Anti-vax group wanting to make NZ ‘ungovernable’ targets local body elections – Stuff

• Voices For Freedom has called on its 100,000 members to make Aotearoa “ungovernable”
• VFF supporters confirmed as standing for election believe the United Nations wants to ‘’enslave humanity”
• Candidates told to keep affiliation with VFF under wraps.
• Victoria University political scientist says voters should make an effort to find out if they’re voting for “dangerous people”.

An anti-vaccination, anti-mandate group which says it wants to make the country “ungovernable” is standing candidates in local body elections to “sway the results (and) throw our weight around”.

Voices For Freedom (VFF) openly campaigned to get supporters into decision-making positions but told candidates to hide their affiliations – prompting a warning to voters to thoroughly research candidates before voting.

Voices For Freedom is one of several individuals and groups linked to increasing levels of false information and violent rhetoric, the subject of the Stuff Circuit documentary Fire and Fury.

VFF played a leading role in the Wellington parliament occupation which ended in a riot on 2 March 2022.

“Having all of those pretty dangerous people onboard [as candidates] I think is a worrying development,” said Dr Mona Krewel, a political scientist who has studied Voices For Freedom and other leading figures in the so-called freedom movement.

“We see a lot of anti-vaccination communication from them which is potentially life-threatening if people believe this,” said Krewel, director of Victoria University of Wellington’s Internet, Social Media, and Politics Research Lab. “There is a lot of fake news and half-truth in their communication and so this is all stuff that if people believe it and go down the rabbit hole, and you have these people on local councils, this can have life-threatening consequences for people who listen to them.”

Voices For Freedom is led by Libby Johnson, Alia Bland and Claire Deeks, a former lawyer who stood unsuccessfully for parliament in 2020.

The leaders have outlined plans to set up systems of resilience, with Deeks saying they needed to “start really looking at what it takes to become ungovernable and that way is that when the government says jump we don’t need to”.

“We can really sway the results, throw our weight around,” VFF’s head of National Operations Tane Webster told supporters in a webinar on running for local body elections.

A prominent VFF guest speaker, Gill Booth, confirmed she was running for her local community board, after telling supporters in June to “absolutely disrupt and rip to pieces our local council”.

Jaspreet Boparai, a Southland dairy farmer who pushes a conspiracy about a UN agenda to enslave humanity through the Covid pandemic, also put her name forward for election.

Boparai regularly speaks about the conspiracy to thousands of VFF supporters online, spreading disinformation that New Zealand councils directly follow “orders” set out in an agenda by the United Nations and World Economic Forum.

In fact, Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development is a United Nations plan released in 2015, outlining 17 global goals to improve living conditions for humanity.

In an email sent on August 9, Deeks told potential candidates not to make their support of Voices for Freedom known. “Don’t put “Voices for Freedom” or “VFF” as the affiliation or group represented when filling out the candidate paperwork,” the email read.

Dr Krewel said candidates with a hidden VFF agenda had a very good chance of being elected if voter turnout was low and when very few people had put themselves forward as candidates. “They have well understood that. You should not underestimate them. I think it’s a very worrisome development.”

She said voters now had a civic duty to research candidates before giving them their vote.

“You should never vote for anyone whose programme you don’t know. Even if they don’t make clear they are Voices For Freedom, you will find something about them and their relationship to VFF on the internet.”

Dr Krewel warned the candidates would have greater ambitions than local government.

“They enter on the lowest level of politics but from there they can make it upwards, spread their position.”