Submission on the COVID-19 PUBLIC HEALTH RESPONSE ACT 2020 (“the Covid Act”) by the NZ Bill of Rights and Natural Health Advocacy Group
To: Committee Secretariat, Finance and Expenditure Committee; fe@parliament.govt.nz
Prepared and lodged by Tracy Livingston B. Applied Sc (Osteopathy) 26th June 2020
tracy@livingston.kiwi
phone: 027 212 8827
This submission is lodged by the NZ Bill of Rights and Natural Health Advocacy Group.
This Act must be repealed immediately.
Introduction:
This legislation has obviously been written in an attempt to protect the health and safety of the New Zealand population. We recognise that this legislation has the potential to make every single New Zealander a criminal. This legislation does not address the health of our population at all, rather, it enforces control of the population by fear, intimidation and bullying.
Certainly it gives astonishing powers over the population for an infectious illness. We find this legislation duplicitous as thousands of people die in New Zealand yearly from completely preventable, non-infectious illness and there has been no emergency legislation passed to protect the health and wellbeing of our people.
This government enacted a law that contradicts the New Zealand Bill of Rights under all levels of a pandemic response and in one 48 hour period with no meaningful consultation. The NZ Bill of Rights Advocacy and Natural Health Group is extremely concerned that the new laws fall outside Common Law, the NZ Bill of Rights, the Nuremberg Code and The NZ Health and Disability Commission Act and He Wakapuntanga o Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni, and gives special powers to law enforcement as well as ‘non-law’ enforcement. It seems that this Bill contradicts many natural and legislated rights and is therefore unlawful. It will remove human rights under Common Law, the NZ Bill of Rights, the Nuremberg Code and The NZ Health and Disability Commission Act and He Wakapuntanga o rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni.
Conventional medicine has no effective treatment of viral infections and ignores natural health approaches to effectively managing these illnesses. Currently and historically, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) has hundreds of effective therapies for viral infections. In an epidemic, CAM is vital to maintain the good health of the population. There are numerous easily obtainable natural treatments that are both effective for boosting immunity, and curing viral infections. None of these are promoted by this Covid 19 legislation or discussed by the government or Ministry of Health.
Covid19 virus may be a ‘novel’ virus but there are hundreds of novel viruses discovered every year. If the New Zealand government enforces this legislation every time a ‘novel’ virus is discovered, the country would never be open. The COVID19 legislation does not take into account new research that shows human beings continuously share viral structures with each other and their environment. By enforcing a ‘shelter in place’ regime for our country, this is less likely to occur and people may be unable to build normal, natural immunity. As there are no studies to show what happens after prolonged isolation we have no idea what the outcomes will be. This legislation may be used to enforce an experimental quarantine with unknown outcomes.
Recent studies have shown a high percentage of healthy populations had already developed COVID19 antibodies. This makes a mockery of ‘locking down’ a country to prevent a novel infectious illness. COVID 19 had already been in New Zealand for months before the enforced “shelter in place” – New Zealand is a highly mobile population with millions of visitors from all over the world. It is ridiculous to think that COVID19 wasn’t already here. To pass legislation that is “ a fit-for-purpose legal framework for managing the unprecedented circumstances of the COVID-19 epidemic in a co-ordinated and orderly way, even if there is no longer a national state of emergency” is inappropriate because the terms of reference are wrong from the outset. An Act such as this, potentially making every citizen a criminal, requires the highest standard of validation; otherwise it makes a mockery of parliamentary process and this current government.
The hilarious video we all saw of the Tanzanian President explaining how jackfruit, pawpaw and a goat all returned a positive COVID19 test also makes a mockery of the lack of science around COVID19 testing. The test has been shown to be highly inaccurate by many sources thereby nullifying this entire Act as not based on scientific evidence.
CAM/natural health practitioners have been adversely affected by the governments past reaction to COVID19 and this new Act will legalise that discrimination and prevent natural health practitioners seeing patients if there is another “outbreak”. This legislation discriminates against consumers who wish to access natural therapies as well as natural health practitioners. CAM practitioners are even more essential in a time of illness, and indeed, historically, natural health practitioners have proven their efficacy time and again, saving a far higher percentage of lives than conventional medicine. This has been proven again by numerous health professionals around the world sharing their COVID19 success stories. The opposite, evidence of the disastrous outcomes of ventilated patients in New York City hospitals, from eye-witness accounts of nurses who tell of iatrogenic deaths from incorrect treatment, shows that the inappropriate medical treatment of COVID19 is deadly. Doctors in Wuhan sharing their success stories of high dose vitamin C have been completely ignored by this and other governments around the world.
There is no data to support this legislation as the most effective method of preventing or treating an epidemic. The data shows that air pollution is a more accurate predictor of symptoms and death from COVID19 than viral load as long term exposure to particulate matter lowers resistance to the influenza virus. This means that legislation would be put to better use to reduce pollution and airborne chemical toxins, rather than enforcing quarantine on its citizens.
Justification for opposing the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020
We are opposed to any legislation that potentially makes every man, woman and child a criminal.
We are opposed to any legislation that has the potential to destroy the entire economy of our country, small and medium businesses and put individuals and the government into debt for decades.
We are opposed to the Act, because this is not effective legislation to ensure the health and wellbeing of the population.
We are opposed to legalising warrantless entry for this or any infectious illness as there are thousands of infectious illnesses. If you are prepared to pass legislation for one infectious illness, it sets a dangerous precedent to legalise warrantless entry and enforced quarantine of healthy people for any infectious illness.
We are opposed to this bill because “Power to direct business or undertaking to close” are based on one person’s decision, and may or may not have the data to back up that decision as we have seen already with the original COVID19 response. Business owners then have to go to the District Court Judge to appeal, leaving this issue open to the judge’s discretion. Defending their right to continue the operation of their business is not only discriminatory against small and medium business owners it will be an enormous waste of taxpayer money. If the closed business then sues the government for this discrimination, as they undoubtedly will, this adds another cost to government.
We are opposed to this bill because “Power to direct person to provide identifying information” goes against our NZ Bill of Rights and Common Law and is therefore unenforceable. If the NZ Parliament, Police and Defence Force ignore the NZ Bill of Rights, we consider those parties will be engaging in criminal action against the New Zealand population.
We are opposed to this Act, because those who are actually vulnerable, the elderly and ill, are not offered protection by this Act. They suffer more than anyone when almost all society is forced into quarantine.
We are opposed to any legislation that goes against the NZ Bill Of Rights by giving police powers to forcibly remove a person from a dwelling place.
We are opposed to any legislation that goes against the NZ Bill Of Rights, preventing us from moving about our own country.
We are opposed to this Act as it goes against the NZ Bill Of Rights giving police powers to require “classes of people” or “individuals” to be forced to “report for medical examination or testing”? This violates our right to refuse medical treatment, and potentially the right not to be subjected to medical or scientific experimentation.
We are opposed to this Act because Clause 33 states, if someone hurts a citizen, acting under this Act they are immune to prosecution and this removes our right to recourse if citizens are hurt in some way by this person “following orders”.
We are opposed to this Act due to the powers given in section 11 (1) (a): “require persons to refrain from taking any actions that contribute or are likely to contribute to the risk of the outbreak or spread of COVID-19, or require persons to take any actions, or comply with any measures, that contribute or are likely to contribute to preventing the risk of the outbreak or spread of COVID-19, including (without limitation) requiring persons to do any of the following:…”. It does not say what the requirements can extend to – these powers are far too broad – what is government actually giving itself permission to do? Bearing in mind that COVID19 has been shown to have a very low fatality rate, we see this as heavy handed, controlling legislation.
We are opposed to this Act because # 41/section 272 means that children and youth can be prosecuted which potentially criminalizes our Tamariki which is wrong.
The Government is giving itself incredible powers over citizens and their businesses for months at a time. This heavy handed approach has no logical rationale behind it and there has been no research into the benefits or harms of the legislation.
It has created enormous distrust of the government by New Zealand citizens and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of us are frightened, not of COVID19, but of what this legislation means and how the government has managed this whole situation.
We would like to make it known to this select committee that we, The NZ Bills of Rights and Natural Health Advocacy Group, strongly disagree with this legislation and do not consent to it being passed. We do not agree to have our human rights removed by legislation and we oppose its ability to criminalize the entire population.
This Act must be repealed immediately.
Tracy Livingston, Bachelor Applied Sc (Osteopathy).
Anna King, Bachelor of Osteopathy.
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