Fear: One Year On (Part 2)

How has the political landscape changed one year on from the publication of 'Fear'?

Parlaiment, after protesters were cleared in 2022. Photo by L Maule

Last month marked a full year since my book Fear: New Zealand’s Hostile Underworld of Extremists and yesterday marked two years since police began the operation to remove protesters from parliament grounds, after they had been camped there since Waitangi weekend protesting against vaccine mandates (and numerous other issues). This short series looks, chapter by chapter, and what’s changed in the year since the book came out. You can read part one here. 

Chapter 12: The Outdoors Party 

I accidently skipped over this one in part one. In 2023 the Outdoors Party, which I’d suggested in the book as a potential place for conspiracist votes to move to after the demise of Advance New Zealand, instead formed an alliance with the Hannah Tamaki led Vision New Zealand to form ‘Freedoms New Zealand’. The alliance received 9,586 votes, roughly what you’d get from adding the 2020 results of the Outdoors Party and Vision together. The ‘conspiracy theory vote’ that backed Advance appears to have instead switched to backing Liz Gunn’s NZ Loyal Party. Gunn barely got a mention in Fear but has since emerged as a leading figure in this space. 

Chapter 14: Counterspin Media 

On 25 August 2022, Kelvyn Alp and Hannah Spierer, the hosts of Counterspin Media (and directors of the company that produces the show) were arrested in Christchurch, charged with distributing an objectionable publication. This happened so close to the deadline for my manuscript that it only just made it into the afterword section. That count case is still ongoing. Being on bail however hasn’t prevented Alp from travelling to Russia to attend the second conference of the International Russophille Movement. He’s been issuing dispatches to his New Zealand audience as well a1s appearing on the Alex Jones Show. It’s unclear if he’s had an opportunity to meet actor and Russophile Stevan Seagal

Chapter 15: Sovereign Citizens 

Sovereign Citizens, a group of people who believe they are exempt from laws they don’t consent to following, have continued to cause trouble. 50 councils across the motu reported contact with sovereign citizens over the last three years according to information obtained by Stuff. Of those 50, two dozen councils reported residents refusing to pay rates based on sovereign citizen ideas. In October, council chief executives were sent a letter stating they would be “subject to arrest, imprisonment, trial before the ‘Peoples Full High Court’”. 

More recently, a man on trial for selling bleach as a cure for COVID-19 has been resorting to sovereign citizen arguments in court. This strategy, of course, is not working. 

Chapter 16: Rural Rebellion: Populism in the Provinces 

The Agriculture Action Group (AAG), one of the two groups to spin off Advance New Zealand (the other being Voices for Freedom) was short lived, but many of the ideas they were promoting with their tour of South Island towns are still being spread. Jaspreet Boparai, the VFF backed Southland district councillor who only got a single mention in the afterword to fear, now co-hosts ‘Greenwashed’ on Reality Check Radio, and promotes the idea that the United Nations plans to depopulate rural areas and force people into cities.

Groundswell, who’s famous ‘Howl of a Protest’ saw farmers take to the streets on tractors decked out with signs reading things like “Kiwi’s don’t want communism Jacinda!” has emerged as a small but significant player in politics, spending $141,000 to influence the outcome of the election. 

Chapter 17: Hindutva in Aotearoa 

With an election on the horizon in India, Narendra Modi is aiming for another term in power. This year the Shri Ram Mandir temple in Ayodhya, built on the site of a sixteenth century mosque destroyed by Hindu nationalists in 1992, was opened. Its opening was celebrated in New Zealand with an event in Eden Park, with ACT leader David Seymour attending and describing the event as “a wonderful celebration of a monument that will last a thousand years.” New Zealand politicians evidently are still seeing no issue with aligning themselves to Hindutva.

Chapter 18: A Brief History of White New Zealand 

This chapter looked at colonisation and the white New Zealand policy, and how there are groups today such as Hobsons Pledge who aim to stop any redress for the colonial past and the ongoing effects of colonisation. Julian Bachelor’s “Stop Co-Governance tour” in 2023 helped make opposing decolonisation efforts an election issue. Hobsons Pledge spent nearly $284,000 to influence the election, and presumably will be happy with the outcome, which saw National agreeing to support ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill to select committee. While this doesn’t guarantee the bill will become law, no doubt Hobsons Pledge and likely Julian Bachelor will be organising submissions to make it appear their view is the popular one, organising a citizens initiated referendum to pass the bill is another outcome we might see.

Chapter 19: Southern Settler Colonies and Rhodesian Nostalgia 

Evidently Rhodesian nostalgia remains popular on New Zealand’s right. In January Dieuwe de Boer (former New Conservative Party secretary) made a visit to the Lion and Tusk, the museum of Rhodesian military history located in Tauranga. “Thankfully interest in Rhodesia has been revived in right-wing circles” he wrote, “both as a warning of what our enemies have in store for our own countries, but also as a tale of bravery and prolonged counter-insurgency with limited means.” Talk about saying the quiet part loud!
On his Reality Check Radio show de Boer also interviewed Ernst Van Zyl, head of public relations for Afriforum, an NGO who call themselves a civil rights organisation (defending the rights of white Afrikanners) whose cause has been picked up by the alt-right. 

For more about the history of support for apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia, I’d recommend the chapter ‘A bastion of white supremacy’ - Southern Africa in the political imagination of New Zealand’s radical right’ by Sebastion Portgieter and Tyler West in Histories of Hate The Radical RIght in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Chapter 20: Women and the Alt-right 

In this chapter I cited ‘Breaking the masculine looking glass: women as co-founders, nurturers, and executors of extremism in New Zealand’ a thesis by Donna Carson, you can now read that thesis online and I would recommend doing so. Sophia Sykes has also researched tradwifes, and notes that this largely American phenomenon hasn’t taken root in New Zealand. Nonetheless, women continue to play a role in the alt-right in this country, particularly as influencers.

Chapter 21: Far-right Speculative fiction and the Infodemic 

The coalition agreement between National and NZ First has ended what few vaccine mandates remained,   and an independent inquiry into how the Covid pandemic was handled is getting underway. Voices for Freedom is of course encouraging their supporters to submit to the inquiry and providing resources for doing so. Kelvyn Alp’s trip to Moscow appears to be making the influence of Russian state disinformation on the fringe of New Zealand politics more blatant.

Chapter 22 & Chapter 23: The river of filth and our future in a post-truth world 

News broke this past week that Newsub, New Zealand’s only major privately owned TV news outlet, will close at the end of June. On social media the response from the right was gleeful “get woke go broke” was repeated ad nauseam, and people praised the alternative “news” sources that now exist. In a few months time, Newshub- the nightly show and the website, as well as the AM show, will be gone, but Counterspin Media and Reality Check Radio will still be around- the latter creating 9 hours of content a day. 

Globally, Modi is likely to remain in power in India and Trump is likely to return to power in the USA, and far-right parties have made gains across Europe. I wince when I see people describe the current New Zealand government as far-right, though the influence of fringe groups on NZ First and to a lesser extent ACT is a subject that should continue to be investigated. While the world is moving away from the height of the COVID-19 pandemic that led to thousands of people falling into online rabbit holes, I fail to feel optimistic about the future that lies ahead of us. Countering the onslaught of fake news and disinformation is not going to be an easy task, especially as real newsrooms are shuttered and populists take up positions of power and influence.