don't give a rat. Slows all the traffic down and we all sit there waiting for them to change colour. But that's part of their policy. They're deliberately doing it. We had someone talking here in Christchurch and they're deliberately putting the roadworks all in one area and putting all the traffic lights out in a sequence so they jam the traffic up. I mean, I was trying to head into town from here and town's about 10km. And I would say there was an 8km traffic jam all the way back due to the way the lights were all screwed up. And the speed restrictions now are 30km. A lot of the neighbourhoods are 40km. Now they've just snuck it in without asking people. So this is really to keep you at home with your head stuck in the TV set. Or take public transport. Yep, they're deliberately trying to drive people out of the cars. It's interesting, the councils always seem to have a lot of foreign people working for them and they come over here because they like our country and then they try and tell us how we should be living our lives. Yeah, well, you know, this is the thing. This is starve the beast. This is stop paying the rates. Yeah, I've been involved with a lot of bike lanes too. We put those in, they cost a friggin' fortune and you're lucky if you see three or four bikes going down them. And then all the people on one side of the road. I've never seen anyone on a bike. That's just a bloody mini laundering. Yeah, and if you live on the side of the road the bike lane's on, you just lost all your parking down that side of the road. Yeah. Thanks very much. The other thing is if you live near Karoa, the council were doing a trial on Three Waters Meters here too. That I bet most people don't know about. Right. Right. Well, you know, we know the answer. We're waiting for you Waikato farmers. Anybody in the Waikato, make sure that the farmers get together and find out about Elodio. It's going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. And then they won't be importing anybody to work for them. Because as soon as you stop paying them, they'll stop wanting to come. That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, guys. Not that I'm having a go at this, you know. It's not their fault. No. The same thing about Landslide. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Very good. Very good, Liz. Thank you so much and everybody for coming along. Doing the same thing with bike lanes in large Canadian cities. God, don't live in the city. Sorry. Love being rural. Yeah, good on you. Yeah. Good on. Yeah. Awesome. Any last questions before we get off? Okay. Good night all. Good night. See you Friday. Bye. Bye.
