Last week I was in Cromwell for a meet the Waitaki candidates public meeting and I took away quite a few lessons which shocked me. 

As a media observer, I sat as a fly on the wall. 

Quite a few folks were from Alexandra and Clyde, which confused me because this was a Waitaki electorate meeting and those two towns now sit in the Southland electorate - the people they were questioning and listening to will not be their MP. 

I was also incredibly surprised the biggest issue of the night was over the UN’s Agenda 21/2030, which drew the ire of some in the crowd. 

Appvertisement

An elderly lady asked the candidates what their thoughts on the UN’s Agenda 21/2030 were, and quoted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as saying New Zealand was on track to satisfy the agenda’s criteria. 

One gentleman rose to his feet and demanded of 21-year-old Labour candidate Liam Wairepo, who admitted he wasn’t well versed on the agenda, to “go and ask your Prime Minister!” 

A lady shouted something about Bill Gates and poisonous vaccines, while another shouted something about losing sovereignty. The term “socialist” was bandied about like a 1960s American anti-communist rally. 

Advance NZ candidate Heather Meri Pennycook said something about the agenda will mean people will be forced off the land and herded into urban mega-cities. 

ACT Party candidate Sean Beamish said something similar. 

Advance NZ candidate Heather Meri Pennycook (standing left) believes the UN’s Agenda 21/2030 is a global plan to forcibly remove people from their land and resettle them into mega-cities. Photo Connect Cromwell. 

It was all very interesting, considering all 193 nations at the United Nations have signed Agenda 2030, which is a promise by signatory nations to work towards goals such as ending poverty and hunger, sustainable development, and quality education. 

The anti-Agenda 2030 conspiracy theory is actually a rebooted version of anti-Agenda 2021. This is a perfect example of the misdirection and misinformation which has spread online.  

Agenda 2021 was the precursor to Agenda 2030 but written almost 30 years ago. Agenda 2030 was a revised, modern version which all UN nations agreed to and has already been working a few years. 

The conspiracy theory centres on the UN's non-binding Agenda 21 sustainable development goals, adopted by more than 178 governments in 1992. The document sets out broad objectives for governments to combat poverty and protect the environment. 

These goals were updated in 2015 with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which sets out 17 broad aims — including to "take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts" — agreed on by all 193 UN member states. 

The UN is now considering revising the goals of Agenda 2030 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and commentators have said the goals will be pushed back at least 20 years. 

The Advance NZ and ACT Party candidates both had quite “passionate” or “aggressive” things to say about Agenda 2030, both of which could be classified as “extreme”. 

Both said the Agenda threatens New Zealand’s “sovereignty and rights as a free nation”. 

Both of which Agenda 2030 does not threaten at all, as it is a non-binding promise, and does not make any changes or impact on New Zealand’s legislature. 

Last week, the local issues of water quality, sustainable agriculture, tourism and development, and things like health barely made a blip on the debate radar compared to Agenda 2030. 

These are things which impact us every single day, right now, and will impact us every single day into the future, but they barely stimulated debate compared to something from the UN (Agenda 2030) which will most likely not impact the kiwi way of life at all - either now or into the future. 

Candidates for the remaining five parties present were dumbfounded and sat bewildered in their chairs on stage as the debate was hijacked. 

The believers of this anti-Agenda 2021/2030 conspiracy theory think the agenda is a global plan to push people off the land and into urban mega-cities, with nations to lose their sovereignty in order to form some kind of global government. 

The New Zealand Herald also reported on this conspiracy theory last year, which also includes climate change as a hoax to depopulate the world. 

It was found the conspiracy theory was pushed on far-right websites such as 4Chan, Breitbart and QAnon, and it is on Facebook that the conspiracy theory appears to have gained the most traction. 

Pages pushing the concept frequently post extreme anti-immigration or anti-vaccine content, or carry links from junk news sites purporting to expose chemtrail activity or secret, government-endorsed weather engineering projects. 

Buzzfeed also reported people on social media are sharing Agenda 21/2030 posts that link the COVID-19 pandemic to claims that a totalitarian world government is seeking to kill most of the planet’s population.

One article, in 2015, from US conspiracy theory site Natural News entitled "The United Nations 2030 Agenda decoded: It's a blueprint for the global enslavement of humanity under the boot of corporate masters", has been shared hundreds of thousands of times on social media. 

The conspiracy theory went hand-in-hand in Australia with a number of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party members posting about Agenda 21. Followers also pushed the belief the devastating Australian bushfires were man-made as part of Agenda 21. 

Website news.com.au reported the three top Agenda 21 tweets by engagement around that time all came from Queensland senator Malcolm Roberts, who famously highlighted many of the key elements of the conspiracy theory in his maiden speech to parliament.

Agenda 21/2030 conspiracy theorists in Australia, as well as some far-right politicians, believed the devastating bushfires which brought the nation to its knees last summer were man-made as part of some global plan to push climate change. Photo Pixabay. 

The second highest number of engagements of the Facebook posts were generated by a post from One Nation candidate Sharon Bell, who unsuccessfully ran for the federal Queensland seat of Blair in the 2019 election.

Firstly, as a journalist, I know it is hard enough for a single government ministry to communicate and work effectively within itself, let alone a whole government, let alone a whole host of governments. 

Any global “plan” these conspiracy theorists believe in would require the buy-in of millions of people worldwide, possibly hundreds of millions of people within councils, state, and national governments of different religions, ethnicities, beliefs, languages, geography, and so on. 

It is so mind-boggling that someone cares more about an agenda at the UN which is non-binding and aims to end poverty, but they don’t care about getting good drinking water to Alexandra, or proper sanitation into Clyde, or pollution in the Manuherekia River. 

Life isn’t a sci-fi movie and I believe history is born from chaos and accident rather than by design - meaning, politicians and those in power make decisions based on solving problems as they arise (chaos) and rarely does anything get planned well in advance (design). 

Agenda 21/2030 is a happening thing and has been happening for decades, and will change very little to kiwi life.

Why was Agenda 2030 a hijack point at the Cromwell candidates’ meet and greet when there are more direct things which affect us here and now, and in our immediate future? 

Have we not got far greater things which impact our daily life we need to worry about? 

Where was it shared from? Have far-right New Zealand political parties taken some inspiration from Australia’s far-right political groups (who in turn have taken it from American far-right groups)? 

If people fear globalisation so much, then why adopt a globalised conspiracy theory and not think for themselves?

Why not care more about what they can influence in their backyard? 

I think this is all part of a greater aim and certain entities working to discredit science and push a far-right, nationalist, anti-globalisation agenda. 

Who is pushing it? I don’t know, but social media is a haven for this kind of misinformation and a breeding ground for extreme ideology because it gets engagement. 

If you could imagine me facepalming myself right now, then you’d be correct.