Not content with wasting $60 million turning George st/Exchange into a cycleway and wasting a further $53 million on ‘park-and-ride’, ‘way-finding’ and ‘traffic diversion’ projects to empty our city centre, our DCC Chair of Infrastructure now wants to throw a stadium-sized budget into a hole in the ground to further hide our cars from the ill-sited Hospital.

The Hawkins’ car-canceling Council majority is barking mad in my view.

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/dcc/tunnel-plan-one-way-system

Organised resistance to the forced takeover of Dunedin’s $2.5 BILLION water assets by a self-selected 50% Iwi elite is ‘futile’ according to our Mayor.

Not surprising when Mayor Hawkins unsuccessfully tried to get Council approval for his letter to MP Mahuta claiming ‘broad support’ for her takeover proposal, but when Councillor questions became too numerous and oppositional he abused his Mayoral role by pulling the Zoom Meeting plug before the meeting could even move from questions to debate or to a vote.

Sitting in my lazy-boy looking at my silenced speech notes in disbelief was just one reason I now refuse to be excluded from doing my Councillor job in person.

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/dcc/joining-water-campaign-group-would-mean-funding-%E2%80%98futile%E2%80%99-legal-action-mayor

Thursday, 9 December 2021

Paper Vandervis used often misrepresented: MoH

By Grant Miller91468

1. News
2. Dunedin

Lee Vandervis. PHOTO: ODT FILESA document Dunedin city councillor Lee Vandervis relied on to argue against Covid-19 vaccine passes was revised by the Ministry of Health because of its use — or misuse — by anti-vaccination groups.

The ministry had told health professionals in mid-November that, when there was high vaccination coverage, transmission of the disease was “more likely to occur from a vaccinated than an unvaccinated individual”.

Version 2.0 had no such phrase, although it continued to argue denying access to healthcare on the basis of vaccination status would be unacceptable.

Cr Vandervis, who was served a trespass notice this week after he tried to attend a council meeting without a vaccine pass, suggested the council had fostered misconceptions about transmission rates and had mischaracterised the Pfizer vaccine’s effectiveness.

Ministry of Health chief medical officer Dr Andrew Connolly provided clarity yesterday.

Transmission of Covid-19 was indeed more likely to come from a vaccinated person than an unvaccinated one, because of sheer weight of numbers in a highly vaccinated population.

“That said, the severity of infection and the absolute risk of passing on the virus is dramatically higher in unvaccinated people.”

A recent study had shown when a vaccinated person had Covid-19, they were far less likely to infect unvaccinated households.

Dr Connolly said changes were made to the the ministry’s document after consultation.

It was revised “because aspects were being misrepresented by anti-vaccination groups and we did not want to dilute the overarching message that pre-consultation testing of unvaccinated patients was generally not necessary”.

The Otago Daily Times asked University of Otago law professor Andrew Geddis about another ministry statement cited by Cr Vandervis: “The legislation will be very clear that access to essential services, including healthcare services, cannot be restricted based on vaccination status.”

Local government was essential, Cr Vandervis argued.

Prof Geddis said places people could not be excluded from were spelled out, but local government offices were not on the list.

Cr Vandervis could challenge the DCC’s policy in the High Court, but Prof Geddis said that would be costly and time-consuming, and if Cr Vandervis argued for interim access the council could argue access by Zoom was sufficient.

Council chief executive Sandy Graham said remote access had been in place for Cr Vandervis for Tuesday’s meeting, but he “walked past a security guard and into the Civic Centre and Municipal Chambers”.

“The security guard asked to see Cr Vandervis’ vaccine pass, but could not prevent him from entering, as he had limited powers to physically intervene.”

A three-month trespass notice was issued, which Prof Geddis said would need to be lifted early if Cr Vandervis got vaccinated.

Ms Graham said the law was clear access to council premises could be denied after a health and safety risk assessment.

A Local Government New Zealand spokesman said councils had adapted to online meetings before, or at the start of, the pandemic — and while attending meetings online “can be less than ideal for some, it is an effective way for an elected member to perform their duties as a representative of their community”.

 – grant.miller@odt.co.nz

From: Lee Vandervis <lee@vandervision.co.nz>
Date: Friday, 10 December 2021 at 8:03 AM
To: EditorODT <editor@odt.co.nz>, “Nicholas. Smith” <nicholas.smith@xtra.co.nz>, Grant McKenzie <grant@alliedpress.co.nz>, Grant Miller <grant.miller@odt.co.nz>
Subject: Out of the room on zoom? Letter to the Editor 129 words

Letter to the Editor

Out of the room on zoom? 

Dear Barry,
The DCC CEO claim that I can still do my Councillor job by being needlessly excluded from the room and given a public camera feed on zoom is ridiculous.
Not only have lock-down Council zoom meetings proved to be awful with ongoing technical glitches, speaker order disputes, inability to read the room and motion amendments, hear Points of Order sources and supplementary information all made worse by Mayoral abuse of his zoom mute button facility, but when everybody is on zoom there are at least 18 selectable  cameras in play for each participant that everyone can access, which can’t happen for just one remote zoom participant.
The only ‘advantage’ to a zoom Council meeting is that you can get away with partaking in your underwear if you are clever.
Kind regards,

Cr. Lee Vandervis

Letter to the Editor

The Silencing of the Councillors.

Mayor Hawkins never allowed Council’s 3 Water’s Reform response to even get to discussion as claimed in the ODT [21/9/21]
In an unprecedented Mayoral move, the Zoom meeting was shut down during question time when it became obvious that too many Councillors were not going to accept the Mayor’s proposed letter to MP Mahuta in which he claimed  “Common goals with the Government”, and ”broad support for reforms that enable Ngai Tahu to meaningfully participate” in the proposed 50% Iwi Governance of Mahuta’s 3 Waters Reform.
Mayor Hawkins is proposing to redo the meeting again next week, again in remote Zoom, despite Councils such as Christchurch and Wellington being back in public venues again.
Perhaps this is because Zoom has the advantage of allowing our Mayor to easily silence and boot everybody out when he does not like the way too many Councillors are questioning his agenda.

Kind regards,

Cr. Lee Vandervis

Newspeople?

If you want to print a NEWS story concerning me, you should ask me for comment first, especially since there has been no time pressure as in this instance.

My comment would have been as follows, which you might still usefully print if indeed news is what your business is, rather than advertising.

The Court case and the Appeal have been necessary to challenge the DCC bureaucracy’s public attack on an elected representative during an election process, to get rulings on unprecedented uses/abuses of Code of Conduct provisions, and to preserve elected representatives’ ability to criticise Council employees and/or management.

It has nothing to do with trying to get off a $12 parking ticket as repeatedly falsely claimed.

The Appeal issues before the Court are:

1. Did the Chief Executive of the Dunedin City Council follow the procedures in the Dunedin City Council Code of Conduct in forwarding the complaint against the Appellant to the 2nd Respondent for investigation;

2. Was the 2nd Respondent validly appointed to investigate complaints under the Dunedin City Council Code of Conduct;

3. Did the 2nd Respondent act contrary to the principles of natural justice and the investigation he carried out pursuant to the Dunedin City Council Code of Conduct;

4. Should the Appellant obtain the declarations sought;

5. Should the decisions of the Dunedin City Council on 11 December 2019 be set aside;

I have personally paid for all my own legal costs to settle these important issues in the public interest, while the DCC Bureaucracy has used public funds via supposed Code of Conduct which influenced the Mayoral election and frustrated my Judicial Review of their actions in their own interests. 
A significant confirmation from the Court process so far has been the acknowledgement that ex-CEO Bidrose ‘was concerned that Cr. Vandervis might become Mayor’.

Cr. Lee Vandervis

“News is what someone wants to suppress. Everything else is advertising.” – Lord Northcote

Further CEO Graham claims include that an Elected Representative could adequately perform staff-interface, representative and debating round the Council table functions by remote zoom having been singularly excluded from Council Offices. The wholly unsatisfactory business of conducting just Council meetings by zoom was proved during lock-down with ongoing technical glitches, speaker order disputes, and inability to read the room and supplementary information, all made worse by Mayoral abuse of his zoom mute button facility.

I walked masked past the Town Hall security guards half an hour in advance of yesterday’s full Council meeting of 7^th December scheduled for 1pm in the Edinburgh Room as offered to CEO Graham for good distancing and sat preparing for the meeting at my usual place as is my Elected Representative duty and right. I explained this to a security guard who came and asked me to leave the building, quoting him the latest Ministry of Health advice of 17/11/2021 that “The legislation will be very clear that access to essential services, including healthcare services, cannot be restricted based on vaccination status.” and that Local Government was an essential service.

When nobody else turned up for yesterday’s meeting, I sent the following email to the CEO questioning why I had not been advised of a meeting cancellation or change of venue, and today I have still not had an answer. I was subsequently served with a Trespass Notice signed by the CEO.

From: Lee Vandervis <lee@vandervision.co.nz>
Date: Tuesday, 7 December 2021 at 2:02 PM
To: Sandy Graham <Sandy.Graham@dcc.govt.nz>
Cc: Clare Sullivan <clare.sullivan@dcc.govt.nz>
Subject: Full Council Meeting cancellation or change of venue?

Dear Chief Executive Office Graham,

I have attended the full Council meeting of 7th December as scheduled in the Edinburgh Room at the allotted time of 1pm, as is my right and duty as an elected representative, but the time now is 1.55pm and the meeting has not proceeded as required.

A presumably DCC-hired security guard ex Allied Security came to the Edinburgh Room where I have been seated as usual and told me that I was obliged to leave the building because I had not shown proof of current vaccination.

I informed him as I have previously advised you by email, that “our NZ Ministry of Health has advised on 17/11/2021 that “When there is high COVID-19 vaccine coverage (i.e., above 80 percent of eligible people are fully vaccinated), transmission is more likely to occur from a vaccinated than an unvaccinated individual.”

Further our MoH in the same document says:

“The legislation will be very clear that access to essential services, including healthcare services, cannot be restricted based on vaccination status.”

Was today’s full meeting cancelled or changed to another venue?, and if so on whose authority?, and why was I as an elected representative not advised of any venue change or cancellation?
I note that LGOIMA 46 (1) as referenced in our Standing Orders requires you to ensure that the date, time and place of a public Council meeting are to be publicly notified.

Looking forward to your explanation of this apparent breach of required meeting procedure.

Regards,

Cr. Lee Vandervis

I am not irate about being excluded from Council buildings as falsely claimed in today’s ODT, but I am deeply saddened. I am saddened for exclusion of ratepayers and especially the misery and strain being caused for DCC employees who are being forced out of their jobs, in the name of ‘protecting staff’.
I have been counseling several employees yesterday, people with families and mortgages who are faced with forced vaccination if they want to be able to continue supporting their families and continue their careers.
Without even a debate, report or a Council vote, our DCC bureaucrats have decided to wreck the unvaccinated lives of people who have good reason to believe that the new vaccine is not safe or effective in preventing disease transmission. Our Democracy has become an ugly Bureaucracy.

The DCC CEO is proposing to exclude unvaccinated people including Elected Representatives from all Council buildings in a draft proposal, and has asked for feedback which I have provided as below. Unless other Elected representatives have provided anonymous feedback, I am the only one to date to do so.

As the only Elected Representative at the DCC to publicly confirm that I am not yet prepared to submit to the latest vaccination for many reasons, primarily because our government is forcing it on us, I am being subject to all kind of suppression, and now with the threat of physical exclusion. 

Auckland and Wellington Councils have excluded all unvaxed staff and Elected Representatives from Council buildings already. 

My response to the “DCC draft Covid Protection (Vaccination) Policy” is as below.

 “As with the common cold, there is always a risk of contracting or transmitting Covid variants.

Hence the phrase “require that anyone entering DCC premises is vaccinated, where there is risk of contracting and transmitting COVID-19 to others.” means a blanket ban on those who have not provided proof of vaccination. There is always a risk, as the NZ Ministry of Health document quoted below makes clear.

The latest MoH advice to Health Professionals of 19 Nov 2021 says amongst other things “The legislation will be very clear that access to essential services, including healthcare services, cannot be restricted based on vaccination status.”

With regard to those seeking medical consultation MoH advice also states “Vaccination status is one of many risk factors for infection and transmission. There is currently no evidence that the application of an alternative pathway based solely on vaccination status, or the routine incorporation of unvaccinated asymptomatic individuals into a high-risk pathway is justified.”

Further the MoH advice states “When the rate of community spread is zero or very low, the risk of transmission from any consultation will be very low, unless a person is known to be at higher risk because they are symptomatic or a close contact of a confirmed case. In addition, in this situation the difference in the risk of transmission between vaccinated and unvaccinated people will be negligible. When the prevalence of disease in the community is high, the risk of transmission from any individual is not negligible and is likely to warrant application of mitigations for all consultations.When there is high COVID-19 vaccine coverage (i.e., above 80 percent of eligible people are fully vaccinated), transmission is more likely to occur from a vaccinated than an unvaccinated individual.”

Referring to patient testing in a medical consultation setting the MoH advice is very clear “Asymptomatic infection is the issue, not the vaccination status of the patient.”

The DCC Policy is premature in advance of traffic lights detail from Government and in conflict with the latest MoH advice, and appears to foster misconceptions about transmission ex vaccinated or unvaccinated individuals.

The DCC Draft Protection Policy has an inappropriately added (VACCINATION) to the title indicating that (vaccination) is synonymous with ‘protection’, which is untrue.

The draft further claims that “The COVID-19 vaccines will help protect people by either preventing or reducing symptoms of COVID-19 in the person who has received the vaccine.” There is no evidence that the Pfizer Vaccine prevents symptoms or reduces rates of transmission. It merely reduces the intensity of some symptoms in some patients, and at a significantly lower rate than initially claimed.

Finally, there is the overarching concept of how deadly Covid 19 and its variants has been to date. The DCC Draft claims that “When elimination is not possible, they must reduce the risk so far as reasonably practicable.” Elimination has never been possible, and Government death-rate data shows little if any additional deaths in many western counties.  Relevant data on very low death risk is at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3odjlEn8qXY

Cr. Lee Vandervis”

What has Dunedin got to show for its ballooning debt, other than ballooning rates increases always many times the rate of inflation?
Ballooning DCC staff numbers? and what else?

https://www.odt.co.nz/…/council-set-hoist-borrowing…

We should promote local businesses, stop the ludicrous spending, stop the $60 million George st/Exchange ‘surface treatments’ which is code for turning the City Centre into another cycleway, stop the $10 million park and ride experiment and the other $10 million for ‘way-finding’ carparks instead of making them, stop colouring our roads, reverse the recent massive increase in DCC staff numbers, and then there are another 100+ ways to save money as below:

Reasons outside of my control include being unable to confirm an adjudicator or get responses today from the convenor. I still think the Debate is a really good idea and hope that it still proceeds without me.

Showing ‘support and solidarity’ by using public funds to fly politicised flags just advertises and reinforces divisions in my view.
That is why opposing armies fly different flags as they go into battle, to reinforce slight cultural differences rather than recognising our far greater human sameness.

Other Councillors were too Politically Correct to vote against joining the LGBTQI queue. $40,000 for George st red/blue dots now to be followed by similar waste with more roadway painting following Wellington’s artless lead.

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/crossing-‘pc-virtue-signalling’

I do not know who Melissa O’Hagan is, but when she wrote this by God she got it right:

“It probably doesn’t matter what Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern does from here on in. Her legacy, in many minds, is already in place. The division of a nation.

We are witnessing a disunion of our fellow citizens in a way we’ve never seen before, well in my lifetime anyway; It wasn’t so many years ago that although there might be disagreement on an issue, there was still a semblance of respect for each other’s views. That has well and truly gone out the window in Ardern’s New Zealand.

The venom, and – I’m just going to say it – hatred, on display is not only shocking, but extremely sad. It’s out of hand. We used to think in trying times New Zealanders would come together and forget minor irritations about left and right notions. But now, that concept is gone.

Most of you would have seen this division playing out somewhere in your life. Some of you will have experienced it personally. Perhaps within your own circle of friends, or disappointingly, your family.

You may think I’m talking about our current situation with lockdowns and vaccinations, and I am, but not only this. How about the smouldering disunity between Maori and so-called ‘non-Maori’; homeowners and renters; property owners and tenants; business owners and employees; beneficiaries and workers; firearm owners and police; farmers and environmentalists; progressives and conservatives? The vaccinated and the ‘non-vaccinated’

The list goes on.

Where does this division come from and why is it so strong right now, you may ask?

Because of one thing: politicisation.

The Ardern government has deliberately politicised every aspect of our lives. How we live, how we work, who is allowed an opinion, who isn’t, what you can and can’t do, when you can do it. Who pays, who benefits, who controls our water and land, and even who can have a say in our supposed democratic system.

The government has done nothing but stoke the flames of identity politics and New Zealand is like a bad crème brulee: all kinds of split!

By politicising every space New Zealanders occupy, the government ends up controlling that space. And that, my friends, is what it’s all about.

Division leads to control, and that is where we are at. A country where citizens are at each other’s throats. A terribly sad, and in my opinion possibly the worst, consequence of this increasingly authoritarian government which is hell-bent on destroying what most of us remember as a fair, friendly, and united country.

It’s hard to know if we can return to that state of fairness and unity, it seems like an unattainable goal right now. But it is my wish that we do, and I am certain many good people of this beautiful country wish for that too.”

I had a doctor’s prescription for the Borody Covid Treatment Protocol of which my pharmacist was unable to supply the Ivermectin component, because NZ was “out of stock”. My pharmacist told me that NZ’s stock of human dosage Ivermectin had all been ‘re-exported’, but that a small stock needed as the prime treatment for scabies was due within the month.When that arrived I was initially denied it as it was ‘for scabies only’, but my persistence finally paid off and I now have a properly prescribed set of long-proven safe drugs suitable for early Covid intervention.These may be used in addition to vaccination if that is your choice.

Who knew that our Government is pushing through laws to allow forced:

– detention, to be isolated or quarantined in any specified place or in any specified way

– examination, to report for and undergo a medical examination or testing of any kind, and at any place or time specified and in any specified way or specified circumstances.

– to refrain from carrying out specified activities (for example, business activities involving close personal contact) or carry out specified activities only in any specified way or in compliance with specified measures…

Who knew that the latest chance to make a submission was yesterday before noon!?

My submission:

I violently object to the proposed Covid-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No2), especially the impositions and limits on freedoms in section 11.

I believe that the Bill contravenes many NZ legal provisions including some in the Bill of Rights Act 1990, and that it abuses the fundamental requirements of Natural Justice, all without due cause, especially when so many countries around the world are returning to a new normal without such draconian legislation.

I recommend that our government finally accepts that it was never possible to “eliminate” or “stop” Covid, that instead of wasting millions of our taxes on draconian delaying lockdowns and advertising, it spends on increasing Hospital care facilities that have long been underfunded.