SUPREME COURT ENDORSES DEFENCE FORCE COVID VAX COMPULSION

Autocrats of Aotearoa deliver another blow to freedom

New Zealand’s Supreme Court has decided that the New Zealand Defence Force can lawfully force its personnel to be vaccinated against the COVID virus. The Supreme Court’s 11 April 2025 decision means the Defence Force can expel personnel who are not COVID vaccine jabbed, and refuse to employ those odious unjabbed New Zealand citizens. All while the Defence Force constantly laments its struggles to attract talent.

In case anyone needs reminding, COVID vaccination doesn’t prevent anyone from either contracting or transmitting the COVID virus.

So why has the Supreme Court reached its decision, and why did the Defence Force take its COVID cancel culture crusade all the way to the Supreme Court?

The Court cases culminating in the Supreme Court’s decision involve four anonymous members of New Zealand’s armed forces who refused to take the initial COVID vaccinations and/or boosters, and have accordingly been banned from defending their nation.

The Supreme Court’s decision has its genesis back in 2022 when the High Court struck down the Labour Government’s COVID-19 Public Health Response (Specified Work Vaccinations) Order 2021. That Government Order tried to force all Police and Defence Force personnel to get vaccinated against COVID. But in a rare display of judicial courage against the pervasive COVID orthodoxy, High Court Judge Francis Cooke concluded that the relevant Order’s vaccine mandate was unlawful and invalid.

Cooke’s conclusion was on the eminently sound ground that the Order represented an unjustified limit on the rights to refuse medical treatment (and manifest religious beliefs) enshrined in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

Cooke’s decision should have been the end of the matter. But in 2022, the 2018-2024 Chief of the Defence Force, Air Marshal Kevin Ronald Short, took it upon himself – in response to Cooke’s decision - to issue an internal Defence Force Order mandating COVID vaccinations for all personnel.

In short order, the High Court struck down Short’s Order on the ground that its limits on protected human rights were not demonstrably justified. Kev appealed the High Court’s decision to the Court of Appeal, which directed the Defence Force to reconsider the Short Order and stopped the Defence Force taking any further action against the COVID Four.

Still not deterred, Short then appealed to the Supreme Court, which – as indicated - has just decided to uphold the Defence Force’s COVID vaccine mandate.

New Zealand’s elitest judges found the vaccine mandate to be within the Defence Force’s “margin of appreciation with respect to operational effectiveness and military discipline”. Which is just an obscure and evasive way of saying that New Zealand’s Supreme Judges just love the Defence Force forcing COVID vaccines on its personnel, and expelling dissenters. Rubbing the COVID Fours’ naughty noses in it, the Supreme Court awarded $30,000 in Court costs against them.

Supreme predictability

For the following reasons, the Supreme Court’s decision was – with the wisdom of hindsight - entirely predictable.

The Supreme Court has consistently favored COVID-related restrictions on New Zealand citizens’ freedoms and rights. New Zealand’s courts generally worked in lockstep with the authoritarian, secretive, spendthrift, censorious last Labour Government.

In addition, the Supreme Court’s decision was written by Justice Susan Glazebrook. Glazebrook is an extreme “activist” judge, which basically means she doesn’t let the law get in the way of the results she wants. I’ve previously Substacked on Her Royal Menace to New Zealand’s Democracy:

Furthermore, lead lawyer for the Defence Force was Solicitor General Una Jagose. I’ve Substacked about Una too:

Glazebrook and Jagose are ideologically identical Critical Social Justice (including Race) Theorists, and ardent Decolonization advocates. They are each cultural elitists who favour disconcerting State interference in citizens’ lives. These is not just my opinions (“hot reckons”). Glazebrook and Jagose proudly publicize their minority ideologies and political biases. They’re hiding in plain sight.

Defence Force pigheadedness

Next question…why on Earth did the Defence Force doggedly take its fight for COVID vax compulsion all the way to the Supreme Court? Why didn’t it relent, when almost all other arms of government have justifiably jettisoned their COVID fixations? Why did our Defence Force waste all that money and time on these multiple Court proceedings? Why is the Defence Force mandating COVID vaccinations but not vaccinations for influenza?

Answers to these questions are elusive. The Defence Force wasteful and damaging dogmatism is especially baffling given influenza is far more dangerous to young, fit people (such as frontline Defence Force personnel) than COVID. Robust young’uns are more at risk from side effects of COVID vaccination (including heart conditions like pericarditis and myocarditis) than they are from contracting COVID itself.

The Defence Force has been especially evasive and obstructive when it comes to its approach to COVID. In response to an Official Information Act request for the number of Defence Force personnel who have been rejected or ejected from the Defence Force for not taking the COVID jab, our military top brass stated:

From March 2020 to the date of your request, 422 applicants are categorised as "further vaccinations required". This category is for all vaccines and a manual search through the 422 individual records would be required to identify those not receiving the required doses of COVID vaccine. This part of your request is therefore refused in accordance with section 18(f) of the OIA.

Section 18(f) of the Official Information Act provides that a government agency (such as the Defence Force) is entitled to refuse a request for official information if “the information requested cannot be made available without substantial collation or research”.

What the Defence Force is therefore trying to say is that going through 422 line items to identify those who have been COVID-cancelled from the Defence Force would reach the high bar of “substantial collation or research”. Which is blatant bollocks.

With one breath, the Defence Force laments its inability to attract competent new recruits. With its next breath, it tells prospective and existing Defence Force personnel that they can’t join, or must leave, if they choose not to get a COVID vaccination that would neither protect them from, not prevent them from transmitting, the waning Wuhan cold virus.

The Defence Force, with Court support, is clearly still wanting to maintain fully paid-up membership of the COVID Cool Kids Club. But there’s nothing remotely cool about cancelling a substantial section of New Zealand society from participating in New Zealand’s armed forces. What the Defence Force is doing is just stubborn, irrational childishness. New Zealanders should expect better.

But there’s a much more important Court decision pending. Ngai Tahu is currently in the High Court claiming “chieftainship”/rangatiratanga over (i.e., ownership of) almost all South Island fresh water. Te Wai Pounamu’s pseudo tribe is naturally represented by quisling King’s Counsel and former National Party Minister and Attorney General Christopher Finlayson.

And guess who’s orchestrating the Government’s defence to this ridiculous claim?...Critical Race Theorist, Solicitor General Una Jagose! How hard is she really trying to rebuff this nonsense?

Whatever the High Court’s decision, Parliament quickly must extinguish any notion that supposed ancestors of about 300 former inhabitants of the South Island now own the fresh water.