TLDR & TLDL: The hundreds of protestors now camped in and around Parliament’s grounds and the surrounding streets, parks and front yards are being funded through a Canadian ‘Freedom Convoy’ website that profits from selling merchandise, Stuff reported this morning.
In my view, this exposes again the fundamental business and technology drivers behind these protests, which have metastasized globally in near-identical fashion, despite the vastly-different Covid outcomes in these countries. It’s all a cynical grift, powered by fake-it-til-you-make-it hucksterism and algorithmic tailwinds blowing misinformation into four million newsfeeds, hour after hour, day after day. Here’s an example:
This morning the occupation of much of downtown Wellington took an even darker turn, with three police officers sent to hospital after being sprayed with a liquid believed to be acid and one protestor arrested after driving a car at speed at police.
Elsewhere in the news I’m watching this morning:
ANZ and Kiwibank have restarted low deposit home lending, having put them on hold in November and December to ensure they met the Reserve Bank’s tighter LVR restrictions and deal with the December 1 start of the CCCFA (Stuff) (see below the paywall for more on this);
Auckland Mayoral candidate Efeso Collins wants to make public transport free (Stuff); and,
a giant data leak from Credit Suisse has exposed how it set up accounts for 30,000 foreign clients to stash US$80b in cash linked to money laundering, human trafficking, torture and corruption (The Guardian);
Later today, I’ll be travelling to Auckland for a speaking engagement tomorrow and to record this week’s When The Facts Change podcast for The Spinoff. If you haven’t already, I’d recommend subscribing. Here’s last week’s on what the extension of Tiwai Pt would mean for our climate hopes, including an interview with James Shaw.
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