15 September 2025
Twelve years ago, back in 2013, I subscribed to the Fluoride Free New Zealand (back then known as Fluoride Action Network New Zealand) newsletter, to keep an eye on what the group was doing. I've been happy to see that recently my Gmail account has been treating these newsletters as spam, and I hope that many other people receiving this newsletter also having it going into their spam folders - as there's so much misinformation and fearmongering in the emails (along with regular begging for money), that it's best off being left unread.
8 July 2024
At the end of part 2 of this series (which was published a month ago), it seemed that Colin Amery had started to settle down. He met his future wife, poet Yvonne Gatton, in 1986. Gatton seems to have been a stabilising influence for Amery; so much so that he would follow her spiritual practices, and be initiated into the Sant Mat spiritual movement. While the couple were mum about who their specific guru was to a Stuff reporter, he did tell Dominion Post reporter Kimberley Rothwell that he practised Surat Shabd Yoga.
30 October 2023
I'm happy to let everyone know that the result of the recent Jehovah's Witness court case has been released. This was the High Court case I visited on my lunch break a couple of weeks ago, where the JWs were trying to argue that they shouldn't be investigated as part of the government's current Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry. Thankfully the church has lost its case, and its argument that it doesn't “care” for its members was not enough to allow them to escape scrutiny. The Commission put out a short press statement after the decision was made public:
16 October 2023
I popped into the High Court last week to sit in on a court case where the Jehovah's Witnesses are attempting to argue that they should be exempt from the current Royal Commission enquiry in Abuse in Care. Sara Passmore and I (we're both NZ Skeptics committee members) visited for an hour, and we seem to have accidentally sat on the “wrong” side of the courtroom. Having sat down, we looked around and realised that our side of the room was mostly men in suits (including, I think, Alfred Ngaro - more on him in the article below), whereas the other side of the room was mainly women, including one with bright pink hair.
17 October 2022
We've covered Alex Jones many times in the past. Alex Jones is a fairly well-known far-right radio show host and conspiracy theorist. Most skeptics will be aware of his InfoWars website, which promotes conspiracy theories and certified-real fake news.
8 August 2022
Alex Jones has been sued by parents for his claims on his TV show that the Sandy Hook school massacre was faked by the government as a way to take away people's gun rights. These parents are suing because, as a result of Jones' rhetoric, they have spent years dealing with abuse up to and including death threats - and this is after they lost their children in a massacre that Jones has been telling people never happened.
27 June 2022
This week I've got an eclectic mix of topics. I cover Matariki weekend, the awful Roe v. Wade US supreme court decision and the implications here, and look at my carbon footprint.
7 February 2022
In another topic I've written about before, a Voices for Freedom spinoff group The 'Hood NZ were taking a case to the High Court to attempt to stop the rollout of the COVID vaccine, specifically for 5 - 11 year olds.
3 January 2022
The Lotus-Heart restaurant in Christchurch has chosen to take a stand against vaccine mandates, by refusing to let customers know if they require a vaccine pass, not promoting use of their COVID Tracer QR Code, and not having any system in place to check vaccine passes. As a result they have been fined $20,000 dollars by WorkSafe.
24 November 2021
So I want to talk about an interesting arrest that happened yesterday, but not the arrest of Brian and Hannah Tamaki.
19 May 2021
Sue Grey, Nelson lawyer and co-leader of The Outdoors Party (an anti-vax, anti-5g, anti-1080 political party), had her day in court last week, taking the government to court over their COVID vaccine rollout. Although I was not able to spare the time to spend the day in court, I did manage to briefly visit the outside of the High Court in the morning, and when I got there Billy TK, who had decided to join the circus, was arguing outside with security guards. It turns out he had been kicked out of the court foyer for filming in a prohibited area, and of course his being removed was just proof that the system is corrupt. Go Billy!
17 May 2021
The website of an organisation called the Maori Ranger Security Division is currently selling ID cards that they claim can help you avoid being arrested by police, protect you from Child Services, make you exempt from fisheries quotas, and may even let you travel without a passport - and all for the low, low price of $50.
12 June 2016
Chris Savage, an ex police officer from Australia, has a long history of being outright dangerous. He's anti-vaccine, and claims to be able to treat autism and cancer with magnesium (chloride) and DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) infusions. He's currently in New Zealand, and has been treating people while claiming he's a doctor.
1 August 2014
So after a break of almost 13 months, fluoride is now back in Hamilton's water supply. It was 5 June last year that the council, after three months of public consultations, submissions and hearings, decided to cease fluoridation, despite clear support for the practice from the Hamilton populace and the medical profession. In doing so they bowed to pressure from a well-organised and well-funded lobbying campaign, and ignored scientific evidence, which they said they lacked the expertise to assess (for background on the funding of the anti-fluoride lobby, see Ken Perrott's excellent analysis at openparachute.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/who-is-funding-anti-fluoridation-high-court-action(.
1 August 2005
The ACC-sponsored conference Many Faces of Abuse (Auckland, 10-12 August 2005) features a plenary speaker, Anne McDonald from Melbourne, who cannot talk, walk or feed herself. Her minder, Rosemary Crossley, is the inventor of Facilitated Communication - a technique whereby a facilitator supports the hand or arm of a severely disabled person and thereby enables that person point to letters of the alphabet. This technique gives severely disabled people the miraculous ability to spell out words, sentences and even whole paragraphs of astonishing, unlikely and often wildly pornographic prose. As a result of Facilitated Communication, hundreds of families and caregivers worldwide have had their lives and careers destroyed by devastating and subsequently-discredited allegations of sexual abuse. Among responsible organisations and individuals concerned with mental and physical disability there is now widespread agreement that Facilitated Communication is nothing more than a powertrip for manipulative therapists who prey on the vulnerability and dependence of the severely disabled.
1 August 2003
Should we trust psychologists and psychiatrists, especially as expert witnesses in court cases?
1 May 2002
A man charged with threatening to poison food produced by Dick Smith has been refused bail in the Rockhampton Magistrates Court in central Queensland. Graham Andrew Cooper, 30, is charged with trying extort $100,000 from the Australian Skeptics Association.
1 August 2001
Skepticism is very much concerned with assessing the quality of evidence in support of a particular claim. But evidence means different things to different people. In the first of a two-part series, Jim Ring examines the legal profession's view of the matter.
1 August 1995
The Geller case has ended -- the "psychic" is to begin a court-ordered payment of up to $120,000 to CSICOP USA.
1 February 1994
The Indian Skeptics sometimes seem to be up against some very big opponents. Our Chair recently received the following letter:
1 May 1988
To secure a place in American schools creationists now claim their doctrines are scientific, while evolution, on the other hand, is a 'religion'.