In the first part of this series, we reported how an OIA request had led to the release of two government documents has uncovered a staggering, Orwellian project of domestic spying and information control. What the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet’s briefing, Strengthening New Zealand’s Resilience to Mis/Disinformation and the initial working draft of the Strategic Framework for Strengthening New Zealand’s Resilience to Mis/Disinformation reveal is astonishing.
Every single facet of New Zealand society, from government agencies, NGOs, academia, the private sector, the media, social media and big tech platforms and even everyday people – recall that NZSIS published booklets exhorting New Zealanders to spy on their family, friends and neighbours. Like the East German Stasi, where it’s estimated that one in every six people was an informer, the government wants to turn “the ‘whole of society’ into a spying, censoring and communications machine to police and control the flow of information”.
Following the UK lead, they created an inter-agency co-ordination group, with disinformation monitoring spread across different ministries. With the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet sitting at the head of the octopus, a raft of cabinet departments were roped into being its government tentacles.
Department of Internal Affairs
Government Communications Security Bureau
Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Ministry of Culture and Heritage
Ministry of Education
Ministry of Health
Ministry of Justice
New Zealand Police
New Zealand Security Intelligence Service
The documents show that the government’s strategy evolved during the first year of the Covid pandemic.
The documents tell us that up until this time, December 2020/January 2021, a lot of work had already been done to “understand and respond” to the problem, using academic and non-governmental research.
The National Assessment Bureau had been producing assessments on Covid-19 and election fraud ‘misinformation’.
The [Covid-19] All Of Government Response Group Insights and Reporting Team had been monitoring and reporting on misinformation trends since July 2020, which was used to target “affected communities” during the August 2020 Auckland lockdown.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment was already funding Covid modelling and disinformation research, a “data project”, at Te Punaha Matatini. It’s logical to assume this refers to the now infamous The Disinformation Project.
From early 2021, the DPMC and the inter-agency coordination group got to work. They’ve met regularly since September 2021. Minutes of their meetings have not been released under OIA.
However, a meeting agenda has.
The group has met regularly to discuss ‘disinformation’ issues and flag or escalate them to an overseeing group of Ministers. The briefing calls the strategy a “whole of society approach”, which is headed up by the Department of Prime Minster and Cabinet.
But the government is clearly aware that being caught spying on its own citizens with such sinister thoroughness is a bad look. To that end, it’s attempted to create a veneer of detachment, to try and hide the fact that the spying is being co-ordinated from the very highest level of government.
Comments like the one that follows are made repeatedly throughout:
“Ideally, efforts to counter mis/disinformation should be led from outside government from media, civil society, NGOs, academia and the private sector. Several leading academics and research organisations such as Te Punaha Matatini, other organisations such as Netsafe and InternetNZ have already been very active and we are exploring how to support them and lift their capacity in this work.”
While the language is fuzzy, it remains a rather frank admission that the deliberate decision to delegate at least some disinformation monitoring to non-government partners – in particular universities and private sector organisations – is to maintain a veneer of legitimacy.
They know that – if the public knew that their own government was spying on everything they say and do – there’d be hell to pay. So, they lie about it.
For this reason we would not recommend a formal allocation of disinformation responsibilities or the identification of a government spokesperson […] This may explain why specific instances of mis-and-disinformation are never identified in public communication campaigns, and only implied. This makes it easy to cast aspersions without debating facts, which could leave the government exposed as being wrong, or even as having lied.
But the government is in fact pulling the strings, all the way up to the Prime Minister – and seven Ministers for Spying. Currently:
- Prime Minister/Minister for National Security and Intelligence, Chris Hipkins
- Minister of Education, Jan Tinetti
- Minister of Health, Ayesha Verrall
- Minister responsible for GCSB and NZSIS, Andrew Little
- Minister of Broadcasting and Media, Willie Jackson
- Minister of Internal Affairs, Barbara Edmonds
- Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications, Ginny Anderson
Why some of these ministers are involved is as sinister as anything else about this Ministry of Truth. The government obsession with controlling public discourse arose out of the state panic in response to the Covid pandemic, so it’s really no surprise that the MOH is neck-deep in it. It’s also no surprise that Andrew Little is one of the Spy Kids.
But why Jan Tinetti? The involvement of the Minister of Education shows that seemingly benign programmes are in fact a front for state control. For instance, the Education Department’s focus on “critical thinking and media literacy” is the euphemism for brainwashing your kids into unthinking obedience to the state.
It’s also worth noting these documents contain references to two terms that were uncommon until very recently – ‘infodemic‘ and ‘prebunking’. Both terms were coined at the UN/WHO level. Prebunking is one of the tools authorities want to promote within the education environment as an aid to “critical thinking”, but is little more than behavioural psychology nudging. In a recent Reclaim the Net article, prebunking is described as “precrime’s little cousin”.
Just as sinister is the involvement of Willie Jackson. Not only is Jackson a concerning figure in himself, but, as The BFD previously reported, Jackson’s Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill is an attempt to create a state broadcasting behemoth that would, by law, promote only a positive view of contentious government policies like co-governance.
But that would only be the start of it. The documents show what we’ve been saying all along: the Public Interest Journalism Fund is nothing more than a (highly successful, as we’ve seen) means of co-opting the entire legacy media as a propaganda arm of the government.
Under this draft framework, the Minister for Broadcasting and Media, along with the Minister for Internal Affairs worked together to scope a review of content regulation, which is considered to overlap with disinformation. The review was aimed at “addressing gaps” in current regulation. The Broadcast and Media Minister is also responsible for “building a stronger independent media” that could assist with counter-disinformation […] both of these moves clearly makes media more dependent on government – not less.
For just $55 million, the lapdogs of the NZ legacy media have been only too happy to roll over and sit up on command — and do the government’s dirty work of wiping its fingerprints from the New Zealand Stasi state.
The documents note that media ‘campaigns’ against mis-and-disinformation from outlets like Stuff, Newsroom and The Spinoff have been helpful in the government’s overall counter-disinformation efforts.
“These independent narratives are especially welcome and helpful as they are less likely to be associated with conspiracy theories about state control than if they came from a government agency.”
The Looking Glass
The legacy media have no interest in “speaking truth to power”. For just a few pieces of silver, they’re happily telling lies for power.
But the Ministry of Truth and the legacy media are just two tentacles of the shadowy octopus.