EZRA LEVANT ｜ Rebel News invades New Zealand
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Summary
Rebel News invades New Zealand, a small country at the edge of the world, and we're here to tell the story of what it means to be a laboratory of bad ideas in a world of censorship and globalism.
Transcript
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tonight rebel news invades new zealand it's august 25th and this is the ezra levant show
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hello from beautiful new zealand i've never been here before it's a very long journey i've been
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traveling a little bit we went to maui for the wildfire story and i think we made a difference
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we reported the news at a website called the truth about maui.com a ton of views i think we
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did some real journalism and i'm also very proud of the fact that our rebel viewers crowdfunded
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25 000 actually even more than that for one of the non-fema citizen-led relief camps there i think
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that was a really good trip to do and i i think it's something citizen journalists are good at
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now new zealand is a small country quite far away from anywhere else it's it's even far away from
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australia i grew up thinking they were right next to each other no it's it's a four-hour flight from
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melbourne to new zealand that that's quite a distance it's about five million people and
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they're great but they're at the edge of the world so we don't think about them that much
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over recent years jacinda ardern the prime minister who resigned not that long ago made headlines though
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for being one of the most strident leftist extremist globalists and it won't surprise you to know that
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she's cut from the same cloth as justin trudeau being a young leader at the world economic forum
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she was also the head of the socialist international youth which tells you a little something about her
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she took an extremely heavy hand during the lockdowns of the pandemic you really using it as an
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excuse to throttle freedoms in this country and the most terrifying part was her insistence on
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censorship and we'll talk a little bit more about that soon well one of the things that i i think was
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a proof of the authoritarianism in this country that took root under jacinda ardern was when our australian
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chief correspondent avi amini wanted to come here just to talk not to make a fuss well to make a rhetorical
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fuss maybe but certainly nothing dangerous and ardern's government illegally banned him from coming
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in like he was some sort of terrorist you know i didn't believe they were going to succeed in having
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me banned in a free western democracy but hey i gave too much credit to jacinda ardern's new zealand
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jacinda ardern her government her ministry have banned a journalist a journalist by the way that has
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traveled the world on the same australian passport but for some reason are not good enough to enter
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new zealand i understand that it is solely for immigration and it's not something i had any
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awareness of until i saw some commentary online in new zealand the country that follows the same
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liberal freedom of speech and has the same heritage that we have in canada or they have in australia
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it's the uk heritage of freedom and the right to dissent and the right to criticize government
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because we were able to crowdfund uh lawyers we challenged that and avi was allowed in and so we're
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in new zealand for the book launch of avi's new autobiography it's a symbolic taking of the turf
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now there's a lot of interesting folks in new zealand and just like avi has told the story of australia
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for australians but it was also of interest to people around the world i think the same
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is true in some ways for new zealand too what i mean by that is of course new zealanders need
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the other side of the story they need a more robust debate they need more points of view allowed in new
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zealand jacinda ardern's authoritarianism certainly proved that but i think some of the things they're
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doing in new zealand absolute cracking down on private firearms ownership extreme cracking down
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on censorship official government misinformation and disinformation campaigns to see what's
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happening in new zealand as a kind of laboratory for what the globalists want to export around the
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world for example there's something called the christ church call named after christ church new
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zealand that's a fancy way of saying a global censorship regime that isn't a theory that is a plan
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and it came from new zealand and if we're not careful it'll take root around the world justin
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trudeau has mentioned it several times and his intent on enforcing it and he is by the way through
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various internet regulation bills c11 c18 uh uh the withdrawn bill c36 that he says he'll reintroduce and
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the yet introduced uh online harms act so what i'm saying is new zealand may seem very far away
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and it may have a very small population you know literally 0.1 percent not even 0.1 percent of the
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world's population is in new zealand but it doesn't take a big place to be a laboratory of bad ideas
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in a moment we're going to talk to our friend abhi amini who has done important journalism in australia
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and is here in new zealand to rev things up and over the course of the next couple of days we're in
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auckland today we're going to wellington which is the other large city in new zealand we're going to do
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that in support of abhi's book and then we're going to go back to australia and do a book event in
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melbourne and then i'm coming home i've been away for too long but we want to catch up on what's going
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on in this part of the world we also want to say hello to and meet with budding citizen journalists
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here behind enemy lines look it's not that bad but abhi makes the point that it's heading that way
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when he arrived in the country he wore a shirt that said kia ora which is a friendly maori way of
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saying how do you good on you good day mate kia ora north korea take a look at this fun video
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that abhi made when he stepped out of the terminal in new zealand proving that they couldn't keep a
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kia ora north korea i am finally here in auckland even though the communist party tried their very best
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to stop me with the cover of their state board and paid for mainstream media thank you to the new
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zealand herald promoting my book for the rest of you that are saying still left in this country
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make sure to come on friday night in auckland or saturday in wellington rebelfromthestart.com there
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are still some tickets left i believe rebelfromthestart.com i'd love to see you all there
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the smell of victory so we're gonna meet other citizen journalists in new zealand maybe we'll make
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friends with them and maybe we'll even get some new zealanders to give us updates from time to time
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i think that abhi has shown that the rebel news crowdfunding citizen journalism model can work in
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other places beside canada and wouldn't it be fun if we had a voice and a footprint here in new zealand
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too stay with us coming up next the man of the hour abhi amini
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well the reason we are in new zealand today is the same reason why rebel news is in australia
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it really shows the difference one person can make and i'm talking about one of my favorite reporters
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i've ever met abhi amini who's our chief australian correspondent i call him a one-man army because
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he really is abhi it's great to see you good to see you mate um i appreciate it very kind
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well it's true and i think it's a combination of charisma and confidence a self-deprecating sense
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of humor you're quick on your feet and you love the action you got a nose for news and and you've
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really built rebel news up in australia and now we're invading north korea or new zealand it's sort
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of fun it is i listen i'm loving it and i think the the you know the people the way they're taking
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in new zealand they need this they need this in new zealand more than anywhere on the planet more
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than australia i think because you see how far new zealand went even in covid and some of the
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legislation and the laws that are here are so far ahead than all of us even in australia and canada
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you know i remember when jacinda ardern who just finished her term as the prime minister
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early in covid she actually said at a real press conference this is not an accident she didn't
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retracted later she said trust us for all the news will we're your sole source of truth here
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let watch her say it in her own words this is real people new zealanders must prepare but do not panic
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prepare and and when you see those messages remember that unless you hear it from us um it is not the
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truth and i really ask people just visit um covid19.govt.nz it has all of the up-to-date
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information and we will continue to provide everything you need to know the fact that the
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rest of the media the rest of the establishment the rest of the society said okay is terrifying and
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you know she's no longer pm but she's gone on to i think she's at harvard now heading up a global
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censorship project it's exactly she is she like i said they try and test everything in new zealand
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so of course they want the person who successfully did it here remember she's the one it's her office
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that banned me for coming for the propensity to incite people with opposing views and i feel like
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i'm actually kicking myself that the book the front cover i should have it in quotations as you know
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this is what they say about me because gosh i wear that as with pride i have a propensity of
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inciting people with opposing views but they say that they said that the government here the
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jacindar durn government at the time said that as if that's a bad thing you know i mean new zealand
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is part of the commonwealth and it has the traditions of free speech and debate and civil society i mean
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it's a wonderful i've never been here before it's it's lovely people lovely place and i don't know why
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maybe because it's small so it's not as noticed but it really became i mean obviously it's nowhere
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near the actual north korea but boy are the trends going in the wrong direction and they stopped you
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because they wanted the unanimity of thought they were afraid that if you came there you would light
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a bunch of candles your candle would light a bunch of candles and there are some other citizen
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journalists in this country but they don't have as much oomph as you have or as we have in canada
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and you know maybe new zealand doesn't matter five million people it's off the beaten path
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but it matters for the people who live here and like you say it's a laboratory for bad ideas that
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are spread around the world i care about new zealand i i hope we can do something about it i'd argue that
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it matters for all of us because everything that happens here comes to firstly australia or next door
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and it affects it's a domino effect it affects all of us and i think that they need it they need it for
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them as much as we need it for us for new zealand to be to really bring the battleground here now the
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reason we're here in particular is your new book and what a great way to start your book tour then in
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the country that banned you it's sort of like uh planting the flag and retaking the turf and and
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you've got a lot of people coming out to see you tell us about the event uh tell us a little bit
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about your book first of all but also tell us about the event you've chosen a church with a large
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maori congregation as the venue for the auckland event give me a minute on the book and then a minute
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on why you chose the maori church well as you know people have said a lot of things about me over the
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years that i've worked with you you've known the truth but i've never been a lot of it i wasn't even
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able to to talk about publicly myself so this was my first opportunity to tell those whether you're a
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hater whether you're a lover with whatever you are if you care enough to listen to what they say
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about me here's the opportunity for you to hear about me from me my story and i love the title rebel
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from the start it's true you really were it definitely is and the reason why we chose that
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that that um venue because i know you said that new zealand is nothing like the real north korea which
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is true but you know what i have more respect for the north korean government than i do for the
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for the government here why because north korea at least they're honest about what they're doing
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here they pretend to be for freedom and democracy yet they're banning people for the propensity
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to incite people with opposing views um and i chose that particular church because we know
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the minute that it's announced and we heard we hold hold those um cards close to our chest
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not on this particular church we weren't worried that they were going to pull out because they're not
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scared that's cancel proof they're cancel proof they they've they're rebels they're rebels they've
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through the lockdowns these were some of the people that were at the forefront of that fight and
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they've copped every smear in the book so there was no way to to to scare them into cancelling it for
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that and they're also big tough men so there's no way to scare them out of protest or intimidate
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them so i chose that location here in in in auckland and i'm really glad we did because i think
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you know what um rebels stick by rebels because that's the only way you win these fights as you
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know together against uh the big global that's that's what it is remember justin i don't like
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just like justin trudeau is part of the young global leadership that they're all wef puppets
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well and and they don't like you because they saw the journalists you've gone to wef twice now
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world economic forum last time we were there together that was a wonderful uh journalistic mission
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um let me ask you one last question it's a little speculative and and maybe you don't want to
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uh predict the future but you know there's a lot of new zealanders who are really rooting for you
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because this country needs to hear the other side of the story this country needs a debate especially
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after the suffocation of jacinda ardern but there are those in the establishment media there are those
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in establishment politics and there are even i don't know about antifa but activists for sure who would
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try and stop you and if they couldn't stop you from coming into the country and if they couldn't
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stop you from getting into this church with a large maori congregation are you worried that there's going
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to be i mean i don't even want to say it because i don't want to manifest it but are you worried about
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some physical protests or god forbid even worse when you're here look you just look at what happened
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to posy parker who's a a little blonde woman who was standing for women's right and yeah she was a
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challenger to transgenderism right exactly and she came in she was holding an event where you let
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women speak about what their concerns are about issues today and she was violently chased out of
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the country violently chased out of the country and if they would do that to a young woman they would
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have no compunction doing that to you yes and so i i it is a concern we have to be vigilant and you
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have you got a bodyguard with you which is good we've brought a bodyguard with us the whole time
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because we we're not going to take any chance we're not going to let them intimidate us chase
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us out of the country because our mission here is to stay we're not going to we're not going to
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cower we're not going to run we're going to we're going to stay and fight for new zealanders as we are
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for the rest of the world well avi i meant what i said earlier you have probably made more difference
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pound for pound than anyone else in our company because you really were a lonely voice in the beginning
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in australia you met some other friends along the way roxon farnando we're making friends here
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in new zealand cam slater um uh chantel baker so there are little green shoots so you know the
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lone blade of grass maybe it'll become a lot of blades of grass it shows that if you have the
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courage and if you know what you believe in and you're willing just to try and if you fail get back
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up and try again i think you've made a lot of difference and not just for australians everywhere i go
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people say how's that avi doing what's up with avi oh i like that avi guy i think it's your character
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and my favorite thing about you frankly and i need more of it myself is a self-deprecating sense of
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humor because when you make fun of yourself everyone laughs with you and i i think uh we're very lucky to
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have you on the team avi i appreciate it ezra and look i gotta just say this jacinda ardern may have
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banned me a year ago but guess who's here and who's not well amen to that we'll we'll leave it
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there talking with avi amini on the glorious beaches of auckland new zealand
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well that's our show for today i'm over my jet lag i've caught up with the team
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we're going to have a great event here i'm really uh interested in new zealand and the similarities
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and the differences but let me tell you one of the differences i don't know if you can see behind me
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that uh that island it looks slightly cone shaped because it is that is a volcano new zealand
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there's a there's dozens of volcanoes around here that volcano is extremely recent just 600 years ago
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that volcano emerged from the water and 600 years ago that sounds like a very long time ago
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well in the course of geological history that's a blink of an eye so there are live volcanoes around
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this area i think it's fascinating 600 years obviously trees have grown on top of it and you can actually
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get out there but that's one of the fascinating things about auckland and new zealand that i've
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discovered i'm gonna come back with to you with more news on monday news on how our events went
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did the ruffians in the new zealand version of antifa show up to try and stop us was there some
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sort of god forbid was there a conflict i don't know because they don't like alternative points of
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view here well when i say they i mean the establishment ordinary people love it so i'm going to come back to
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you with more news next week then i'm back to canada and home until then on behalf of all of us at rebel
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news whether it's in auckland new zealand vancouver canada toronto or anywhere around the world to you at