Wellington's rainbow crossing gets to stay, and Winston Peters declares "a war on woke".
Gender ideology is contributing to making us increasingly polarised, and it's not helped by our media, Public Service, and Councils.
Is it usual for a reporter to name the individuals who sought a judicial review for an ideological decision made by a city Council?
According to the Courts of New Zealand “A judicial review is where a judge is asked to review an action or a decision that has been made under a legal power.” ¹
In this instance, the Wellington City Council made a decision back in 2018 to paint a rainbow crossing in Cuba St, to make the city “more deliberately LGBTQI-friendly”. To my knowledge, no other group of people have ever been deemed important enough to get the same preferential treatment. Could it be something to do with the power and influence the TQ+ lobby have gained and exerted over the years, even though they - and others on their behalf - claim they’re the most fragile and vulnerable of us all? Oh, my mistake, that should be “one of the most …… etc”, as they’re nothing if not artful with their narrative.
From what I can ascertain, last month a group asked for a judicial review on the legality and safety of the above-mentioned rainbow crossing. The judgement is written in the usual legalese, and basically the judge decided there was nothing illegal about the rainbow crossing, factoring in the absence of accidents. ² I understood enough of the legalese to wonder if the judge might have done a bit of fancy footwork between interpreting the rules around pedestrian crossings as they’re written, and woke activism. I might be wrong, but activist judges are not as rare as we’d like them to be.
Journalist Catherine Hutton, who’s based in Wellington, reported on this case ³ and named the individuals behind the request for the judicial review, as well as who they’re associated with. I don’t know if this is normal, or because anyone who questions the neo-rainbow orthodoxy is inherently evil and needs naming and shaming. Although it’s easy enough to read the article and see their names, I’ve chosen to redact them here –
So, I thought I’d email Ms Hutton, and ask if there was a reason to publish the names of the individuals in her article:
“Hello Catherine, I have read your news article Wellington’s rainbow crossing to stay after judicial review dismissed, and was wondering if it’s usual to name the individuals in a group that requests a judicial review?
If it’s not, are you able to tell me why you chose to do that on this occasion? The impression I, and others, have got from your article is that these individuals have been publicly named purely because they requested a judicial review on a rainbow crossing.
Is this correct, or is there actually a general precedent for individually naming those who seek a judicial review which gets reported on, as well as naming their associates?
I appreciate your time with this.”
I haven’t had an answer yet. Maybe it’s just because it’s early days, or maybe one won’t be forthcoming at all. Tbh, I expect the latter, but maybe I’ll get pleasantly surprised. However, if that happens, I don’t expect the contents of the answer to be a surprise, and will likely be the usual formulaic ‘inclusion and diversity’ blather.
Notably, our mainstream news media displays more willingness to protect themselves, than a few of those whom they might suspect of being the ‘wrong sort’ of people. When The Post was questioned why it felt comfortable publishing a cartoon which mocked the Catholic religion’s act of Holy Communion, in pursuit of the media’s ongoing campaign against the free school lunches programme, but stayed away from doing the same to religions such as Islam, they admitted it was because they were afraid of Islam.
Our Public Service isn’t always too keen, either, on naming the people making decisions for the public. Māori women’s group Mana Wāhine Kōrero (Sovereign Women Speak) discovered this when they asked in an Official Information Act request for the names of those reviewing the use of puberty blockers in New Zealand. They were refused that information, due to the belief that those people would suffer harassment and bullying if they were named. You don’t say.
Our society is becoming increasingly polarised, and the righteous, gender ideology infected, biased twats and brats in our mainstream media, Public Service, and Councils are helping to lead and feed it (I acknowledge there are those who don’t fall into this category). Contrary to popular belief within these circles, the neo-rainbow ‘community’ will survive without rainbow crossings, flags, lanyards, and pronouns in your bios.
We humans will always have differences of opinion and belief, and we’ll always bicker and squabble. It’s not the job of the media, Public Service, and Councils to unbendingly take a side. Those they consider the ‘wrong sort’ today may be the right sort in a few years’ time, when the woke mind virus has been removed from our schools and universities.
Change within us does happen, even if we think it never will. I went to NZ First’s ‘State of the Nation’ address on Sunday 23 March, and encountered protest groups outside the venue, one of which I think was the ban greyhound-racing group. Some years ago, I would have been standing with them – and I still agree with them – rather than going into the NZ First event. As an aside, I’m pleased that a greyhound racing ban is planned from 2026.
What it demonstrates, is how our priorities can change. For now, I feel it’s imperative to stop the latest threat to women’s and girls’ rights in our society – i.e. gender ideology – and NZ First are the only political party in New Zealand promising “a war on woke”. What a small party can actually do, even one in the coalition government, remains to be seen. But, the party leader Winston Peters has now announced it publicly, so hopefully plans are afoot.
Ironically, as he was making this announcement at his State of the Nation address in Christchurch to an audience of around 800, a modest crowd gathered in Wellington clamouring for puberty blockers and HRT to be made available on demand for the neo-rainbow brigade. Another small party, the Greens, were also there, naturally.
Let the showdown begin.
The Post’s comment on the impossibility of a Muhammad cartoon was revealing. This indicates that the charge of Islamophobia is really just a call to silence criticism of Islam for fear of retribution.
Hi Katrina
Excellent piece.
The rainbow crossing applicants are named in the judgment so it would be open to any journalist to name them.
Bad luck to them. I will read the judgment with interest.
Surely those making the puberty blocker decision should be a matter of public record!?
Glad to see position of NZ First.
Will cross post in due course 😊
Dusty