Did you notice what just happened?

It appears to me that the US Administration has firmly and publicly announced that it will no longer be at the behest of the World Health Organization - an unelected non-governmental organisation, to provide its ‘scientific expertise’. The health of the American people has been on a downward spiral for decades. The only winners are big pharma and others who profit off the poor health of a population.

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So the Department of State and the Human Health Services, just issued a joint statement.

• It’s a “Dear John” letter.

• A “We’ll take it from here” memo.

• A “We know our population best, and have experts in our country who are more than capable of coming up with solutions”.

• A stepping back into a position of authority by saying, in effect, “the health of our people is our responsibility and is best managed by the expertise and advancements within our own country”.

Here’s what the US Department of State just said…

Joint Statement on the Preeminence of the U.S. Government Regulating Health Risks for Americans

From: Office of the Spokesperson, June 8 2026

The United States remains committed to protecting the public health of Americans through sound science, transparency, and rigorous independent review. International organizations can play a constructive role in advancing scientific discussion, but their conclusions should not automatically be treated as definitive in the United States.

In recent years, scientists, policymakers, and stakeholders have raised questions regarding the consistency, transparency, and real-world applicability of certain international cancer hazard assessments by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). (Click the link and you’ll see that this is a WHO agency).

Too often, broad classifications based on limited or theoretical risks can create unnecessary public confusion, undermine confidence in everyday products and industries, and lead to policy outcomes that are disconnected from actual exposure and modern scientific standards. IARC’s findings and monographs often blur the line between hazard and true risk, while diminishing independently verified findings of other research institutions. Furthermore, IARC’s research provides diminishing returns on scientific enterprise, while advancing politicized narratives that are often cited for U.S. domestic legal contexts.

For example, equating red meat to tobacco products oversimplifies complex scientific discourse and does little to inform sound public health policy that could be of benefit to the American people.

An America First approach to public health means ensuring that decisions affecting U.S. workers, families, farmers, and businesses are guided by transparent, evidence-based processes that reflect America’s interests and scientific standards — not by organizations whose findings may not fully align with U.S. law, policy, or scientific review practices.

The United States will continue to support credible science while prioritizing policies that are practical, balanced, and rooted in accountability to the American people.

The Trump Administration is committed to improving the health and safety of the American people, including rigorous, independent scientific expertise. American regulatory decisions should be made by American institutions accountable to the American people. U.S. agencies possess some of the world’s strongest scientific expertise and are best positioned to evaluate health and safety risks using comprehensive evidence, practical exposure data, and balanced risk assessment methods.

ENDS

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The Trump Administration is committed to MAKING AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN.

What of New Zealand’s prognosis?

Until the health sector in New Zealand:

• Reinstates the medical professionals who departed in November 2021 when the covid mandates hit, exonerates them and acknowledges that they were the ones upholding their Hippocratic oath

• Removes ideologically driven and DEI personnel from the entire sector

• Shifts their success matrix from a model of pharmaceutical contract targets to patient recovery

• Restores true INFORMED CONSENT including parental transparency and permissions in paediatric care...

We’re going to keep giving our power away to unelected global entities such as the WHO. And the UN. They aren’t us. They don’t know us, they do not have the best interests of New Zealanders as a priority. Only we have that.

Find out more about the doctors who upheld their Hippocratic oath, at NZDSOS.

These men and women are healthcare heroes in New Zealand.

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Penny Marie

Penny Marie is an independent researcher and investigative reporter, and the Founder of Let Kids Be Kids NZ.

• About Penny Marie

• Social media links & recent work

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Something significant just happened in New Zealand law

• Before 3 June 2026: All NZ Public Service agencies were required by law to run DEI programmes.

• After 3 June 2026: These agencies are no longer required to run DEI programmes - but running them voluntarily is not prohibited.

The Public Service Amendment Act 2026 received Royal Assent on 2 June 2026. It came into force on 3 June 2026.

For the first time since 2020, the law that required every government department in New Zealand to run Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programmes - programmes built in part on the ideological architecture of the Yogyakarta Principles - has been STRUCK FROM THE STATUTE BOOKS.

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How did DEI get flushed through our government departments in the first place?

The Public Service Act 2020 - the law whose DEI provisions have just been repealed - was introduced to Parliament by Labour’s Chris Hipkins, then Minister of State Services. Hipkins described it as… “…the most significant change in the public service in 30 years.” - in a Beehive Statement on 23 July 2020.

The diversity and inclusiveness obligations embedded in sections 73 and 75 - the provisions now repealed - were Labour’s design, driven by Labour, and celebrated by Labour.

The significance of Section 75

Section 75 of the Public Service Act 2020 - the provision just repealed - read as follows:

“A chief executive of a department must - (a) be guided by the principle that the group comprising all public service employees should reflect the makeup of society; and (b) in employment policies and practices, foster a workplace that is inclusive of all groups.”

The word “must” is the operative word. Not guidance. Not aspiration. A binding legal obligation on every public service chief executive in New Zealand.

When the Ministry of Health cited “the Public Service Act 2020 (specifically sections 73 and 75)” as the legal authority for its Whiria te Tangata DEI strategy, it was complying with the law.

• When DPMC funded six taxpayer-funded Employee-Led Networks - including a dedicated Rainbow Network - it was operating within a legal mandate

• When ‘unconscious bias’ training was made mandatory at government induction

• When ‘pronoun’ fields appeared on public service job applications

• When ‘gender affirmation’ guidance was embedded in leadership programmes across every major department

…all of it had legal authority - derived from sections 73 and 75 of the 2020 Act.

From 3 June, those sections have been repealed.

How did this Act become law?

The voting record on the Public Service Act 2020 was as follows:

In August 2020 New Zealand First was in coalition with Labour. They voted the DEI mandate within the Public Service Act into law. The Yogyakarta-influenced sections 73 and 75 - the sections now repealed - passed with NZ First’s vote.

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Who gets the credit for the new amendments?

This week, New Zealand First published a statement about the Public Service Amendment Bill featuring Winston Peters quoted as saying:

Beneath the quote, NZ First’s email states: “This week, the Public Service Amendment Bill passed in parliament. This Bill includes the removal of ‘Diversity, Equity & Inclusion’ (DEI) requirements from the public service after a push from New Zealand First last year to scrap DEI requirements.”

Yet they were coalition partners with Labour in 2020 that gave us the DEI mandate in the first place.

NOTE: At the time of publishing this story I am awaiting comment from New Zealand First.

Who repealed it - and how

In March 2025, New Zealand First introduced a Member's Bill - the Public Service (Repeal of Diversity and Inclusiveness Requirements) Amendment Bill. That bill proposed removing the DEI obligations from the Public Service Act. It was not a Government Bill. It was never drawn from the ballot. But it demonstrates their change of heart.

The Government Bill that did become law - the Public Service Amendment Act 2026 - started as a National-ACT Government Bill. It was introduced by then-Public Service Minister Judith Collins on 28 July 2025, as a fulfilment of the National-ACT Coalition Agreement, to 'amend the Public Service Act 2020 to clarify the role of the public service, drive performance, and ensure accountability.'

Neither coalition agreement explicitly committed to removing DEI provisions. The DEI repeal provisions were added during the parliamentary process - reflecting NZ First's advocacy on the issue through its own Member's Bill. The provisions were passed with support from all three coalition parties.

• National and ACT were the architects of this legislation.

• They are also the parties who voted against the original DEI mandate in 2020.

• NZ First is the party that voted to bring the DEI mandate in, and now, they are the ones supporting their coalition parties to get it out. After 5 years of embedded DEI programmes across the public service.

Three-party coalition in unison

During the parliamentary process, the National-ACT Government Bill was amended to incorporate the substance of what NZ First’s Member’s Bill had proposed - the specific repeal of the DEI provisions. NZ First supported and advocated for those amendments. All three coalition partners voted for the final bill.

When NZ First’s communication says the bill passed “after a push from New Zealand First,” it is technically careful. The push was real. But the vehicle was not NZ First’s. The party that drafted, introduced, and owns this legislation is National, in coalition with ACT. NZ First is a supporting actor in this story - not the lead.

And it is the party that enforced the DEI mandate in 2020 with Labour.

Let Kids Be Kids raised concerns about the Public Service Act in relation to the Yogyakarta Principles, in June 2025

In June 2025, I presented a Let Kids Be Kids white paper, co-published with Lesbian Resistance - The Yogyakarta Principles And Their Influence On The Public Service DEI Plan 2024-2025 - along with a second paper on Conversion Practices - at the National Citizens’ Inquiry in Canada. The DEI paper specifically raised the issue of the Public Service Act and its direct links to the Yogyakarta Principles (I also spoke about these principles at the NZ First Convention in September 2025).

We traced the precise upstream source of the DEI mandate in the New Zealand public service - not as vague ideology, but as a specific, documented pipeline from a non-binding UN instrument - the Yogyakarta Principles, through international advocacy channels, into the text of sections 73 and 75 of the Public Service Act 2020. The report was sent to a New Zealand First parliamentary staffer on 7 July 2025 - three weeks before the Government bill was introduced on 28 July 2025.

We did not make a formal submission to the Governance and Administration Select Committee when this bill went through Parliament. Submissions closed on 30 August 2025 - a process I was not tracking at the time, having been focused on grassroots advocacy and public education rather than parliamentary procedure.

Watch Penny Marie testify at the National Citizens’ Inquiry, Canada - full report available to download

Whether our research contributed to the shape of the legislation is a question I do not know. Perhaps the timing of our report may have mattered to this process. Our research for the past 12 months has consistently highlighted how the Yogyakarta Principles - which are non-binding - have significantly influenced law and policy in NZ - The Public Service Act 2020 being one example, and a significant one at that.

What the Amendment Act actually removes

These changes are effective from 3 June 2026:

• Section 75 - repealed. The duty to make the public service “reflect the makeup of society” and foster DEI-inclusive workplaces is gone entirely.

• Sections 73(2), (3)(i) and (3)(j) - stripped back. “Good employer” obligations no longer require diversity representation programmes or ideologically-framed inclusion architecture.

• Section 44(c) - amended. The Public Service Commissioner’s duty to build a “diversity-reflecting” workforce is removed. The function is now discretionary, not mandatory.

• Schedule 7 - amended. “Diversity and inclusiveness” removed as a criterion for appointing public service chief executives. Merit is now the sole statutory criterion.

• Section 97(2)(e) - amended. Government workforce policy statements are no longer required to include DEI content.

Every government agency’s annual DEI plan, mandatory rainbow inclusion targets, compulsory bias training, and diversity-based hiring frameworks have now lost their legal foundation.

Does this change things in Health and Education?

Healthcare

The Ministry of Health and Health New Zealand (Te Whatu Ora) are covered by the Public Service Act as Crown agents. The repeal of sections 73 and 75 directly removes their statutory obligation to maintain rainbow representation targets, fund LGBTQ+ Employee-Led Networks as a legal requirement, or apply rainbow-specific criteria in hiring and promotion.

Where health services or internal programmes were justified as a DEI obligation under sections 73 and 75, that justification is now removed. Clinical services required under separate legislation remain.

What has been removed is the ideological DEI mandate layered on top. Whether agencies choose to continue particular services under separate clinical or policy pathways is an ongoing question that warrants its own scrutiny.

Education

The Ministry of Education as a public service department is covered by the Amendment Act. However, schools, the curriculum framework, and teacher training are governed primarily by the Education and Training Act 2020 - which is not affected by this bill.

The RSE (Relationships and Sexuality Education) Framework, the UNESCO-aligned sexuality education content in classrooms, and the taxpayer-funded NGO programmes - including InsideOut - that facilitate ‘gender identity’ training in schools are not directly repealed by this Act. They operate through Ministry of Education policy and separate funding channels.

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What has not changed

The following remain fully in force today:

• The Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 2021 - self-identification of legal sex remains law

• The Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Act 2022

• The Ministry of Education RSE Framework and UNESCO-aligned sexuality education in schools - with MOE Endorsed ‘Navigating The Journey’ resources by Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa (Family Planning) still being used in schools. Schools are told that these resources fit within the 2007 Health Curriculum Guidelines that are the current standard… but they far overreach these expectations as explained here

• Taxpayer funding of rainbow advocacy NGOs including InsideOut

• The Human Rights Act 1993 (‘gender identity’ is not mentioned in this legislation)

• The Human Rights Strategic Action Plan and Rainbow Wellbeing Legacy Fund.

The Amendment Act cuts one significant branch. The Yogyakarta Principles pipeline into New Zealand law, education, health policy, and NGO funding remains. The roots are intact.

The enforcement gap we need to address

The law has changed. The bureaucracy has not - yet.

Even as the ink dries on the Amendment Act, Te Kawa Mataaho - the Public Service Commission, which coordinated the entire ‘mandatory DEI’ reporting machine - has already published revised guidance stating its existing DEI guidance “remains relevant” and that the Amendment Act is “not a wholesale change.”

Sounds a lot like what happened when the Ministry of Education removed the RSE guidelines, but nothing much changed in the classroom.

• There is no ministerial directive.

• No compliance audit.

• No deadline by which agencies must identify and dismantle DEI activities that were premised on sections now repealed.

An agency chief executive who wants to keep a 'rainbow network', 'unconscious bias' training, and 'pronoun' fields on job applications can simply relabel them as “wellbeing” or “anti-discrimination” initiatives and carry on - because the Amendment Act removes the mandate but does not actively prohibit voluntary continuation.

A public service staffed by people ideologically committed to these programmes will not dismantle them voluntarily. The law is on New Zealanders’ side. Using it requires active pressure.

And what of the cost?

It’s painful to think how much from the public purse has been spent on DEI since 2020, and how much more will be spent on reversing it. Should the taxpayer have to foot the bill for something many of us never asked for and are glad to see the back of? We have the right to know what this has cost us.

What you can do

File an Official Information Act (OIA) Request

Every New Zealander has the right under the Official Information Act 1982 to request information from any government agency. File a request today asking:

1. Does your agency still have an active DEI plan? Please provide a copy and confirm the legal authority under which it is maintained after 3 June 2026.

2. Is Te Kawa Mataaho’s DEI reporting pipeline still operating, and is your agency still required to submit DEI plans?

3. What is the legal basis for continuing any Rainbow Employee-Led Network after 3 June 2026?

4. Is ‘unconscious bias’ training still mandatory for any staff? What is its annual cost?

5. Does your job application process still include pronoun fields or gender identity options beyond male/female?

6. What did your agency spend on DEI-related activities in 2024/25, and what has been budgeted for 2025/26?

Priority targets: DPMC, the Ministry of Health, Health New Zealand, Te Kawa Mataaho, and the Ministry of Education. Agencies have 20 working days to respond.

How to send OIA requests

OIA templates and easy-to-follow instructions are available on the Ombudsman website. You can send them to the relevant department and track replies on FYI here.

Contact the Minister for the Public Service

Demand a formal ministerial directive to all chief executives specifying which DEI activities must cease and by when. Without it, the bureaucracy will reframe rather than reform.

Contact the Public Service Commissioner

Under the new Act, merit is the sole statutory criterion for public service hiring. Any agency continuing to apply diversity-based preferences in hiring or promotion is now operating without legal authority. Complaints about agencies continuing to apply diversity-based hiring preferences after 3 June 2026 can be directed to Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche at Te Kawa Mataaho.

Ask how this Act will be enforced

If NZ First is claiming this outcome as their achievement, they should now be asked to confirm: Will you require the Public Service Commissioner to publish a full compliance audit of DEI activities across all agencies within 90 days? A win that is not enforced is not a win. We should also ask National this question as they were the party to present the bill.

The bottom line

The Public Service Amendment Act 2026 removes the legal mandate that turned every government department into an engine of DEI ideology. That is a genuine legislative achievement - one that Let Kids Be Kids NZ was raising publicly, verbally and in writing, and with evidence before this bill was introduced to Parliament. We are glad to see the three coalition parties working in unison to get this Amendment through.

The ideological infrastructure built inside our public service over five years does not disappear because its legal mandate has been repealed.

The same people who built the DEI mandate are still in their roles. The same agency that ran the DEI system is already signalling it intends to preserve it under new language.

The work now is accountability. That work belongs to all of us.

If you have been impacted by DEI policies, and want to share your story, please get in touch via Let Kids Be Kids.

Penny Marie

Penny Marie is an independent researcher and investigative reporter, and the Founder of Let Kids Be Kids NZ.

• About Penny Marie

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• Let Kids Be Kids

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Written by Richard Shelford-Woodcock on May 26, 2026 and reposted with permission

Parents, caregivers and former students have spoken out about long‑standing concerns around safety, communication and school culture, emphasising that this moment must lead to meaningful engagement rather than defensiveness.

Recent events at Mercury Bay Area School have sparked significant concern across the wider Mercury Bay community, particularly following an incident in the school toilet block where a student was physically harmed. The person bullied had a leg broken by one student. The victim had been lured into the toilets; two stood guard, whilst the third student did the harm. While the incident itself understandably drew immediate attention, for many families it also became the catalyst for something much deeper bringing long-held frustrations and unresolved concerns to the surface.

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Over recent weeks, parents, caregivers, former students, and members of the wider community have spoken openly about what they believe are broader issues surrounding student wellbeing, behaviour, school culture, and the way concerns are addressed when families seek reassurance or answers.

Alongside Hanna Bramley and Sarah Nicholson, concerns have been formally outlined to the Board of Trustees in an email supported by a significant number of families from across the Mercury Bay schooling community, including parents connected to our satellite schools. The request is simple; an opportunity for those concerns to be voiced respectfully and constructively through a community representative.

That request is awaiting a response.

For many within the community, however, the issue can never be simply about one opportunity to speak at a board meeting. What has become increasingly clear is that many families feel there has been a growing disconnect between sections of the school community and those responsible for leadership and governance.

The conversations now taking place are not being driven by anger alone. In many cases, they are being driven by disappointment, frustration, and a genuine desire to see local young people thrive in an environment where they feel safe, supported, and heard.

Many parents have expressed concern that issues raised privately over a long period of time have often appeared unresolved, only becoming more publicly acknowledged after serious incidents occur. Others have questioned what they see as a reactive approach to communication, particularly through the use of social media, when many families had hoped for more direct, face-to-face engagement and open dialogue with school leadership.

Importantly, these concerns should not automatically be interpreted as attacks on the school itself.

Mercury Bay Area School remains an important part of the community, with many dedicated staff, teachers, volunteers, and families who care deeply about the wellbeing of local children. Most parents speaking out are not seeking division or conflict. They are seeking accountability, reassurance, and meaningful engagement.

At the heart of this discussion is something much bigger than one isolated incident. It is about whether families feel genuinely listened to when concerns are raised, and whether communities are invited into difficult conversations before frustration reaches boiling point.

One of the more sobering themes emerging from recent conversations has been hearing from local families who now feel they may need to consider sending their children away to boarding school earlier than ever expected. For many parents, that thought comes with genuine sadness because they believe Mercury Bay should be a place where young people can grow, learn, and remain connected to their own community.

Communities are strongest when difficult conversations can happen openly, respectfully, and without fear of dismissal. Wanting to be part of those conversations should never be viewed as opposition. It should be recognised for what it truly is a community that cares deeply about its children and wants to help shape a positive path forward.

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The concerns raised over recent weeks will not simply disappear. If anything, the response from the wider community has shown just how strongly many families feel about the future wellbeing of local students.

Mercury Bay is a resilient and compassionate community. The hope now is that the conversations emerging from this difficult moment can ultimately lead toward greater understanding, restorative approaches, stronger relationships, and positive change. At the end of the day, every family wants the same thing: Our kids deserve better.

A note from Penny Marie…

Many parents are sick and tired of battling schools to get issues acknowledged and resolved relating to bullying and inappropriate behaviour of students. And yet, each year, many schools roll out ‘Pink Shirt Day’ to tackle ‘bullying’. It’s beyond a joke. This campaign does not resolve bullying, it merely tells lies about the so-called marginalised ‘trans kids’.

There is no such thing as a ‘trans child’, or a ‘rainbow child’. Any attempt to label children as such is sexualising them. It’s basing their identity on their sexual preferences.

Children do not have sexual preferences. Children are not to be treated as sexual beings. Adults who encourage children to label themselves with sexual identities should be no-where near children. Let kids be kids. When will enough be enough, parents??

The very activity of ‘pink shirt day’ is a bullying coercive tactic. It’s well past time that more people find their voices on this.

Read the recent post from Let Kids Be Kids on Pink Shirt day…

Let Kids Be Kids

Pink Shirt Day 2026: Not About Bullying – It’s About Enforcing TQ Ideology And Silencing Dissent

A number of schools (and workplaces) throughout NZ are about to go pink. Again…

Read more

a month ago · 18 likes · 1 comment · Let Kids Be Kids and Penny Marie

Editor’s Note in The Coromandel Informer: Richard Shelford-Woodcock is currently on leave from his role as Chair of the Mercury Bay Community Board. A number in the wider Mercury Bay community contacted Richard in his role as Chair with their concerns as parents. They were asking for their voices to be heard. Richard has a child at Whenuakite School.

Penny Marie

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We’re entering the month where the trans lobby scrapes even more money from us, the (majority of the population) people who don’t buy into their lifestyle or ideology. I recently wrote about SWEAT WITH PRIDE, an annual month-long fundraiser for THE BURNETT FOUNDATION, who receives millions of $$$ from the NZ Govt.

This is a strategy that takes money from New Zealanders who may NOT subscribe to a lifestyle that includes:

• Multiple partner promiscuous sex

• Same sex relationships (The Burnett Foundation was the AIDS Foundation - specifically for the homosexual community, but has morphed into promoting rampant promiscuity and ‘trans’ ideology)

• Men dressing up as garish parodies of women

• Women dressing up as garish parodies of men

• Adults who flaunt their sexual fetishes and false identities in the faces of families and children.

…And spends it on themselves.

They say ‘they’ are discriminated against. But here is the cold hard truth. Are you sitting down? Because it’s really important. In undoes everything for ‘them’.

Who is ‘they’?
It’s the ‘trans’ or TQ part of LGBTQ.
However…

Not in NZ law.
Not in international law.
If it isn’t defined in law it cannot be protected in law.
All people are protected under human rights laws and international treaties as MALES and FEMALES.
If you don’t like being called a male or a female then you need HELP, not a special category.
There are two sexes.
Everything else is political propaganda.

Even Australia (who is currently falling apart over the TICKLE VS GIGGLE CASE…) knows this:

What is a woman?

I, like all of us, are TIRED of having this conversation. I want to move on. I don’t want to have to talk about the ‘definition of a woman’. Because we all know what it is. It’s not up for debate.

(For those overseas who don’t know - this is Chris Hipkins, leader of the Labour Party. He took up the NZ Prime Minister’s role following Jacinda Ardern’s resignation in 2023).

PS: THEY know what a woman is too.

But it’s clear that they are NOT ALLOWED TO SAY IT. Who is telling them that they can’t? That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?

Denying stating the obvious on this most basic of topics should be cause for criminal negligence and a mental health assessment. Not to mention perhaps assessing one’s suitability for senior roles and large salary, perks and pension packages, courtesy of the taxpayer.

But then, the ‘mental health’ industry is compromised too, given that the NZ Govt created a ‘Ministry of Mental Health’, and appointed MP Matt Doocey, who was in the past at UK’s Tavistock Institute, as minister. Here is Doocey, saying he “looks forward to the day his son and daughter tell him their gender identity”.

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The emperor has no clothes

And so, in a small act of defiance, I sent a letter to FMG insurance... my insurance company.

My advice? SPEAK UP WHILE IT’S STILL LEGAL.
I sent this letter to FMG. Feel free to let it give you ideas if you want to send a letter to a contributor to Sweat With Pride too.

Read my previous post, explaining the manifesto that is exactly playing out, with Sweat With Pride.

About Penny Marie

Penny Marie is a New Zealand-based investigative reporter, and founder of Let Kids Be Kids. Please follow, comment, share and support my work. Subscribe to my Substack, X (I also post these articles on X) and YouTube - and turn notifications on.

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At Let Kids Be Kids we just received an email asking about the garish “Sweat With Pride” fundraiser currently being promoted around New Zealand. At the same time, I had just started to read a book. The timing was no coincidence…the book provided me with answers I wasn’t entirely prepared for - not because the information was new to me, but because seeing it all laid out, made something very clear, and I want to explain it to you.

This is not an accident. This is a plan. And you are paying for it

June is here. That means it’s apparently ‘pride’ month. And with it comes Sweat With Pride.

If you haven’t heard of it, Sweat With Pride is a month-long fitness fundraiser run by the Burnett Foundation Aotearoa - (formerly the New Zealand AIDS Foundation). The premise is simple: get your workplace to sign up as a team, do exercise during June, and raise money. Friendly. Healthy. Harmless.

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Except it isn’t harmless. And once you understand what is actually being funded - and who is actually paying - you will never look at your workplace’s SWP team the same way again. We have known this for a while of course. Last June, LKBK teamed up with Lesbian Resistance and made two short videos to explain. Check them out here or below.

Let’s start with the money

The Burnett Foundation is not a struggling charity rattling a tin on a street corner. According to their own publicly filed financial statements, in the year ended 30 June 2025 they received:

• $5,689,049 from Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand - your taxes

• $111,793 from Pharmac - more of your taxes, in the form of donated condoms recorded as income

• $786,202 raised through Sweat With Pride - from your workmates, your employer, and possibly you

Their total revenue was $8.24 million. They hold $4 million in accumulated reserves. They own property worth $2.35 million. In December 2025 they secured a new multi-year government contract running until June 2028.

They do not need your $50 donation. So why do they want it?

Their own annual report answers this directly. Funds raised through Sweat With Pride, they write, “help sustain and expand the services we provide beyond government funding - including counselling, access to at-home STI testing, community outreach, and advocacy for queer health equity.”

This is not a health campaign. It is a behaviour-change campaign

The Burnett Foundation’s annual report does not describe Sweat With Pride as a health promotion activity. It is a digital and marketing operation under a heading called “Behaviour-Change Marketing.” And they haven’t even changed the SWP graphics since last year.

Their stated goal is behaviour change - in the broadest sense. What behaviour do they want to change?

In FY2025 alone, their marketing generated 86.28 million ad impressions across Meta, Google, TikTok, Grindr (Gay Dating App), LinkedIn, and a pornographic advertising network called Traffic Junky. LinkedIn is a corporate workplace platform.

The inclusion of workplace-targeted advertising alongside adult content platforms in the same campaign architecture tells you everything you need to know about who the real audience is: not just gay men at risk of HIV.

Everyone. Including you. Including your employer. It might even include the school your child attends - because Schools is a named category on the SWP fundraising team dashboard, sitting alongside Workplaces and Friends/Whānau.

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The playbook is at least 36 years old

The SWP inquiry via email came in just after I had paused to read a book that Rhonda Miller mentioned on our recent video. After the Ball, written in 1989 by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen - a neuropsychologist and a PR specialist - is described by its own authors as “a blueprint for change” and, frankly, as propaganda. It is a strategic manual for transforming mainstream public opinion on homosexuality, written by gay men who were remarkably candid about their intentions.

They described three phases:

• Desensitisation - flood the media with gay content until people stop reacting;

• Jamming - make anyone who objects feel ashamed, isolated, and socially punished; and

• Conversion - attach gay identity to trusted, admired figures and institutions until people’s feelings change, whether they want them to or not.

Look at the SWP workplace leaderboard for 2026

On it you will find:

• Palmerston North Police

• Waka Kotahi NZTA - a Crown government agency

• Vero Insurance

• EY (Ernst & Young)

• AA Insurance

• 2degrees

• FMG.

Institutions and brands that ordinary New Zealanders trust, respect, and in some cases depend on. Their participation is not incidental.

It is the Conversion mechanism, operating exactly as designed - transferring the positive feelings you have for your bank, your insurer, your telco, and your police service onto an ideology you were never asked to endorse.

The Jamming mechanism is equally visible. I have many had people - quietly, privately - tell me that the pride and trans push in their workplaces is unbearable. That they feel they cannot speak. That they fear for their jobs. That is not a feeling that arose organically. It was engineered.

New Zealand is not special - it is actively participating in a global strategy, paid for by us

The Burnett Foundation does not operate in isolation. It sits within a global network of LGBTQ organisations connected to the United Nations system. Some of their counterparts are members of ILGA - the International Lesbian and Gay Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, which holds UN consultative status and uses it to:

• Lobby governments via government funded LGBTQ charities

• Monitor legislation relating to their human rights activism - country by country, and

• Push policy through parliament and government agencies via UN Conventions that our government has adopted as a UN member state.

The Burnett Foundation isn’t an ILGA member (‘Sweat with Pride’ partners InsideOut and RainbowYouth are, as seen in the YouTube videos above), rather it draws its UN blueprint from UNAIDS. ILGA and UNAIDS push their ‘behaviour change’ operations onto entire populations like two wings of the same bird. Only, it’s more like an 8-armed octopus than a two-winged bird. And we funded it.

The global trans activist network

I just published a video with Rhonda Miller from Texas - The Global Trans Activist Network - which maps important threads in this network. Understanding the global architecture makes what is happening locally - including Sweat With Pride - make complete sense - if not wholly disturbing that it continues unchecked.

The Burnett Foundation’s own Trust Deed, signed in 2023, embeds this global architecture directly into its legal foundation - committing the organisation to the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (a WHO declaration) and the GIPA Principle established by UNAIDS at the 1994 Paris AIDS Summit.

These UN charters and principals are NOT BINDING INTERNATIONAL LAWS. New Zealand’s Parliament never voted on them. But they are now the governing principles of an organisation receiving $5.7 million a year of health department money that we all would agree would be better used elsewhere.

What this means for your family

If you’re working, paying a mortgage, school fees, insurance, rates, a phone bill - you may be supporting this campaign - through taxpayer dollars you are funding the Burnett Foundation. Not by choice. Not with your consent. Through every institutional channel that has been quietly captured over the past three decades by a strategy written down in a book in 1989.

Your child’s school may be on a SWP fundraising leaderboard (thankfully there aren’t many). Your workplace may have a team participating. Your insurer, your bank, and the government agency that manages your roads all have active participation. You may have friends or family participating in the event. They may even have asked you for money to help them fundraise.

What you can do

I have long since stopped expecting people to be brave in public. I am merely asking you to be informed - and then decide for yourself what to do with that information.

If you work somewhere that participates in Sweat With Pride and you have a story about workplace pressure, real or implied - I want to hear from you. Confidentially.

Stay in touch as we continue to follow the money into the government agencies and organisations that fund this - follow me on your preferred channel, and Let Kids Be Kids on our socials and subscribe here on Substack.

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And if you want to be part of a growing network of parents, grandparents, and ordinary New Zealanders who are done being silent - join us.

You are not alone.
You are not extreme.
You are the majority.

Our children’s innocence is worth protecting. And the truth, once it is known, cannot be unknown.

About Penny Marie

Penny Marie is a New Zealand-based investigative reporter, and founder of Let Kids Be Kids. Please follow, comment, share and support my work. Subscribe to my Substack, X (I also post these articles on X) and YouTube - and turn notifications on.

• About Penny Marie

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What did I witness?

Ordinary people, across four generations, standing up in the public square and speaking with conviction about faith, history, and the soul of a nation.

I didn’t grow up in church. I joined a church in my teenage years and was baptised. I walked away from faith in my mid-twenties. Since 2020 I have been revisiting my moral foundations, asking myself hard questions about what I truly believe - and why. What I witnessed in Celina helped cement my own convictions.

If you want to get straight to watching my video without reading the rest of this article, go here.

The Rededication of the United States

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed a presidential proclamation declaring 2026 the Year of Celebration and Rededication.

Recently, while participating in ‘America Reads the Bible’, the President read 2 Chronicles 7v11-22 to the nation. A key scripture was…

It isn’t about getting someone else to be the solution. This verse places the responsibility squarely on us. And in Celina that evening, the people were taking it seriously. These people have picked up their ploughs and are working their fields. So that their town, their state and their nation has a bright future, founded on its history.

Four generations, together in the public square

The speakers walked us through pivotal moments in American history - one generation at a time.

A great-grandfather spoke on the US Constitution, reminding the crowd that the founding framework of the United States was always intended to be a moral document, not merely a legal one.

A grandmother read from George Washington’s Farewell Address of 1796, where Washington himself warned:

A mother stood and read from George Washington’s personal prayer book, asking all the mothers in the crowd to stand with her (we did). The words were intimate and searching - a Founding Father on his knees, not on a pedestal.

A young man, representing youth and future generations, quoted Benjamin Rush - a signatory on the Declaration of Independence - who said:

He then looked out at the crowd and said he could already see the consequences of ignoring that warning in his own generation - and he prayed over them, right there, in the open air.

The history that anchors it all

Before the generational speakers took the microphone, the gathering was anchored in the earliest foundational documents of American history.

The first was the prayer of Reverend Robert Hunt at the First Landing in Virginia, 1607 - arguably the first spiritual covenant made on American soil, before a single home was built at Jamestown. The settlers raised a cross and dedicated the land to God before they did anything else. That prayer echoes forward 419 years to this very gathering.

The second was the Mayflower Compact, signed 11 November 1620 at Cape Cod - the first governmental contract in what would become the United States of America. The very first act of self-governance on this continent was an act of faith.

A covenant of rededication

Texas State Representative Keresa Richardson then stepped up and read a formal covenant of rededication - a document that named, plainly and without apology, every way in which America has drifted: the removal of the Ten Commandments from public life, the misapplication of the separation of church and state, the corruption of education, media, culture and governance.

Christian identity

Finally, Jacob Browning, Lead Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Celina - a congregation with over 150 years of history - spoke about what it means to have a Christian identity in a city that is reportedly the fastest-growing in the nation for six consecutive quarters. His message was simple: embrace people, encounter God’s word, equip the saints, empower them to serve. Set your Saviour upstream, and trust what flows downstream.

What this means for the rest of us

I’m a New Zealander. And watching this, I kept thinking about my home - about what we’ve lost, and what we’ve allowed to be taken.

We have removed God from our courthouses, our schools, and our parliament. We are watching our history be rewritten to serve a political ideology, and that rewriting is dividing us in ways we have never seen before. The people speaking in Celina that evening were doing the opposite - going back to their true history, standing on it, and building forward from it.

If this video makes you uncomfortable, I want to gently challenge you: don’t turn it off. Sit with that discomfort and ask yourself why. These are not angry people. They are grounded, humble, and speaking with a conviction that I believe the Western world is desperately hungry for - whether it knows it yet or not.

Watch the video. I think it will stay with you.

Want to support independent journalism that takes you beyond the mainstream? Subscribe to Penny Marie NZ and share this with someone who needs to see it.

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About Penny Marie

Penny Marie is a New Zealand-based investigative reporter, and founder of Let Kids Be Kids. Please follow, comment, share and support my work. Subscribe to my Substack, X (I also post these articles on X) and YouTube - and turn notifications on.

• About Penny Marie

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In tonight’s YouTube interview, I sit down with New York filmmaker and parent advocate Natalya Murakhver, the producer behind the powerful documentary 15 Days, which forensically examines the school closures of 2020 and the forces that kept classrooms shut long after the science said they could safely reopen.

Natalya and I first met at the Genspect conference in Portugal in 2024, and we’ve stayed in contact since. The story she has uncovered in 15 Days is something every parent, teacher, and concerned citizen in New Zealand - and around the world - needs to hear. You will find your story in here somewhere, if you were a parent in 2020.

This story needed to be told

15 Days began with a simple but urgent question: if the evidence was clear that schools were safe, why did they stay closed for so long? Natalya, a self-described former progressive New York City Democrat, went looking for answers - and what she found was a web of union collusion, political manipulation, and coordinated propaganda.

“I knew that if we didn’t present the actual story, she [head of American Federation of Teachers] would be rewriting it.” - Natalya Murakhver, on why she made the film

The film reveals how teachers’ unions - particularly the American Federation of Teachers under Randy Weingarten - were not simply representing teachers. They were writing CDC guidance, pressuring the American Academy of Pediatrics to reverse its recommendation to reopen schools, and weaponising fear within communities. All while controlling $4 trillion in pension funds and receiving virtually no challenge from mainstream media.

The agenda hidden inside the lockdowns

What Natalya uncovered goes far deeper than just closed classrooms. When schools did reopen, parents were locked out. In their place came a flood of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) counsellors - hired with $189.5 billion in federal education funds - with no verified credentials, pushing children into climate activism, racial ideology, and collectivist thinking.

As Natalya reveals in the film, the head of the Los Angeles teachers’ union said plainly: “It doesn’t matter if our babies don’t know their times tables. They know the difference between a riot and a coup.” The goal, as Natalya concludes, was never education. It was ideological capture.

Marxist playbook - recognised by those who had seen it before

Born in the Soviet Union, Natalya draws sobering parallels between what she witnessed during COVID and life under totalitarianism - the illusion of consensus, the silencing of dissent, the separation of parent from child. And in our conversation, I share my own experience as a New Zealander grappling with the same psychological warfare.

“They weaponised us against each other - because what they were trying to say was your friend, your family member, could be a ball of something that could kill you. So you then saw each other differently.” - Penny Marie

What parents can do right now

Despite the weight of the subject matter, this conversation ends with hope. Natalya’s message to parents is practical and grounding: be an authoritative presence, bring your family back to the dinner table, protect your children from screen dependency, and build community - one small act at a time. As she says, “small actions are very, very meaningful, because while we can’t make a huge impact at the United Nations, we can make a huge impact in our own home.”

Watch our chat tonight - and share the film

Tune in tonight at 7pm NZ time on the Penny Marie NZ YouTube channel. Drop your thoughts in the comments - I’d love to know what resonates with you, especially as New Zealanders and Australians reflecting on your own lockdown experience.

🎬 15 Days is available to stream on Amazon, Google Play, YouTube, and iTunes, and DVDs and screening licences can be purchased at 15daysfilm.com. If you’re a community group, church, school network, or advocacy organisation - this is a film worth screening.

Share this with a parent who needs to hear it.

Check out my previous post…

Subscribe to Natalya’s Substack Restore Childhood

Restore Childhood

No one is coming to save our kids but us-- a newsletter of stories, reporting, and tools for parents reclaiming the ground institutions gave away.

By Natalya Murakhver

About Penny Marie

Penny Marie is a New Zealand-based investigative reporter, and founder of Let Kids Be Kids. Please follow, comment, share and support my work. Subscribe to my Substack, X (I also post these articles on X) and YouTube - and turn notifications on.

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I’m writing this from Texas, where I’m spending time with mothers who have been exposing the irreversible harm of “gender-transitioning” children.

These moms and dads (and our friends and allies) are modern-day warriors and heroes. We fight against doctors, therapists, hospitals, schools, and an ideology that tells them their kids’ confusion was something to “affirm” with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries.

It’s exhausting, isolating, financially crippling, and dangerous

One mother I met, who has been outspoken in the fight for childhood innocence and parental authority, recently survived a drive-by shooting aimed at her home while she and her young children were outside.

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But today, Texas delivered a massive, history-making win that changes the landscape

Attorney General Ken Paxton today announced a landmark healthcare fraud settlement with Texas Children’s Hospital - the largest children’s hospital in the United States. Under the agreement, the hospital must:

• Create the nation’s first-ever multidisciplinary Detransition Clinic to provide medical care and reversal support for patients harmed by “gender-transition” procedures. For the first five years, Texas Children’s will fully fund it - free of charge to patients.

• Pay $10 million to the state for illegally billing Texas Medicaid for unallowable and fraudulent “gender-transition” interventions, including the use of false diagnosis codes.

• Permanently terminate and revoke privileges of multiple physicians who performed these harmful procedures - five “woke doctors” who will never again practice at the hospital.

• Stop providing “gender-transition” services entirely and implement strict compliance and ethics measures, including bylaw changes that automatically strip privileges from any doctor who violates Texas law protecting kids.

This isn’t just a slap on the wrist. It’s accountability. It’s restitution.

It’s the first institutional acknowledgment that the radical transgender experiment on children was medically fraudulent, ideologically driven, and devastatingly harmful.

In Paxton’s own words:

He added:

The courage of parents and whistleblowers pays off

The investigation that led to this settlement began years ago. Texas Children’s kept performing these interventions even after the state banned them. Whistleblowers exposed it. Parents fought it. And now, Paxton - working in coordination with President Trump’s Department of Justice - has delivered real consequences.

Meanwhile, back home in New Zealand, the contrast could not be starker

While Texas leads the world with real accountability and the first dedicated Detransition Clinic, trans activist groups like PATHA and their allies continue to heavily influence our government on “gender affirming care” and puberty blockers.

Last November I spoke about the US HHS report on Gender Dysphoria that was published within hours of the the sudden NZ government announcement on halting the prescription of puberty blockers and following UK NHS processes and research - not the US.

Compounding the problem is the role of legacy media in New Zealand and internationally

Media outlets overwhelmingly push a one-sided pro-trans narrative, often framing concerned parents as “anti-trans,” or ignorant, while downplaying or ignoring the Cass Review, exploding evidence of harm, detransitioner testimonies, and the risks of puberty blockers and irreversible interventions.

This has left most members of the public without a full picture of the issues - unaware of the safeguarding failures and the very real dangers facing children, and leaving small underfunded public interest groups such as Let Kids Be Kids and others, relying on word of mouth, independent media platforms (thank you to The Platform, RCR, Daily Telegraph and Good Oil who help share my work) and social media to encourage the conversation and speak up on behalf of people concerned with this ideology and the negative impacts for children, and themselves.

Here’s a short video on why the media is one-sided on this issue….

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Why are activists driving their social change while parents are ignored?

Activists affiliated with PATHA, Waikato University’s Transgender Research Lab, and WPATH are still shaping policy and media narratives. The Ministry of Health’s evidence brief and the government’s own safeguards have faced relentless pushback.

And just yesterday, NGOs were once again waving trans flags at Parliament for IDAHOBIT Day - right as Pink Shirt Day was rolled out in workplaces and schools across the country, pushing the trans narrative straight into our children’s lives through events, assemblies, surveys and “diversity” programmes. NOT JUST in the sexuality education classroom lessons.

Why is the New Zealand Government and Ministry of Health apparently not looking to these landmark US decisions? Why ignore the mounting international evidence?

For the parents I’ve been meeting with here in Texas, this news may be the lifeline they need. Finally, someone in power is saying what we’ve known all along - this was never healthcare. It was child abuse dressed up in a white coat.

This settlement doesn’t erase the pain already inflicted. It doesn’t magically heal the detransitioners left sterilized, in chronic pain, or battling regret. But it forces the system to start cleaning up its own mess. It creates a dedicated clinic for reversal care. It claws back taxpayer dollars. And it sends a crystal-clear message to every hospital in Texas (and beyond): the era of experimenting on confused kids is over.

I’ve been documenting this fight for the last three years on pennymarie.nz and Let Kids Be Kids - from New Zealand to the frontlines in America, Canada and the United Kingdom. What I’m seeing here in Texas is a turning point. Parents are no longer alone. The law is catching up. The hospitals that profited from this ideology are being held to account.

Keep going, for our kids sakes

• To every parent and advocate for children in the trenches: Hold the line. Your fight matters. Today’s announcement proves it.

• To New Zealand mums and dads: How many more kids will be put on the social and medical pathway before our leaders follow Texas’ lead? How can we work together to affect the change needed to ensure our children are safe and families strengthened?

To those clinging to a dying ideology

• Healthcare workers in NZ: Will you continue to “affirm” based on ideology, or will you follow the emerging evidence and your oath to do no harm?

• NZ politicians and Ministry of Health officials: When will you truly put children first, and get out of the way of loving mothers and fathers who say NO to this ideology and medial pathway - and demand the same accountability we’re seeing in Texas?

• Mainstream media outlets: When will you report the full story, including the harms, the detransitioners, and the growing global pushback?

This is what real leadership looks like. Thank you, Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Please share this far and wide. Texas is leading the way. New Zealand must catch up - for the sake of our kids.

Official sources and further reading

• Full Texas Attorney General Press Release

• HHS Gender Dysphoria Report

• NZ Update: Puberty Blockers, Media Bias, University ‘Experts’, vs Common Sense (Nov 2025)

• NZ High Court To Test Legality Of Puberty‑Blocker Regulations (Feb 2026)

Stay strong, Penny Marie
On the ground in Texas

About Penny Marie

Penny Marie is a New Zealand-based investigative reporter, and founder of Let Kids Be Kids. Please follow, comment, share and support my work. Subscribe to my Substack, X (I also post these articles on X) and YouTube - and turn notifications on.

• About Penny Marie

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• Let Kids Be Kids

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When the New Zealand Herald published a story on May 2 2026 about a University of Canterbury student being asked to remove a Palestinian keffiyeh at graduation, it presented the incident as a civil liberties outrage worthy of national attention. The Press - Stuff’s Christchurch masthead, the city where this took place - ran the same story with identical…

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I stand alongside the brave men and women who speak up about ‘gender ideology’ and the increasingly ludicrous trans propaganda. We experience relentless attacks by people who are either the foot soldiers of this strategy, the beneficiaries of it, or are brainwashed by the propaganda it spits out.

Their goal? To silence us.

Why? Because their lies don’t st…

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Authors note: The intention of this article is to ensure the safety of the missing person, and raise awareness that our police, law and media are hamstrung to do the best by victims and vulnerable people. They cannot do this when ideology takes preference over facts.

When a person goes missing in New Zealand, we rely on two institutions above all others …

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I want to be honest with you about something: This piece is going to frustrate some people who consider themselves aligned with my views.

NZ First is the only party in parliament with the courage to even attempt this conversation. Winston Peters and his caucus have consistently stood in rooms where others have gone quiet, and that matters. I have respect for them. I have gratitude for them. I addressed the NZ First Convention on 6 September 2025, and I said to them directly what I am about to say to you. So this is not an attack from the outside. This is what I told them and their members - because I believe they deserve honesty more than they need cheerleading.

The Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill, introduced by NZ First MP Jenny Marcroft and now drawn from the ballot, would insert new sections 13A and 13B into the Legislation Act 2019, defining “woman” as “an adult human biological female” and “man” as “an adult human biological male.” Public polling shows majority support. The intent is genuinely good. But a careful reading of where gender ideology actually entered New Zealand law - and how - tells me this bill addresses the wrong problem.

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The real problem is not the word “woman.” It is the word “sex.”

The activist overreach that sex-based rights advocates have documented over the past decade does not flow from any ambiguity in how legislation defines “woman.” It flows from the Human Rights Commission’s interpretation of “sex” - a word that appears in section 21 of the Human Rights Act 1993 as a prohibited ground of discrimination, but which is not defined in that Act. The HRC has, for years, taken the position that gender identity and expression fall within the scope of “sex” as a prohibited ground. That interpretation is embedded in its guidance, its communications, and its complaint-handling.

The bill does not define “sex.” It does not amend the Human Rights Act. It does not constrain the HRC’s interpretation of sex in any enforceable way. A defined “woman” in the Legislation Act does not tell the Commission - or any tribunal - what “sex” means in the Act the Commission actually administers. The lever that matters has not been touched.

There is a second problem, and it cuts in the other direction

Both new sections open with the phrase “regardless of gender identity.” That phrase introduces “gender identity” as a named legal concept into the Legislation Act for the first time.

Currently, it has no legislative footprint there. This bill would give it one. For those of us who argue that gender identity is a contested philosophical construct that should not appear in statute at all - this is not a small concession. Naming a concept in law, even to override it, is still naming it. That is the opposite of the direction we have been calling for.

What I said to NZ First leadership and party members

At the NZ First Convention I said this:

The Marcroft bill is, by that measure, exactly the kind of low-hanging fruit I was describing. It adjusts a definition without touching the legislative infrastructure through which gender ideology was actually introduced into New Zealand law.

Watch the speech I gave at the NZ First Convention in 2025

That infrastructure is specific and traceable.

• The Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Act 2022 compels affirmation-only responses to gender-confused children and puts counsellors, parents, and religious communities at legal risk if they explore root causes or alternative frameworks.

• The Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 2021 introduced a self-identification process that allows individuals to change the sex recorded on their birth certificate through a statutory declaration alone - no medical requirement - a mechanism that has been used to advance the narrative that legal sex and biological sex are legally separable concepts.

Neither of these Acts is touched by the NZ First bill.

I asked NZ First leadership directly at the convention

They heard the full analysis that day:

• The Yogyakarta Principles pipeline

• The Human Rights Commission’s activist role

• The downstream effects on school policy

• And a specific list of entities I put forward for investigation:

  • All DEI policy and legislation

  • Trans and rainbow charity funding

  • Media

  • The Human Rights Commission

  • The Ministry of Education

  • The Ministry of Health.

A members’ bill defining “woman” in the Legislation Act does not trigger any of those investigations. It does not repeal the Acts that gave gender ideology its statutory footing - the two Acts named in this article.

I used a metaphor in my address that I still think is right.

The Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill is not the climb. It is a definitional patch applied to the ambulance.

The climb - the actual legislative correction New Zealand - requires:

1. The repeal of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Act 2022, which chills counsellor and parental freedom to explore anything other than gender affirmation with gender-confused children.

2. And the correction of the self-identification provisions in the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 2021, which severed the legal connection between recorded sex and biological sex.

Until those Acts are addressed, a new definition of “woman” in the Legislation Act is a footnote to a much larger failure.

I said this to NZ First. I’m saying it to you now. I do not think less of them for the attempt. But I will not pretend this is the fix when I know - and they surely know - that it isn’t.

Penny Marie

Penny Marie is a New Zealand-based advocate for sex-based rights and spoke at the NZ First Convention on 6 September 2025.

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We don’t have a “First Lady.” So why does the media keep saying we do?

Before we get to the heart of the matter I really want to discuss, there’s something that needs to be said about how Amanda Luxon is being portrayed, weirdly, as a ‘First Lady’.

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This week Jamie Dally and I sat down with former National MP, NewZeal founder and freshly‑minted NZ First candidate Alfred Ngaro – a man who has quietly re‑entered the political arena at one of the most volatile moments in recent history.

In Winston Peters’ State of the Nation event last weekend, Alfred was never formally introduced from the podium. He s…

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The CTV Families Group has welcomed the Government’s decision to appoint a retired Supreme Court judge to lead an independent inquiry into the Tauranga landslides, calling it an important test of whether New Zealand has learned from past failures after major loss‑of‑life events.

“Full independence, transparency, and rigour”

For fifteen years, advocate Dav…

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I noticed an ad on Facebook today. It struck me that the woman was promoting a health product, wearing a hospital staff uniform, standing outside Auckland Hospital, saying she works for Auckland District Health Board (DHB).

Please share this with friends who may be susceptible to being sucked into fake ads and scams!

I sent it to a medical friend and ques…

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At the 2026 Tauranga Business Awards, Bay of Plenty defence‑tech company SYOS was crowned Business of the Year and hailed as proof our region now plays on the world stage of innovation and export growth.

Look more closely and an uncomfortable reality emerges: the flagship achievement we’re applauding is supplying “mission‑ready, combat proven” drones into the Ukraine conflict and into New Zealand’s own re‑armament programme, under a Defence Industry Strategy that explicitly marries war‑fighting capability with economic growth and export ambition.

“Prime Minister Starmer… announce(s) UK contracts worth £30m for drones produced by SYOS Aerospace, a New Zealand uncrewed vehicle manufacturer based in Hampshire to support Ukraine”. UK Gov Press Release, 21 April 2025

Is this really the pinnacle of New Zealand enterprise? Is this the best we can imagine for our brightest engineers, our local economy, and our children’s future?

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The awards night that plugged Tauranga into a global conflict

The Tauranga Business Awards are run by the Tauranga Business Chamber with mainstream sponsors and an independent judging panel focused on growth, innovation and community impact.

Nothing on the surface screams geopolitics, yet the choice of winner is inherently geopolitical.

The company taking top honours has become a key supplier of uncrewed systems across air, land and sea to foreign militaries and now to the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF). Its drones form part of a UK‑led package of “support” for Ukraine and are explicitly described by both governments as combat‑tested systems that have already seen operational use in that war.

Judith Collins, as Defence Minister, announced that NZDF will buy and trial these “advanced uncrewed systems” from the company as part of a new Defence Industry Strategy, highlighting that the technology is “central to modern military operations” and that the aim is to build a “strong, resilient industry that delivers economic growth and grows our export markets.”

Translated: Wellington wants local firms to scale into the global military‑industrial supply chain, and Tauranga’s Business of the Year is a model student.

I speculated on Collin’s and the NZ Govt’s pro-Ukraine stance here…

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“Good jobs” on the back of bad wars

The employees inside these firms are not villains. They are local people, with families, trying to pay a mortgage and give their children a future in a country where one income almost never stretches far enough.

From their vantage point, this industry looks like a rare bright spot:

• Highly skilled engineering work in Mount Maunganui instead of overseas.

• Export contracts tied to the UK Ministry of Defence and allied partners.

• New NZDF orders endorsed from the Beehive, with ministers promising “economic growth” and local resilience.

“These drones will be provided to support Ukraine. This procurement forms part of the UK’s assistance package and reflects an area of bilateral industrial cooperation. Prime Minister Starmer also welcomed New Zealand’s recent increase in defence expenditure, and both leaders discussed the broader connection between defence investment, national economic security, and household-level economic outcomes.” - Global Defence News, Army Recognition Group. 23 April 2025

These are ordinary New Zealand families, whose financial security now rests on these defence contracts. They did not design the Ukraine war, Project NYX, AUKUS, or the “contested world” narrative that now justifies constant re‑armament. They are simply surviving inside the system presented to them.

And that is where the heartbreak lies.

When a small country like ours allows its economic life to be tethered to distant, unwinnable and corrupt conflicts, we normalise the idea that the safest way to provide for our children is to help other people fight, surveil, and manage theirs.

How the Defence Strategy makes war an economic habit

Defence officials avoid the word “war” and prefer “capability” and “partnership.”

“New Zealand needs to build resilience in its supply chains, including by growing national and regional economies and local suppliers as well as our export markets.” - NZDF Defence Industry Strategy 2025, pg4

In Collins’ own words, this deal is about ensuring NZDF can “protect our people into the future,” reducing supply‑chain risk, and “building the future” with “innovative Kiwi products” developed and supported here. The Defence Industry Strategy she cites is designed to deliver the Defence Capability Plan and “grow our export markets” by bringing together local and international defence primes into a permanent industry ecosystem.

Once you join those dots, a pattern appears:

• The same drones now trialled here are literally marketed as combat‑proven in Ukraine.

• The “capability” frame makes it much harder, politically, to challenge either the foreign policy or the economic dependency that flows from it.

• Any future call for de‑escalation or a more independent NZ foreign policy will run up against a new argument: “But what about the jobs? What about our export story?”

That is how war shifts from an exception to a habit: quietly, bureaucratically, with a strategy document and an awards night.

Hungary PM Orbán says his rival received illegal funding from Ukraine

The Ukraine war itself is hardly the tidy morality play our politicians like to invoke. In Europe, Hungary is now declassifying a national‑security report that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán says will show his main political rival Péter Magyar received illegal funding from Ukraine, even as Brussels and Kyiv pressure Budapest to keep money and weapons flowing.

Whatever you think of Orbán, the fact that this war is now entangled with covert political financing, election interference claims and energy blackmail should make us wary of building New Zealand’s economic future on supplying “clean” hardware into such a murky project.

Talent captured – when innovation serves the wrong story

What makes this even sadder is that New Zealand has seen other futures before.

I recently procured American science and innovation magazines from the early 1900s – pages of optimism and innovation about aviation, electricity, civil engineering, agriculture, medicine. The promise was that new technologies would expand human freedom, shorten the work week, and allow families to live well on a single income in thriving communities.

These magazines are a time capsule of a civilisation that still believed its best engineers should be building bridges, power plants, railways, ships, and hospitals – not just perfecting machines for distant battlefields.

The underlying technical imagination in Tauranga today is no less impressive. But the story it has been captured by is different.

The same multi‑domain systems now branded as “mission‑ready” for Ukraine and for NZDF exercises could, with different incentives, enhance the lives of New Zealanders, and be focused on for example:

• Inspecting and maintaining critical infrastructure in remote areas.

• Coastal protection, fishery monitoring, and anti‑poaching operations.

• Rapid disaster‑response logistics in floods, earthquakes and severe storms.

• Precision agriculture, pest control and farm logistics to boost food security.

The difference is not in the engineering. It is in the purpose.

Right now, the clearest and best‑funded narrative on offer is the one that says: there will always be another contested theatre, another allied operation, another integration with foreign fire‑control systems – and we can make good money helping to supply it.

A human economy: One income, one nation, many possibilities

On the other side of the world, the current US administration has chosen a different story to frame its economic policy.

Its stated aim is to rebuild domestic manufacturing, unleash domestic energy – from oil and gas to nuclear – and onshore critical supply chains so the country is less dependent on foreign powers and global technocrats.

Underneath the slogans about sovereignty is a simple human goal: drive down the cost of living and raise real wages so that a family can again choose to live on a single income if it wants to.

Whether you agree with every Executive Order or not, the principle is clear: production for people at home first, alliances and abstractions second.

Imagine if New Zealand adopted that goal and applied it to our own strengths and abundant resources, minerals and energy sources.

Instead of celebrating export wins from drones in a grinding European war, we could deliberately channel our “world‑class” talent into:

• Cheap, abundant domestic energy to lower every household’s bills.

• Advanced construction, transport and communications that cut the cost of housing and commuting.

• Food and health innovations that actually reduce the burden of disease, not manage it indefinitely.

• Civilian applications of robotics and autonomy that protect our land and seas and free up people’s time.

That is how you create a country where one parent can work and a family can still thrive: you build an economy that serves human flourishing here, not war‑fighting there.

Would more New Zealanders stay if they believed that’s where we were heading – towards a peaceful, sovereign, family‑first economy – instead of clinging to the idea that our best shot at a decent wage is plugging into Britain’s and NATO’s forever wars?

Rethinking what “Business of the Year” should mean

A local awards night may seem small compared with defence strategies and global conflicts, but it tells us what we are teaching the next generation to admire.

Right now, the message from Tauranga is: if you want to be celebrated, build things that fit neatly into the security architecture of an “increasingly contested world.”

I’m suggesting a different standard.

What if “Business of the Year” in New Zealand meant:

• You lowered the cost of a decent life for ordinary families.

• You reduced our dependence on hostile or unstable foreign powers.

• You built tools for peace, resilience and prosperity, not for the next theatre of war.

We have not always lived in a world where militarised innovation was taken for granted. Our grandparents could still imagine a civilisation where new machines meant less fear, less scarcity, and more time with the people we love.

We can choose to imagine that again.

The question is whether we have the courage to say, out loud, that building our economic future on war and surveillance is not “world‑class” at all – and that New Zealand can do better, for our families and for the generations yet to come.

FOOTNOTE: I hope this article gets into the hands of investors and visionaries who are in the market to approach SYOS and similar NZ-owned companies, to enhance humanity via innovation and excitement for the future…

Penny Marie

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