CheckMate is a weekly newsletter from RMIT FactLab recapping the latest in the world of fact checking and misinformation. It draws on the work of FactLab's researchers and journalists, including its CrossCheck unit, and of its sister organisation, RMIT ABC Fact Check.
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CheckMate April 14, 2023
Good morning,
This week, we tackle a claim made by conservative lobby group the Institute of Public Affairs that the New Zealand Parliament has become subservient to a "Māori Voice to Parliament".
We also debunk claims that Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews hired mercenaries to "bash" protesters during COVID-19 lockdowns, and check in on what former US president Donald Trump has had to say about his recent indictment.
Does New Zealand's parliament really play second fiddle to a 'Māori Voice'?
As debate over the Voice to Parliament referendum heats up, a conservative lobby group has warned that the creation of such a body would threaten the parliament's authority, arguing that New Zealand had created a "Voice to Parliament" whose power had grown to eclipse that of the national legislature.
In an interview with ABC Radio Perth, Daniel Wild, the deputy executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), claimed:
"The Waitangi Tribunal started off as a purely advisory body, exactly the same as our Voice to Parliament is supposed to do.
"But as a result of a series of interpretations by [New Zealand's] High Court, [it] has become embedded into every single major policy decision in New Zealand and now actually has veto power over a number of major pieces of legislation which, in essence, has actually made the New Zealand Parliament subservient to the Māori Voice to Parliament."
But that's not how experts see it, with Richard Boast, a law professor with Wellington's Victoria University labelling the statement as "absurd and completely unfounded".
Claire Charters, a law professor with Auckland University and co-director of the Aotearoa New Zealand Centre for Indigenous Peoples and the Law, similarly told CheckMate it was "incorrect" and "doesn't make sense".
So, what is the Waitangi Tribunal?
Despite the IPA's claims, the tribunal is not a "Māori Voice to Parliament" — a label that appears to have been coined by the institute itself.
Rather, according to the tribunal's website, it is a standing commission that "makes recommendations on claims brought by Māori relating to legislation, policies, actions or omissions of the Crown that are alleged to breach the promises made in the Treaty of Waitangi".
That treaty (Te Tiriti) is the founding agreement between the British and Māori on which New Zealand has been built — something notably absent from the Australian context.
The agreement is nonetheless a contested one due to inconsistencies between the Māori and English versions of the text, and has at times been breached since it was signed in 1840.
Thus, the tribunal — chaired by a judge and supported by up to 20 government-appointed experts — was established in 1975 to investigate and suggest settlements for Māori claims and "to ensure that future legislation was consistent with the treaty".
Crucially, and despite Mr Wild's claim, the experts said that New Zealand's parliament was advised by, but not subservient to, the tribunal.
As Dominic O'Sullivan, a professor of political science at Charles Sturt University, told CheckMate: "It makes recommendations but they're not binding."
He explained that the tribunal operates much like a court, determining whether there has been a breach of the treaty and, if so, suggesting what form of restitution might be appropriate.
"The recommendations obviously do have significant political implications, but it's for the government to deal with the politics."
This point was echoed by Professor Boast, who said the tribunal "can only issue non-binding reports", and that while it might occasionally critique government policy or legislation, it was "up to parliament and the government of the day whether they wish to accept the tribunal's views or not".
"To say that the New Zealand legislature is subservient to the Waitangi Tribunal is nonsensical," he added. "It has no veto power over legislation."
Professor Boast noted that some legislation did require decision makers to take the Treaty of Waitangi into account, "but that is still within the framework of parliamentary sovereignty".
He also dismissed the notion that the tribunal's role had been expanded by the courts, pointing out that while judges had "from time to time considered the status of the treaty itself in New Zealand public law", the courts had no say over the tribunal's powers, which were "circumscribed by statute".
In any event, Professor O'Sullivan told CheckMate that the Waitangi Tribunal was "not in any way similar to a Voice to Parliament", because any recommendations it made to parliament were "only in response to alleged breaches of the treaty".
"It's also different … in that, while many of its members are Māori and it is often chaired by a Māori judge, many of its members [currently half] are not Māori and sometimes it is not chaired by a Māori judge."
Professor Charters, too, rejected suggestions that the tribunal was a "Voice to Parliament", citing its limited role in dealing with treaty-related claims (including those regarding "policy that might lead to legislation").
Additionally, CheckMate could find no evidence that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had ever pointed to the Waitangi Tribunal as a model for the Voice to Parliament, although, as referenced by the IPA on its website, he tweeted in February 2020 that Australia could "learn a lot from our mates across the ditch about reconciliation with First Nations people".
"New Zealand has led the way," the then opposition leader said. "It's time for Australia to follow. It's time to support the Uluru Statement from the Heart."
Predator badge no evidence Dan Andrews hired mercenaries to 'bash' Victorians
Social media users have claimed that Victoria Police used mercenaries to beat up protesters during COVID-19 lockdowns, citing as evidence a photo that appears to show an officer wearing a badge emblazoned with a logo of the Predator — a guerilla-slaying alien from the eponymous 1980s cult action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The image, featuring little more than a close-up of a uniformed torso, has been circulating since at least September 2021 — when police clashed with anti-lockdown protesters in Melbourne.
It recently reappeared in a popular Twitter post that drew connections between Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and the World Economic Forum (WEF), a regular target of conspiracy theories during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Look at this logo. This is Predator Security, the thugs Dan Andrews hired to bash Victorians. Owned by Tactical Solutions Group, who is Owned by WEF [big] hitters Dun @nd Br@dstreet," read the post.
"Your government is hiring directly from the WEF, to bash you and your countrymen and women."
But the claims are baseless.
In a statement provided to CheckMate, a spokeswoman for Victoria Police said it did "not allow external organisations to place logos or emblems on our uniforms" and had "never hired external staff and allowed them to wear the Victoria Police uniform".
The spokeswoman dismissed claims to the contrary as "completely false", adding that the social media image "does not show a Victoria Police uniform".
Indeed, CheckMate reviewed photos and footage captured during the 2021 anti-lockdown protests (for example, here) but was unable to identify any police uniforms matching the style of that shown in the social media image.
As for the companies named in the tweet, Tactical Solutions Group (TSG) is a US-based business formerly known as Predator Security and Defence, which offers high-intensity counter-terrorism and security training to civilians, law enforcement and the military, including for "combat and peacekeeping situations".
Its website and social media channels feature visual references to the film's Predator alien, including in the company's logo, but none that matches the uniform badge supposedly used by Victoria law enforcement.
These generic badges can, however, be purchased from sellers all over the world (for example, in China and Brazil) via the online marketplace eBay.
According to an email shared via the messaging app Telegram in 2021, TSG's chief operating officer has apparently denied any involvement with Victoria Police.
"We have not nor will we ever train or contract with a government force to harm its citizens," the TSG spokesman purportedly wrote, while asserting that the group stood for "liberty, freedom and God" and were "furious about the situation in Australia".
CheckMate contacted TSG to verify these statements but did not receive a response ahead of publication.
Meanwhile, the latest Twitter thread includes a tweet pointing to a Facebook account called "Predator Security Company", which claims to be a South African security firm.
This page was targeted by anti-lockdown groups soon after the alleged police photo first appeared in 2021, forcing the account owner to respond: "[G]uys I don't know anything about your Australian government fake police's or fake army's so please stop talking rubbish about my company or I will sue your government so tell your government to stay away from me."
CheckMate could find no evidence that Dun and Bradstreet, an American corporation specialising in business analytics, owns a company called either Tactical Solutions Group or Predator Security.
AEC launches disinformation register ahead of Voice referendum
In an effort to "debunk mistruths" being spread in the lead-up to the Voice referendum, the Australian Electoral Commission this week launched its Referendum Disinformation Register.
Importantly, the commission explains, the register is focused on checking claims about the referendum process itself, not about the Yes or No case, and lists prominent pieces of disinformation while outlining what actions the commission has taken to deal with them.
RMIT FactLab is working collaboratively with the AEC during the referendum campaign to identify and debunk problematic claims, the results of which can also be found via the RMIT website.
US fact checkers take on Trump's post-arraignment 'falsehoods'
Former US president Donald Trump was last week officially charged over allegations that he falsified business records in order to keep damaging information from coming out during the 2016 election campaign.
In scenes reminiscent of his time in office, Mr Trump took to the podium in Florida — just hours after pleading not guilty to 34 felony counts — to champion his innocence and repeat a slew of claims about the allegations as well as the results of the 2020 election.
But US fact checkers found that his speech and a number of posts made to his social media platform Truth Social were riddled with misinformation or, as PolitiFact put it, "recycled debunked claims about dead voters, shredded ballots and corrupted machines".
For instance, PolitiFact noted that it was incorrect for Mr Trump to suggest that no one had raised issues with his January 2021 phone call to election officials in Georgia "until a book promotion tour many months later".
"This fake case was brought only to interfere with the upcoming 2024 election and it should be dropped immediately. Immediately," the former leader said of investigations into the phone call.
Awarding his claim their harshest rating — "Pants on Fire" — the fact checkers pointed out that backlash to the phone call had been swift, with an official investigation launched by a county district attorney within weeks.
The Washington Post's Fact Checker, meanwhile, provided some much needed context to Mr Trump's claim that President Joe Biden was refusing to hand over 1,850 boxes of documents to authorities.
"Biden is guilty of Obstruction, I am not!," Mr Trump posted online.
But those boxes, which contain documents from Mr Biden's decades as a senator and which were provided by him to the University of Delaware in 2012, have been searched by the FBI, which did not immediately discover any classified information.
Mr Trump also took aim at his predecessor's handling of sensitive information.
As the New York Times stated, however, Mr Trump has "repeatedly and wrongly compared his handling of classified documents to that of [former president Barack Obama]".
"After his presidency, Mr. Trump took a trove of classified documents — including 18 marked as top secret — to Mar-a-Lago," the Times reported.
"In contrast, the National Archives and Records Administration, which preserves and maintains records after a president leaves office, has said in a statement that [Mr] Obama turned over his documents, classified and unclassified, as required by law."
Edited by Ellen McCutchan and David Campbell
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