[ad_1]
He added that while the government will encourage New Zealanders to get vaccinated once one is available, it will not make it mandatory.
The New Zealand Public Party was criticized in August for sharing a video that falsely claimed that COVID-19 vaccines were mandatory under a new law that the government had passed.
Key parts of the MPs’ speeches were cut out to understand the meaning of what they were saying in the video, which was uploaded to the party’s Facebook page.
The video plays sinister music as the subtitles flash across the screen with the wrong statement, which reads: “Labor passed a law change … They gave themselves the power … to force citizens to get vaccinated.”
Andrew Geddis, a law professor at the University of Otago, told AFP Fact Check in August that the government cannot, even under the COVID-19 Public Health Act, force anyone to get vaccinated, as it would go against the New Zealand Bill of Rights.
“The Minister of Health can only make orders under the law if he is satisfied that the order does not limit or is a justified limit to the rights and freedoms of the New Zealand Rights and Freedoms Act 1990, which then establishes in S11 that ‘everyone has the right to refuse to undergo any medical treatment’ “.
Hipkins has previously urged New Zealanders to beware of potential COVID-19 misinformation being shared online and wants people to take it with a grain of salt and treat it as a rumor if it doesn’t come from an official source.
“That is to say [treating it as] unverified and therefore something that cannot be trusted to be true or accurate, “he said in August.
His comments came after a rumor circulated on social media that wrongly claimed that the Auckland virus resurgence was due to a young woman infiltrating a quarantine facility.
He said that anyone promoting false rumors should “stop doing that.”
“At a time when we are fighting a pandemic, we need all hands at work to defeat it. This type of behavior is deliberately designed to create panic, fear and confusion, and it is completely unacceptable.”
He added that Kiwis should get their information from official sources, such as daily briefings at 1:00 pm or official social media pages.
