Stuff Digital Edition

Mayoral candidate’s vax doubts

Tom Hunt

Wellington mayoral candidate Barbara McKenzie has claimed children cannot spread Covid-19 and that the Covid vaccination is ‘‘very unsafe’’, and she has spoken out in favour of the occupation of Parliament grounds.

McKenzie is one of nine candidates running for the Wellington mayoralty, and she is running as an outspoken critic of Significant Natural Area regulations, which enable councils to protect areas with indigenous biodiversity.

But her online footprint shows that she has called for

Covid vaccinations to be stopped and has defended the Trump-inspired rioters who stormed the US Capitol building last year.

McKenzie did not return calls yesterday asking for comment about her posts, although she earlier replied to an email asking all mayoral candidates if they had links to anti-vax group Voices for Freedom.

She responded with an alternative list of questions based around ‘‘unlawful expropriation of private property’’, co-governance, making the city car-free and whether cycleway spending should take precedence over infrastructure spending.

When she announced her candidacy for mayor, McKenzie said ‘‘more respect needs to be shown for views contrary to the prevailing ideology’’ and promised ‘‘a radical shake-up of

the prevailing culture’’. The Dominion Post asked all council candidates in the Wellington region about their stance on Voices for Freedom after Stuff Circuit on Monday revealed that the anti-vaccine group called on its 100,000 members to make the country ‘‘ungovernable’’. It said it was supporting candidates in local body elections to ‘‘sway the results’’.

A review of posts on McKenzie’s blog shows she posted a letter written by an engineer to MPs in 2021 calling for vaccinations to be stopped. It claimed that, in one week, ‘‘more people died from the Covid vaccines than from Covid itself’’. In a separate post she claims the vaccine is ‘‘not at all effective, and very unsafe’’.

McKenzie called the pandemic an ‘‘alleged disease’’ and, in another post, said: ‘‘There’s absolutely no justification for forcing children to wear masks: they are not at risk from Covid-19, nor do they spread it.’’

McKenzie also said that those involved in the storming of the Capitol building in Washington ‘‘took some selfies, and did little or no damage’’. She compared the media coverage of that event to the February occupation of Parliament grounds in Wellington in opposition to mandates.

‘‘There is no evidence that the protest is intended to be anything but peaceful, with speeches, music and hanging out,’’ she said.

After a violent end to the occupation, more than 250 people were arrested and faced charges including assault with a weapon and rioting.

Experts said that McKenzie’s contentions were dangerous.

‘‘This is unconscionable misinformation which would actually hurt people if they followed any of her advice or understanding,’’ said Professor Graham Le Gros, director of the Malaghan Institute and Vaccine Alliance Aotearoa.

University of Auckland vaccinologist and associate professor Helen Petousis-Harris said, with 1794 New Zealand deaths related to Covid, and perhaps three ‘‘plausibly related’’ to the vaccination, the numbers hugely favoured the vaccine.

Front Page

en-nz

2022-08-18T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-08-18T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/281715503404682

Stuff Limited