Latest / UK Column Radio / Brave New Zealand—with Dr Ursula Edgington

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Brave New Zealand—with Dr Ursula Edgington · UK Column Radio

0:07
Hello. My name's Debbie Evans from UK column and welcome to another interview.
0:12
Well, this interview is a bit different because brave New World, maybe Brave
0:20
New Zealand, because today I'm crossing the globe and I'm whizzing across to New
0:26
Zealand to meet an educational consultant. Dr Ursula Edgington is with me today and
0:33
Ursula is an academic, she's a writer, she's a researcher, and she's
0:38
a teacher. But honestly, she is the most amazing writer I have to
0:43
say. Do please check out her substack and all of the details will be
0:47
in the article beneath this interview because Ursula has covered pretty much every topic you
0:55
can imagine and her style of writing, I have sat and laughed a lot.
1:00
Her humor is amazing. So we're going to be speaking to Ursula today
1:07
about life in New Zealand and how it's different or perhaps it's the same as
1:12
New Zealand and I just as the UK, and I just want to just
1:18
want to sort of bring people back down to earth a minute, because Zealand
1:22
and the United Kingdom are a very similar size and yet population of New Zealand
1:27
is just over five million, and the population of the United Kingdom is sixty
1:33
seven sixty eight million, so you can see the size of the countries are
1:38
very similar, but the population is very different. But I'm just delighted to
1:44
welcome a brit that's moved to New Zealand and can tell us all about it.
1:48
Ursula, welcome to UK column and thank you for getting up so early,
1:52
because I have to tell our viewers it's seven o'clock in the evening in
1:56
the UK and it's silly o'clock in the morning in New Zealand and you've got
2:00
up specially to speak to us. So thank you so much and welcome Hi,
2:05
Debbie, thank you for inviting me. It's brilliant to be here,
2:08
Sir. As I said at the beginning in the introduction, I don't know
2:13
where to start because there are just so many topics. So I think the
2:16
easiest thing for me to do is, as you're a brit now living in
2:22
New Zealand and you've been there a good few years now, tell us the
2:25
differences that you see, or maybe the similarities what I would see if I
2:30
was coming to New Zealand. How is it different? Well, first,
2:34
I've got to say, the weather. I don't think I realized before I
2:39
was here how much difference the climate does make to your health and well being.
2:46
I think in the UK people are very much focused on getting to the
2:51
holidays for their two weeks in the sun in wherever Spain or for ants,
2:55
etc. And it that treadmill, isn't it of just working, working,
3:02
working and getting to your holiday. And so yeah, definitely the climate here
3:08
where I am, in particular in the way Keeto is subtropical, so you
3:13
know, it's rare that we have a frost. There's very warm weather pretty
3:19
much all year. We don't really have a winter as such. So it
3:23
does make a difference to the way that New Zealanders live and to people's certainly
3:30
to my personal sort of optimism. I suppose I'm an optimistic person by nature
3:35
anyway, so that definitely helps. And of course, more recently with the
3:40
discussions around the importance at vitamin D to our bodies, you know, it's
3:46
kind of makes sense really that getting out into the sunshine is helpful for our
3:53
health and wellbeing. So we've been here for ten years, so over those
3:58
ten years things have changed. I see quite a lot for us personally,
4:00
and obviously in the last four years, especially with the COVID craziness, so
4:06
it's difficult to compare it directly, like you say about my life in the
4:10
UK. You know, here we live a relatively quiet rural life. We're
4:16
on just over an acre of land, so we're pretty self sufficient. We've
4:20
got sheep in the paddock and my bee hives and chickens and quails and whatnot.
4:29
So it's you know, it's a bit of the good life in some
4:33
respects, but it's a different it's a different way of thinking about the good
4:38
life because it's relatively rural compared to the majority of New Zealanders who live in
4:45
that what we call the Golden Triangle, so Auckland, around the Auckland area.
4:53
You know, a large proportion I forget what it is, it's about
4:55
sixty percent I think of the population live in an around Auckland of the five
5:00
million, So that means really that the rest, as you say, the
5:04
five million in the rest of New Zealand, you know, it is a
5:10
very sparse population, very isolated in some areas, and so yeah, it's
5:18
a very different way of life. I think. The other thing to mention
5:23
is the traffic congestion, there is none, really, There is some around
5:29
the main towns, and certainly Auckland is problematic because of its geography getting into
5:36
and out of. But you know, the speed limits are relatively low.
5:44
You know, one hundred kilometers an hour is a typical rural road and you
5:50
can very easily measure how long it's going to take you to get there because
5:55
you won't be stuck at traffic lights or roundabouts with the traffic congestion in any
6:01
way, So that that also makes a big difference. The other thing to
6:05
mention is the way of life for New Zealanders. Really, work isn't that
6:12
important. Their priority is family life, which has its pros and cons.
6:20
There's lots of public holidays. Professional identity isn't really that important. It's lower
6:28
priority. It's more important to be at home to go fishing or to get
6:32
you know, go to the beach or whatever. So there's sort of an
6:36
anti intellectual, anti intellectualism here, especially in education that I've come up against.
6:45
That's that's quite difficult to overcome and isn't necessarily a positive learning environment for
6:54
for my adult students to be in. So so that's yeah, that sort
7:00
of gives you an overview of what life is like. It has given me
7:08
an overview. But as viewers and listeners will know by now, I always
7:13
talk to my guests before we interview them. And I was pretty shocked,
7:17
actually actually earslier, because while you say there's no traffic congestion and that's fantastic,
7:25
and the roads are empty sort of, you told me also that there
7:30
is lawless on New Zealand roads. That you don't need insurance, your car
7:36
doesn't need to be roadworthy, you don't even need a license. And yeah,
7:42
the death rate, I mean, taking the humor away from it,
7:46
it's very serious, because the death rates on the roads in New Zealand are
7:51
immense, aren't they. I mean, tell me a bit about that,
7:54
because I couldn't believe it when you told me before. I mean, generally
7:58
speaking, the policies in New Zealand are way behind where they are in the
8:03
rest of the developed world. We say, sort of roughly twenty five years
8:11
in terms of the legal kind of development here, and because of the sparse
8:16
population. I mean, I've recently, relatively recently done a master's in legal
8:20
studies, so I've sort of looked at the legal side of New Zealand as
8:26
well. The case law hasn't evolved because of the lack of the population people.
8:33
There's two reasons, really, people can't afford the legal you know challenges
8:41
if there is an ambiguity in the law, and because there's few people anyway,
8:46
you know, you're already at a disadvantage. So that means that some
8:50
of the policies just haven't evolved like they have in America or the UK or
8:58
the EU. So yeah, there's there's no legal requirement to have insurance on
9:05
your vehicle here. There are the equivalent of mots, what they called wafts.
9:11
Weren't a fitness but they're sort of flawed in many ways. There's there's
9:18
sort of a black market that happens in terms of jumping through the hoops to
9:22
get your older vehicle normally through these tests. I mean the general age.
9:28
I mean, my husband knows more about this than me obviously, is into
9:33
that he's in that industry, but the general age of the vehicles here in
9:39
New Zealand is a lot older than it would be in places like the UK.
9:43
And they have this mentality which is you know, quite quaint really the
9:48
number eight wire. So you know, if something's broken, just fix it
9:52
with some wire, you know, number eight wire is an all purpose things.
9:56
So it's sort of a it's a a saying that actually is true.
10:01
It's it's it's very difficult here too. You know, people aren't materialistic.
10:09
They don't necessarily want brand new cars to run around in. They've got other
10:13
priorities, as I say, the family life and going to the beach and
10:16
going fishing. So unfortunately, safety sometimes takes a very low priority. And
10:24
it's not only the road toll death rate on the you know, with vehicles,
10:30
it's also at work, you know, the the health and safety what
10:37
they call work safe, which is a health and safety government body here,
10:43
health and safety executive, is it. I have to remember now what it's
10:46
called. In the UK. They are always struggling against this she'll be all
10:50
right attitude, you know, that's what they say. She'll be all right,
10:54
there's no there's no problem here. No now, we don't need to
10:58
do a risk assessment. It's all good, you know. And so with
11:01
that sort of very laid back attitude, obviously accidents happen. I put accidents
11:07
because that's how they frame it here. It's at the accident compensation scheme is
11:11
the only real way that you can get provision in terms of healthcare. Yeah,
11:16
it's it's very it's complicated, but but yeah, it's not a very
11:22
safe place to drive your car, definitely. I you know, that's one
11:24
of the things that I always say to our visitors is the extra vigilant.
11:30
I want to come back to excuse me about that. But the accidents they're
11:35
ursula because that obviously has got a knock on effect on the health system in
11:41
New Zealand and in the UK as I'm sure you guys here we're overwhelmed.
11:48
The NHS is overwhelmed. It's been overwhelmed since the get go from well,
11:52
I mean it was pre plandemic and it's even worse now. And I know
11:58
that we're going to be coming on and talking about the effect of public private
12:05
partnerships, But what is your health system like? Do you have a public
12:11
health system? Do you have free healthcare? Do you have insurance? How
12:16
does it work? Over there? We do have a public health system.
12:20
I mean, up until COVID it had a very good reputation. It's limited,
12:28
I think because of the divide in society. A lot of people here
12:31
are relatively wealthy. There's an older age group who are retired, you know,
12:37
have financial means and so therefore they would automatically have private health insurance.
12:43
That kind of goes without saying that most people would have had private health insurance
12:48
certainly up until recently. And I think it's very similar to the UK where
12:54
even physical location of the public hospital and the private hospital they're very close sti
13:00
physically and you know, in terms of their contracts between each other. So
13:03
consultants are always shopping between buildings depending on what shift they're on and what hat
13:09
they're wearing. So the public health system definitely is struggling. As you say,
13:16
we'll come on to talk about the mandates maybe in a minute, but
13:18
yeah, I mean migrants, professional nurses and doctors and consultants et cetera will
13:24
always you know, sought after, and so that would be you know,
13:31
we operate on the immigration here is based on a points system like Australia,
13:35
So depending on how many qualifications and experience years experience you have depends on how
13:41
many points and therefore whether you're allowed into the country or not. So teachers
13:46
and nurses and doctors et cetera obviously were sought after, and New Zealand was
13:52
perceived by them to be, you know, an attractive place to work,
13:58
which of course was the myth. You know, the clean green, one
14:03
hundred percent pure image is a PR message that is extremely successful and sits in
14:11
many people's minds. Did sit in my mind, you know, it was
14:16
a worldview that I held for a long time until I moved here and saw
14:20
the reality of the way that, you know, the unhealthy and pretty toxic
14:30
way really that the workplaces exists, and the environmental poisoning, etc. It's
14:37
definitely the reality is a stark contrast to the to the PR spin. You've
14:45
been standing up really right from the get go, challenging the narrative of the
14:50
pandemic and COVID, and we've noticed that New Zealand, Australia, Canada,
15:00
the UK are pretty much in lockstep with the vaccine mandates. And of course
15:05
many of us were watching New Zealand in horror and Australia in horror in the
15:11
Southern Hemisphere because things were happening to you seemingly a little bit before they were
15:16
happening to us. And I'm presuming that's because New Zealand's small or smaller and
15:26
perhaps you're being used as an experimental test bed a bit like the UK are
15:31
as well. That we've got the NHS, so we've got huge amount of
15:35
data, which is obviously more precious than gold at the moment. But what
15:41
effect had the vaccine mandates had and COVID had on New Zealand? Because I
15:48
know that you've done a huge amount of work into this, and where we
15:52
had nurses and doctors that were told they've got to have the jabs otherwise they're
15:58
going to lose their job all that and care home staff as well. How
16:03
did how did all of that unravel in New Zealand? It was a total
16:07
nightmare actually, I think partly because I am relatively well connected in lots of
16:15
different countries. One of the big sort of concerns for me was watching these
16:22
leaders like Jacinda and Trudeau and Boris at the time. Wasn't it just literally
16:27
repeating the same words over and again and it was like they're on a script.
16:33
And I just couldn't believe how other people couldn't couldn't see it, you
16:37
know, how this doesn't it doesn't work like you know, international politics doesn't
16:41
work like this. People disagree you know, journal journalists normally ask questions about
16:45
repeated words and phrases that don't actually make sense when you're looking at the science.
16:51
So so that was that was a big part of me becoming aware.
16:56
I wasn't aware right at the very beginning. We didn't really know what was
17:00
going on, but certainly we watched with horror the adverse events stacking up around
17:10
the world, knowing what was coming our way because we were about six months
17:14
behind, as you probably know, the vaccine so called vaccine roll out here,
17:19
and it was like a big, like steam you know, container ship
17:25
was coming for you and there was nothing you could do to stop it.
17:27
It was like crazy. And the stress of that alone, I think,
17:33
you know, I I'm very lucky. I'm a freelance tutor and you know,
17:37
researcher, so I wasn't under the pressures that lots of other of my
17:42
colleagues were under. But yeah, I think it was November twenty twenty one,
17:52
and it was the same kind of thing that happened in the rest of
17:53
the world. It was an overnight thing in parliament, you know, they
17:56
rushed through this secondary legislation to put in place what they called the vaccine order,
18:03
and it started with a healthcare workers and then it rolled out to most
18:07
of the other public sector workers by the end of that month. And at
18:14
that point the people that wanted to escape the order had various options. They
18:22
thought at the time that they could apply for an exemption through religious or medical
18:29
grounds that was written into their legislation. We later found out that that was
18:33
virtually impossible. They were, you know, basically, Sir Ashley Bloomfield was
18:40
the guy who had to sign these exemptions off and they met regularly a committee.
18:47
We don't know who those people other people are. It was all very
18:52
sinister, and lots of people were under extreme stress. I you know,
19:00
my heart goes out to them today, even the trauma that they've suffered.
19:04
So yeah, I mean there's still legal cases going through today that tries to
19:10
get some acknowledgment and compensation in terms of those people that were fired unceremoniously fired.
19:17
I mean just literally one day they're there and next day they were pushed
19:21
out with no you know, goodbyes from their colleagues or some of them have
19:27
had decades in their working in their vocation and patients and students, et cetera.
19:34
That they'd given their lives work for and were just swept aside, like
19:41
there were nobody. So we watched in the UK the guy who stood up
19:49
and said in the hospital that went viral. Forget what his name was,
19:55
but he was you know, lots of people at the time thought, oh,
19:59
there's hope, there's a hope that you know, it won't it won't
20:03
be pushed here in New Zealand. But there was no there was no hope.
20:07
It was. It was pushed forward no matter what people were thinking.
20:11
And we don't really know how many people were forced out of their jobs because
20:18
of that. Certainly there was probably over a thousand nurses and a lot of
20:23
midwives, doctors, I don't know how many teachers, board of workers,
20:32
prison workers. I mean at the time I was working as as a volunteer
20:37
tutor at the local prison, you know, and so even volunteers were forced
20:44
out of their voluntary positions if they weren't you know, if they didn't have
20:48
the the sacred vaccination passport to present at the at the gates. So yeah,
20:56
it was it was a very dark time and very stressful, especially looking
21:00
at what was happening and the rest of the world. We felt very isolated.
21:03
I can absolutely imagine that you would feel incredibly isolated. We watched New
21:10
Zealand because all of a sudden, during the lockdown, we were seeing what
21:15
was going on in Australia and both New Zealand and the tyranny that was going
21:21
on. And we could see also the number of vaccinations was being pushed big
21:27
time. And of course now you've done so much data crunching and you've done
21:33
loads of freedom of informations. I know you call them something different in New
21:37
Zealand, and I know you'll explain that. We always say to our viewers
21:42
and listeners, keep writing the freedom of informations, even though people say,
21:48
oh, there's no point because we never get a satisfactory answer. It's kind
21:52
of of those one of those processes that you have to keep going down if
21:57
you really want to dig into the depths of what's going on. And you
22:03
have been prolific in your freedom of informations, but not just prolific. You
22:10
have been so diligent and that you've drilled down into so much data and now
22:17
you're looking you've been I know you've been looking at the Department of Transport,
22:21
for example, and looking at the bereaved days and grief days and sick days,
22:26
and the statistics are absolutely staggering. Can you tell us a bit more
22:33
about what you've found out through looking at that data. Yes, the Department
22:40
of Transport is one of the many public sector areas in New Zealand that were
22:45
mandated, and there was only eight thousand exemptions granted, and most of those,
22:55
you know, were healthcare workers. And we can maybe well the information
23:00
on my substack about what those exemptions actually how they broke down bisector. But
23:06
because I discovered that there were no exemptions granted for the Department of Transport staff,
23:14
that this is the department that deals with roads and anything to do with
23:21
driving and those kinds of things. So and the trains, not that there's
23:26
many trains, but there are some. And so one of my follow on
23:30
questions really was about the health of the staff because obviously, you know,
23:37
ninety nine percent of them, those that hadn't taken early retirement or left or
23:40
whatever that we didn't know about at the time of the mandates were still working.
23:45
And so they gave me the back the eventually, it took a while,
23:51
but they gave me the breakdown of the bereavement leave, the sick leave,
23:55
and the leave without pay over the last five year years. And we
24:00
discovered that just in summary, we discovered that there was one hundred and eighty
24:06
eight percent more sick days in twenty twenty three compared to before COVID an unpaid
24:12
league was up by one hundred and thirty percent, and these were only one
24:15
hundred and eighty staff. These weren't road workers that because that comes under the
24:19
contractors. These were mainly office based staff. So so that you know,
24:26
sort of this is the way really to gain some insight into what's going on
24:33
out in the real world. I mean I can see it myself anecdotally and
24:36
around my own community, my friends, et cetera. I can see that
24:41
the ill health is you know, and sudden deaths unfortunately. You know,
24:48
it's incredibly sad, but it is a common everyday topic of conversation, is
24:53
people's poor health and the problems getting into the hospital and the problem with the
25:00
emergency provision because most of them, again are volunteers. So so these kinds
25:10
of statistics looking at public sector workers, the data on what exactly is happening
25:18
to their staff, staff absences, etc. That gives you a little bit
25:25
more context to what's actually going on. Yes, And I was very struck
25:30
actually by the unpaid leave, because people had obviously taken holiday leave, they'd
25:38
taken their paid leave, they'd taken sick leave, and they were still sick
25:45
and they were having to take unpaid leave because they were so poorly. I
25:49
think that's what really shocked me. And of course then I didn't know,
25:53
but you've already told me, and perhaps you can highlight this a little bit
25:57
because there there is no welfare system in New Zealand, end of so,
26:06
and you tell me that there's a stigma when it comes to benefits or any
26:11
kind of benefits. And I've noticed just recently in the United Kingdom, as
26:15
Ed Dowd has been saying for a very long time, he's been looking at
26:19
the disability data and the personal independence payment data from the UK and it's just
26:26
risen exponentially. And he said himself, Ed has said himself, the benefits
26:32
will the disability benefits could potentially bankrupt the country because so many more people are
26:37
applying. In New Zealand, you've been using vouchers and grants to help people.
26:47
So if somebody needs handrails put in, for example, maybe they'll get
26:51
a grant. And it looks as though the UK are going to be following
26:56
the same way because Rishi Sunak has just recently announced that he's not prepared to
27:02
live in a sick no culture and therefore people that are disabled and in need
27:07
of support will now be offered a tiered system with perhaps vouchers and grants following.
27:15
And it's actually quoted following the New Zealand model, So I think some
27:22
things we're obviously going to be following. You on, tell me a little
27:26
bit or tell our viewers a little bit about that no welfare state in New
27:30
Zealand and the stigma that surrounds it because you've got so many people now there
27:36
that are vaccine injured and also breathed. How are they managing when you've got
27:41
pretty much no help and no acknowledgment, no recognition, no transparency and no
27:48
data. How are they managing? You know? The thing that comes to
27:52
mind, Debbie, when you're talking about the stigma of welfare provision takes me
27:56
back to my childhood where we had those little silver coins so that we could
28:03
get our school meals because we were, you know, obviously on the in
28:07
that class of society that needed extra help with our family, and that there
28:14
was certainly some stigma amongst us kids of having to provide those little tokens to
28:22
in order to get our meal. And I think I wonder actually whether Rishi
28:26
Sunak's motivation for taking over or adopting the New Zealand model of this is along
28:37
those lines, is increasing that stigma. I mean, it's not that New
28:40
Zealand don't have a welfare system. We do, but it's very limited and
28:47
there are there is definitely this stigma that surrounds it for the less fortunate.
28:53
It's almost like they deliberately make it difficult, you know. The the you
28:57
know, the one thing that I've learn a lot from the reaching people dot
29:02
Net shout out to David Charylan Boss is you know, the path, the
29:08
easier path, is always the one that people will go down, you know.
29:11
And if it's too difficult to apply for welfare help, then people won't
29:17
bother, you know. And if it's surrounded by stigma as well, then
29:22
you know, lots of people just give up if they face these kinds of
29:26
challenges. So in the context of the vaccine injured, it's incredibly sad that
29:30
we don't really have litigation as such in New Zealand. That doesn't exist.
29:37
You know, a group action doesn't really exist. It's never really been successful
29:41
here, and that's partly because of what we call this acc that I touched
29:48
on before, the accident Compensation scheme, which is a no blame insurance policy
29:55
for everybody's health. So if you can, if you can prove and inverted
29:59
commerce that your health care problem, whatever it is, is a result of
30:03
an accident, then potentially you can get some help in that, you know,
30:11
in that regard with whatever you might need. So if you, I
30:14
don't know, if you fall over on the pavement or something and it's your
30:18
GP will say, oh, well, you know you fell over, it
30:21
as an accident and so therefore you can have ten sessions of physiotherapy. Here's
30:25
a you know, here's a recommend a prescription or a recommendation or a token
30:30
or whatever that you can go to an endorsed physiotherapist and get that service.
30:36
So the problem that you've got with the for the tragically the people that have
30:41
been injured by the injections is that acc are denying all claims that it is
30:48
a legitimate claim, so that they can't get any kind of assistance from the
30:53
public health system. And of course lots of people have been unable to work,
30:57
so they can't necessarily of forward private to go privately, and so they're
31:03
in catch twenty two really where they're gas lit and they can't get the help
31:10
and they're you know, alienated from society. And also there's this element of
31:15
isolation. You know, if people are living in rural areas, then they
31:22
might have lost their friends and family to the you know, to the mass
31:27
hypnosis, and it's yeah, it's a very sad state of affairs, to
31:34
be honest. There are groups that are helping the the vaccine injured. Shout
31:41
out to Linda Wharton of Health Forum and Z she does, she's brilliant on
31:47
Twitter or x whatever you call it now to help raise awareness of the flight
31:52
of New Zealanders suffering. So it's not like there aren't groups who are very
31:57
much trying to raise awareness and help these people. But it's very challenging times
32:05
and you're doing so much as well, Ursula, you know, you're organizing
32:09
lectures, meetings, you're putting yourself out there, and you're also putting your
32:14
money where your mouth is, aren't you? Because I also didn't know until
32:17
I read your substacks that you have to pay for GPS as well in New
32:23
Zealand, and it doesn't come cheap either. So if you've got somebody that's
32:29
got a vaccine injury and they're already not able to work and then they've got
32:34
to pet and it's not an accident because it never happened, because of course
32:37
it wasn't the vaccine. Fifty dollars I think you wrote about in your subset
32:44
fifty dollars to go and see a GP for a basic based a few basic
32:47
tests. That's a lot of money when you've got severe injuries. But you
32:53
did go to your GP because you wanted the experience, right, So tell
32:59
us about your experience with your GP after you'd coughed up your fifty dollars.
33:05
Yes, I was very naughty. I deliberately made an appointment with my GP,
33:09
who I hadn't seen since before COVID in some ways deliberately stayed away,
33:16
but I wanted just to get a handle on what was going on in that
33:22
clinic, and I knew they were, you know, relatively central to a
33:28
large town nearby. They were in a relatively wealthy area, and my personal
33:37
GP, you know, it is from overseas herself. She's not English,
33:40
but she is a professional migrant, so she you know, she she there's
33:47
no doubt she was still in the mass Formation. So I used a few
33:52
techniques to try to open her eyes a little bit. But it is a
33:58
case of chipping away at the people's cognitive dissonance. You know. I'll make
34:01
another appointment for the sake of fifty dollars to sit there for ten minutes or
34:07
whatever the allocation is and ask her a few more questions to see what her
34:12
reaction will be. But I speak to people all over New Zealand and overseas,
34:20
and the general feeling is that they have no trust in the healthcare profession
34:24
anymore. How can you, you know, how can you trust these people
34:30
that have really let everybody down so badly and won't even enter into a conversation.
34:39
It's just unbelievable, really, and it does worry me because now people
34:45
who legitimately do have reason to go and seek professional medical help may not be
34:52
doing that, you know, and that leads to other health problems in society.
34:59
So it's it's stacking up lots of difficult times for us ahead. I
35:06
think it's not just doctors and nurses that aren't being trusted. It seems to
35:09
be that the globalists or those that like to think that they're in control,
35:15
seem to wonder why we don't trust them, and they're trying to get us
35:20
to regain our trust, and somehow I think that is going to be extremely
35:25
difficult because I can't see anybody trusting any of them again, to be quite
35:30
honest. But what I was very refreshed to hear was when you were telling
35:34
me because we you know, over in the UK, we heard a lot
35:37
about Jacinda Ader. You know, we saw her all the time, we
35:43
heard her all the time, and of course now she liked rats and sinking
35:47
ships. She's disappeared off to the United States. I'm not going to spoil
35:54
I'm not going to steal your thumber here, but tell us what the opinion
35:58
is of New Zealanders and what happened when she tried to return to New Zealand
36:04
very recently, I believe. Yeah, so there was an occasion before she
36:07
actually left where at least one occasion that I know about, where she went
36:12
to a community hall for some charity event and there was hackling, you know,
36:20
protest outside, et cetera, and her security team ensured that she left
36:27
safely by the back door so that she didn't have to walk through the crowd
36:30
who could potentially have been jeering at her, et cetera. So she knew
36:36
at that point what she'd done was wrong and that people were very unhappy with
36:42
her. And then recently she did actually come back to get married to Clark,
36:51
and it was all, you know, very glitzy, lots of celebrities
36:54
there, and you know that I'm sure the legacy I mean I didn't see
36:57
it on the legacy media, but I'm sure they may the most of you
37:00
know, just in just dress and the wedding whatever presence and whatever, but
37:05
the vineyard. But behind the scenes we discovered that there were, you know,
37:15
people who had been invited to support that celebration had declined for obvious reasons.
37:24
And you know, it was she didn't you know, go anywhere else
37:30
in New Zealand. She wasn't a hero that perhaps she used to think she
37:37
was, or other people think that she might be. She didn't. There
37:39
wasn't any flag waving or anything to celebrate her a return to New Zealand for
37:46
a short while. She flew in, had a marriage ceremony and flew back.
37:51
And of course we've got to remember that she's working for one of the
37:53
fake fact checking institutions over in America. Now, she's very much part of
38:00
the propaganda machine that the wef are you insistent that that, you know,
38:07
we'll just keep going. It's very intense, this censorship and propaganda, and
38:14
she is an intrinsic part of it. Let's come on and talk a bit
38:16
about that, because you know, we've been looking at how New Zealand and
38:22
possibly the UK can compare. And as you all know, because I know
38:28
you watch the column, you'll know that I've been focusing in non public,
38:31
private philanthropic. We've got four p's now partnerships. And when I was training
38:38
as a nurse, we all had different hospitals, we all had different uniforms,
38:44
the same sort of training but slightly different. We were all in competition
38:46
with each other, but it was friendly competition. But we belonged to the
38:52
NHS, we belonged to the country. Only now what I'm seeing is that
38:58
our hospitals they don't belong to us anymore because they've been bought out by either
39:06
a corporation or a company or even another country. Our water industry, our
39:13
health industry, I mean pretty much every sector of public public services seems to
39:20
be sold off. And this is not just an asset grab, it's a
39:25
by stealth asset transfer. And I was shocked to learn that Bart's where I'd
39:32
done some of my postgraduate training, that was sold off. From one point
39:37
that Barts in the London were sold off for one point one billion, So
39:39
we don't even our hospitals aren't ours. You know, it seems as though
39:45
in the UK none of us have got any right over any part of our
39:50
country anymore because the government appear to have sold us out, sold us off.
39:55
You're seeing the same I know in New Zealand, And how is it
40:00
impacting you guys over there? Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it that in
40:06
this new COVID era we sort of reflect back onto our lives and things that
40:10
we've taken for granted or just ignored at the time, and they take on
40:15
new meaning. I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Warwick, which
40:21
you know UK column viewers will know is actually Coventry, but it's for political
40:25
reasons they called it Warwick. So and I actually worked at the medical school
40:30
there while I was doing my as a mature student, while I was doing
40:36
my undergrad part time. So it took me six years. And of course
40:40
that was the time when Blair was shouting education, education, education, you
40:46
know, and PPPs were really beginning to be expanded. So I witnessed it
40:54
happening at that time, the early two thousands at the Momentary Hospital and the
41:00
practical element of that was the car park of the hospital being sold off and
41:08
people had to pay to park to have their you know, even their outpatient
41:15
appointments or even you know, if it was an emergency. And so the
41:19
even the staff had to pay. It was just absolutely crazy at the time.
41:23
We you know, I remember the big outcry about it, and the
41:27
residents around the hospital would suffer because, you know, staff in emergency especially
41:37
would have their driveways blocked because cars would just be parked on the road outside
41:43
their house. And it was just incredible really, And and I see on
41:50
the news ide a quick check earlier. You know, it's still it's still
41:52
going on, that increase in car parking charges. So you know that's that's
41:58
the sort of day to day I suppose of the history. And then twenty
42:05
years later when I'm in New Zealand, I witness you know, the same
42:09
kind of pattern the private but in a different context. So I know you
42:15
interviewed Dot Malik and I was interviewed by him as well. He's a great
42:21
guy. And in that interview I spoke about the environmental aerial poisoning and which
42:30
is horrendous. But that's a topic for another day. But the public private
42:36
partnerships and philanthropy or what Margaret Anna Alice calls philanthropaths because they're psychopaths, is
42:45
a big part of the environmental big chem poisoning. Basically, the taxpayers money
42:53
goes to pay for contractors whom you know, undertake this poisoning pest control,
43:04
and the charities aren't really charities, they're pseudo charities and they're all owned.
43:12
It's a bit like that revolving doors syndrome. You know, all the board
43:16
members are actually also CEOs of the chemical companies or related industries, helicopter companies
43:24
or whatever. So it's just basically money laundering, you know, it's tax
43:29
exempt money laundering that is dressed up as helping the public. So in the
43:37
case of the PPPs for hospitals, you know, people can see that the
43:43
hospital physically, the hospitals are in a terrible state. They need investment,
43:46
they need new equipment. Some of them, to be honest, just need
43:51
to be demolished and rebuilt because they've just been neglected for so long, and
43:55
so we haven't got the money. You know, we're in an enormous debt.
44:00
You know, public debt and private debt in New Zealand is extremely high.
44:04
So it's little wonder that a solution to the problem. You know that
44:09
Hegelian strategy again is get the private companies into to present the to invest invest
44:21
in the in the new hospitals and prisons. You know the prison that I
44:25
used to teach at that's having a massive investment and an expansion. I don't
44:31
know why they might need hundreds of new rooms as a prison nearby there,
44:37
you go, at least they're at least they're prepared for whatever's coming. Adbbie,
44:45
you know, we're we have the same over here, and I can
44:47
see there's so many I mean, there's so many differences, but there's also
44:52
so much that's alike. And when you look at what we actually do have
44:57
left, it seems as though we've got very little. And you know,
45:02
not just the fact that our hospitals are hanging, that we don't have any
45:07
staff, but now after the furlough scheme and all the loans and the grants
45:14
that were given out, the cost of living has just skyrocketed over here.
45:20
And I always I try to use fuel just as a bit of an example.
45:25
And I was speaking to Professor Diane Rasmussen Macaddy the other day. She's
45:31
in Scotland, and she was telling me that diesel is approximately one fifty I
45:38
think Elita in Cornwall down in the southwest of England, it's one sixty.
45:45
Elita in the Channel Islands, which is not part of the UK, it's
45:52
a Crown dependency, it's one pounds seventy five, but they admittedly don't pay
45:57
road tax. Now we here all the time that your fuel over in the
46:01
southern Hemisphere is a lot cheaper. So just to give us an idea of
46:07
a comparison of cost of living, what is it like over there at the
46:10
moment. Generally the cost of living is very expensive, which is partly why,
46:17
you know, going back to that number eight wire mentality you know persists
46:23
is people prefer which is great in some ways. They prefer to mend and
46:29
make do rather than getting new because it is so expensive. Certainly the cost
46:35
of food, because of course a lot of our food is imported. That's
46:39
been incredibly expensive lately, the grocery bills, and that's been a good incentive
46:45
in some ways for people to get out and grow their own vegetables and you
46:51
know, barter with things. So at the moment, our unleaded varies,
46:59
you know, anything up to just over three dollars, which is about what
47:02
one pound fifty in the currency exchange at the moment for unleaded and deese always
47:08
a bit more than that. So yeah, it used to be a lot
47:15
cheaper to two dollars eleven for a liter of diesel. Roughly, it's an
47:22
interesting scenario. I mean, salaries are a lot less here, and tax,
47:29
you know, income tax isn't as much as it is in the UK,
47:30
but it's certainly gone up in the last ten years. Rates are just
47:35
ridiculous. I in council rates, some of them this year they reckon that
47:38
they're going to put them up by one hundred percent. Minutes just absolutely crazy.
47:45
And I think I mentioned to you before about the council services. They're
47:49
just, you know, ridiculous. They've totally lost touch with their actual function,
47:54
their basic function, things like collecting general rubbish. You know. They're
47:59
so preoccupied with their various investments and planting pretty flowers in the roundabouts so that
48:06
their towns look pretty, you know, and they've actually totally lost touch with
48:09
their primary objective of servicing the people, you know, being the servant of
48:17
the people. I actually want to ask you about the rubbish because I mean,
48:24
in Cornwall, for example, we've just been told that we can only
48:29
have two collections a month, and we've been given these big wheelibins and the
48:34
wheelibins have to be lids down. It mustn't be up otherwise they won't take
48:38
it. So basically the wheelly bin will take two, possibly three at a
48:44
squash bin bags. So we've been cut down to twice a month. You
48:51
over there, you don't get any bin collections. You actually have to you
48:55
have to get your own provider, get your own color bag. It all
49:00
goes on bags. I mean, it's an expensive business, isn't it.
49:02
So you end up with I guess fly tipping. I mean, it seemed
49:07
impossible this beautiful country New Zealand being littered with black bin bags, Is that
49:13
true? Yeah, So this does link to the public private partnership issue.
49:19
The council's had an option a few years ago to opt out of providing a
49:23
general rubbish collection, so they have to provide a recycling collection, but general
49:30
rubbish not necessarily, so there's private companies that provide the collection and it can
49:38
be very expensive, you know, like ten dollars a week. So yeah,
49:44
as you say, the option for a lot of people rather than paying
49:46
the extra money for actually a very unreliable service as well, is to just
49:52
burn the rubbish, so they're burning plastic, which isn't great for the environment,
49:57
and or they'll just you know, take it in their car and on
50:00
the side of the road, which means that taxpayers obviously have to pick up
50:04
the cost for the council to pay the same contractors to come and pick up
50:08
that rubbish. It's just and it all goes to the landfill, which is
50:12
privately owned as well, so it's insanity, you know. And if you
50:16
ask for an OIA of an Official Information Act request, which is the same
50:21
as the Freedom of Information Act in the UK and the US, you'll get
50:28
a response along the lines of we can't give you that information. We can't
50:31
tell you how much the contractors are paid because that's commercially sensitive. So you
50:37
know, you end up going around in circles trying to find out who who
50:42
is being paid, how much they're being paid, who's auditing those services,
50:46
because, as I say, they're not reliable, and it's just yeah,
50:51
it's a craziness, absolute craziness. I've got to say I've experienced that myself
50:57
because as most people in the US, UK no, but perhaps not a
51:01
broad we privatized the water industry back in the eighties courtesy of Margaret Thatcher,
51:07
and most of our viewers and listeners will know that. I've had quite a
51:12
quite a few issues with water and floods and water companies and what I found
51:17
out, my horror was in my area, it's a company called Southwest Water.
51:23
And when you write to the water company for a freedom of information the
51:28
first time I did it, of course I received a reply back to say,
51:32
we're exempt from freedom of informations because we're a private company. However,
51:38
they're a private company performing a public duty. But they say that oh no,
51:44
no, no, no, we don't need to give you any information
51:46
because it's a matter of national security. So they lock you out of that
51:52
as well. And of course the way that the asset has been transferred instead
51:58
of the public pay for an asset for a sewer, for example, if
52:01
we look at a sewer and the community goes, we need a new sewer,
52:07
but the government said, well, yeah, okay, you can have
52:09
a new sewer, but we'll have to charge you more in tax, and
52:13
the community goes, no, no, no, we're not paying tax.
52:15
So the government come back with a scheme where they've offered the contract to a
52:22
private company and said, look, if you provide these residents with a new
52:27
sewer basically that's yours. You know you can and then that asset has gone
52:31
then and so the public can't pay an increased tax, but then they pay
52:37
the increased sewerage bill or the increased water bill. So whichever way it comes
52:43
back, it comes back to the public. So that is happening both in
52:49
the UK and New Zealand. And obviously, you know our countries have been
52:53
lost to corporations, globalizations, and I guess that this is the gateway to
53:00
the one world government that is going to be completely unelected because we've sold out
53:06
to private companies. And what you said about charities, you know here again
53:13
the big charities, the big ones like Cancer Research UK, McMillan, the
53:19
National Autistic Society, the big ones, to me, they're nothing more than
53:23
quango's, you know, they're just an excuse to siphon off money into different
53:29
directions, which of course makes it very difficult, makes it very difficult for
53:34
the smaller grassroots charities that are doing incredibly valuable work. They just get completely
53:42
swept under the carpet because they haven't got a whole team of bid writers that's
53:47
taking the money from the public offers. So I mean, the public private
53:52
partnership, philanthropic partnerships is a huge issue. But I'm looking at the window
53:59
behind you. I'm seeing when we started it was pitch black outside, and
54:02
your day is about to begin as our day out is about to finish.
54:07
But before I do finish, I just want to ask you very quickly because
54:13
I know hopefully you'll be speaking to Charles, because you've done an awful lot
54:16
of work on the environment and environmental poisoning, and I'm hoping very much.
54:22
You'll be able to speak to my colleague Charles Mallett about that. But I've
54:28
been looking into something called geo fencing, and in the UK many people are
54:32
surprised that, you know, they look at their phones because they're on their
54:36
phones all the time. They look at their phones and they think, oh,
54:38
that's weird. I was only looking at a pair of brown shoes or
54:42
a red coat yesterday, and now all of a sudden, my phone is
54:45
full of these offers to buy brown shoes and red How did my phone know
54:51
that? And I've been explaining to our viewers and listeners that geo fencing are
54:57
these invisible zones. So if you walk into a store, that store will
55:01
be able to see what you're looking at, what you're considering purchasing, what
55:07
you might desire, what you're thinking. And you're walking into these zones all
55:12
the time, whether it be a public zone, a public area like a
55:15
hospital or a court or a prison perhaps, or into a retail area.
55:21
So I was very shocked. And oh, by the way, when it
55:24
comes to cows, because I know we're coming onto cows. When it comes
55:29
to cows, we've been seeing cows with masks on so I was very shocked
55:35
when you told me that New Zealand has actually gone one step on with cows
55:39
using a different type of geo fencing. Can you tell us a bit about
55:45
New Zealand's version of geo fencing with cows. We've got five G towers as
55:52
a problem, like you know, everybody seems to have, you know,
55:55
protests about five G towers, and one of the queer is in New Zealand
56:00
was, of course, we don't have the population to support the costs of
56:05
putting these great big tails in. And then we started seeing cows with these
56:09
collars on in the fields because I don't know whether you know that. I
56:13
mean generally New Zealand is known for its sheep, but actually dairy is its
56:17
biggest export. You know, between five and ten percent of the GDP here
56:22
is dairy product, mainly to China. So it's very important to maximize the
56:29
output from these cows. And one way that they can do that is for
56:35
farmers to have subscriptions that allow them to track what each cow has eaten,
56:40
what each cow has produced in terms of milk, and also to control their
56:47
fencing. So rather than having a physical electric electric fence, they can through
56:53
various you know, technological posts in various places control where the cows are allowed
57:02
to roam. So it's that's tracking the cows and preventing them from entering certain
57:13
products at certain times is a big part of the control mechanism. Or you
57:17
know, as you mentioned the other day, the Internet of animals, that
57:22
is this transhumanist kind of agenda. It's pretty depressing how the technology is,
57:30
you know, pushed so far ahead so quickly under stealth. You know,
57:35
people aren't necessarily aware of what's happening around them. It's definitely a big part
57:39
of the rural life, the technology. I've got two very important final questions
57:46
for you. Well, I mean they're not because we could talk forever,
57:50
and I mean we have done on Zoom. It's just gone on and on,
57:52
ladies and gentlemen that are watching. Really, I could have I could
57:55
have sat up all night talking to Ursula because obviously she's got so much information
58:00
in her brain. But two things that I have to ask you about briefly,
58:04
if you don't mind, before you disappear and start your day, is
58:07
the Two Seas and censorship and China. So can I ask you how New
58:15
Zealand is coping with censorship and the Chinese migrants. I think you're getting quite
58:22
a lot of Chinese migrants. Could you explain a bit more. Yeah,
58:28
the partnership between New Zealand and the CCP is very close. There's no doubt
58:34
that we rely heavily upon China for our export market, and there are a
58:40
lot of Chinese owned properties and land and infrastructure in New Zealand. So again
58:52
it's just under the surface. You have to dig a little bit and nine
58:59
times out of ten look at company's service, company's house, you know the
59:01
equivalent at company's house, and you'll see the directors of these corporates are based
59:08
in or have something to do with with China. Definitely, just like the
59:14
UK, the universities here have campuses in China and or they will have some
59:20
sort of base in China on the understanding that Chinese students are a big source
59:27
of income, or they were until relatively recently for international student fees, and
59:35
that has had an impact. There's no doubt on the corruption of academia here,
59:38
which you know is probably the subject for another whole interview. In terms
59:43
of how academia has been captured, it's slightly concerning actually the amount of influence
59:51
that China has on New Zealand. It puts it in a very difficult situation
59:55
when there's so much tension geopolitical. There really is so much to talk about,
1:00:02
and you're right, you know, academia, the environment, farming,
1:00:07
health, vaccination mandates, where we're going moving forward, all of this.
1:00:14
There's just so much to talk about, and sadly there's not enough time to
1:00:19
talk about it all. But I know that we're going to be coming back
1:00:21
to you. Before I hand over to you for the last word, I
1:00:27
want to take this opportunity to say to people that are watching in New Zealand,
1:00:31
in Australia, wherever you are in the world, we'd like to hear
1:00:36
from you what's going on in your country. And if you like what we're
1:00:40
doing and you can help us and become one of the family and join subscribe
1:00:45
to UK column, we'd be really really happy to welcome you and please share
1:00:52
the material wherever you can. And on this occasion particularly, I want to
1:00:55
thank Ursula so much for getting up at the crack of dawn, and also
1:01:00
to our wonderful producer Stephanie Sinclair, who has stayed late to keep the studio
1:01:06
open to enable this interview. So thank you to both of you. But
1:01:10
just before I hand across to you Ursula for your last word, is there
1:01:15
anything that's burning that you think we really need to include or perhaps maybe we
1:01:21
should say for another time. Is there anything you want to add before before
1:01:24
we sign off? Just the various groups really in New Zealand. In there
1:01:30
we do have quite a strong freedom movement, even though as you say,
1:01:34
it's very much censored from the legacy media. We have the Nurses for Freedom
1:01:40
group that I try to help out as much as I can. They've actually
1:01:45
formed You might be interested in speaking directly to them, Debbie. They've actually
1:01:50
formed a spin off from the Australian Nurses Professional Association, the union there.
1:02:00
I'll give you the link so you can add it to the to the show
1:02:05
notes. The Teachers Group New Zealand Teachers Speaking Out with Science and also the
1:02:12
New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out with Science. They're two separate but you know,
1:02:17
connected, closely connected groups who are fighting for some recognition through the courts and
1:02:23
some compensation in view of the mandates, the vaccine mandates that they suffered from
1:02:30
and the environmental work that me and my colleagues are involved with. If people
1:02:36
can go to the People's Inquiry twenty twenty dot enz to find out a bit
1:02:40
more about that, if you're interested in the reality that goes up against this
1:02:45
myth of clean green, one hundred percent pure New Zealand pr spin sorry to
1:02:52
be, you know, to bust another myth about the utopia that is New
1:02:57
Zealand. But unfortunately, like a lot of these things that we believe,
1:03:00
it's you know, it doesn't take much research to find out that it's not
1:03:06
actually the reality. But yeah, so there's a couple of things to finish
1:03:12
on. You know, Ursula, We've been talking all this time and I've
1:03:16
suddenly realized that actually we should have given a bit of your background. You
1:03:21
know, you're British born, You've come from the UK, and I didn't
1:03:25
ask you about your history because your history is quite phenomenal. You have done
1:03:30
tons, can you tell us? I know it's a bit back to front,
1:03:34
and I do apologize for that because I think we're going to be coming
1:03:37
back to you many times for information. So I just want to our viewers
1:03:38
and listeners just to get a little bit of a flavor of who Ursula is,
1:03:45
so first of all, a big shout out to all the freedom lovers
1:03:47
in Essex. I'm an Essex girl by birth and I do still have family
1:03:52
there, so a big shout out to you guys. I've traveled a lot
1:03:57
all over the world. I've done lots of different jobs in lots of different
1:04:01
areas. I was a mature student during the Blair years at the University of
1:04:09
Warwick. The job that I did then was at the medical school while I
1:04:12
was working and studying part time. I then did an e Soul qualification,
1:04:17
so that allowed me to teach at the refugee center in Commentary City Center,
1:04:25
amongst other things, and then I went to Nottingham University to do my teaching
1:04:30
qualification Adult teaching qualification. Then I stayed on to do my master's whilst I
1:04:35
was teaching at Northampton College. So I was teaching the beginning nurses there at
1:04:43
Northampton College in their foundation to their degree. So that was where my sort
1:04:48
of interest in health and well being sort of evolved. And then I was
1:04:56
lucky enough to win a scholarship to do my PhD at Canterbury Christchurch University in
1:05:01
Kent, so again a shout out to Canterbury. That was when I was
1:05:08
investigating Offsted and the negative impact that it had on teachers at that time,
1:05:14
so very much Now, when we're looking at things where the government is trying
1:05:19
to measure things that aren't measurable, that's where my interest in education kind of
1:05:27
started in trying to question that authoritarianism. So we moved to New Zealand about
1:05:33
ten years ago and I did a lectureship for two years at the local university,
1:05:40
which was a very difficult time and for reasons that I won't go into
1:05:45
now, I was forced out of that position and like lots of academics,
1:05:49
I was gagged, So I can't discuss that, but yeah, it just
1:05:55
highlighted to me how corrupt academia is and the result of the mess that we're
1:06:02
in now. So since then, I've been a freelance researcher, writer,
1:06:08
teacher. I do some adult teaching in various workplaces, etc. And a
1:06:15
bit of writing. Yeah. So since the COVID era, I've been involved
1:06:17
in helping some of the groups that have suffered during the COVID era and trying
1:06:21
to raise awareness of their situation by writing about it and attending and organizing meetings.
1:06:30
Thank you again hugely because we need to know what's going on over the
1:06:36
other side of the world, and clearly it's very similar to what's going on
1:06:42
in this hemisphere as well, and we know that we're going to keep you,
1:06:45
keeping in close contact with you, Ursilla, and there's plenty more topics
1:06:49
to talk about. So on that note, I'm going to hand over to
1:06:54
you for your last word, and thank you to everyone that is watching,
1:06:59
especially if you're in New Zealand. Our love and our prayers go with you.
1:07:03
Ursula. Your last word, thank you, Debbie. I really appreciate
1:07:08
it. So I would say just don't give up. You know, we're
1:07:14
very well connected. It's pretty amazing that even though I might have lost to
1:07:18
the mass formation some of my friends and colleagues and family members over these last
1:07:24
four years, hopefully not forever, but you know, I've made some amazing
1:07:30
connections from people all over the world. So so don't give up. We
1:07:35
are we are connected, and we are learning and we're growing. So reaching
1:07:44
people dot net I would give a shout out to that. So if you
1:07:46
want some help with learning about the behavioral science and how to reach people.
1:07:51
Reaching people dot net is a fabulous resource and be the change you want to
1:07:58
see. You know, we're all fed up with staring at these screens.
1:08:02
You know, please encourage people to put down their phones and connect with the
1:08:09
humanity again and create, you know, gatherings of people, you know,
1:08:15
whatever, whatever it might take, have some authentic gatherings and reconnect with people
1:08:21
around you. That's that's the way that you know, we get out of
1:08:26
this mess that we're in. And keep smiling and look after yourself and thank
1:08:31
you. H