My Submission to the COVID-19 Royal Commission of Inquiry From: Alia Bland INTRODUCTORY NOTE This submission is my personal account. Voices for Freedom (VFF), the organisation I co-founded alongside Claire Deeks and Libby Jonson, will also be submitting a separate entry on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders we have supported, advocated for, and listened to over the past several years. While that submission will reflect the collective experiences of everyday Kiwis during New Zealand’s COVID-19 response, this submission focuses on my personal experience and the toll it has taken on me and my family. INTRODUCTION: A VOICE FOR FREEDOM During the COVID-19 response, I co-founded Voices for Freedom (VFF), an organisation advocating for New Zealanders’ fundamental rights, freedoms, and informed consent. We sought to educate, empower, and support everyday Kiwis to connect with one another and stand up peacefully for their rights and freedoms. Our work, however, came at a heavy personal cost. At the time, I was a wife, a mother to three sons aged 10 to 15, running two businesses, and working part-time in the education system. The intense demands of standing for freedom and supporting our fellow New Zealanders would soon consume every part of my life. SURVEILLANCE AND STATE TARGETING For daring to speak out, we were surveilled by the NZSIS, government agencies, mainstream media, academic institutions like Auckland University, and organisations such as The Disinformation Project. Official Information Act requests confirmed that a government dossier exists on us, alongside hundreds of pages of partially redacted internal emails discussing how to counter the problem we posed to the official COVID-19 narrative. I later received confirmation at the end of 2024 that the new coalition government continued monitoring us, despite the end of COVID restrictions. We knew our phones were tapped. We could hear the interference. We joked about it, but the threat was real. We routinely checked our brakes before driving. Public security and health "experts" spread lies about us in the media, painting three mothers who simply cared about rights and medical choice as domestic terrorists. The experience destroyed any illusion that New Zealand was a country tolerant of respectful dissent. MEDIA SMEAR CAMPAIGNS AND PUBLIC PERSECUTION The corporate media, funded heavily through the Public Interest Journalism Fund and massive government COVID advertising spend, launched an aggressive, coordinated smear campaign against us. Articles defaming us appeared almost daily. The documentary Fire and Fury was produced specifically to destroy our reputations and limit our impact. Its makers later admitted we were its central targets, framing our peaceful influence as a threat to democracy. In the documentary, Kate Hannah and the producers explicitly discussed Claire, Libby, and me, accusing us of embodying "features of fascistic ideas around power and control," while talking about the role of women and wellness in fascist and proto-fascist movements. As they made these outrageous comparisons, the documentary cut to footage of Nazi women marching in 1930s Germany. This was particularly despicable, given that Libby is of Jewish heritage. Regardless of whether the producers knew, the result was the same: a deliberate weaponisation of the darkest chapter of modern history against three mothers peacefully advocating for basic rights and freedoms. The smear was not only offensive, it was a disgraceful and indefensible act of historical manipulation, designed to demonise, dehumanise, and vilify us in the public eye. Key points regarding Fire and Fury: 👉 Deliberate distortion of our webinar footage, misrepresenting personal resilience advice as calls for insurrection. 👉 Complete denial of our right of reply, despite being central subjects. 👉 Repeated breaches of journalistic standards, casually dismissed. 👉 Catalysing hundreds of slanderous spin-off articles, deepening the false narrative. Following this media onslaught, the NZSIS released their "Know the Signs" campaign. This propaganda framed the questioning of government policies and the development of an "us versus them" worldview as signs of radicalisation. Meanwhile, the documentary Web of Chaos, involving Kate Hannah from The Disinformation Project, portrayed activities like gardening, knitting, crochet, yoga, and raising healthy children as signs of possible radicalisation. If the intent had not been so serious, it would have been laughable. Even the Human Rights Commissioner, Paul Hunt, parroted these absurdities, citing Web of Chaos as proof of a "tsunami of toxic misinformation," failing to see the true tsunami — that of state propaganda and fear-mongering flooding New Zealand. The impact was chilling. A clear message was sent: peaceful dissent would be crushed by any means necessary. A respected member of our village community visited us personally, warning of credible threats surfacing on social media. He made it clear that should we ever need urgent help, we only had to call and he would be there to help protect us. We were also offered assistance by highly respected senior-ranking defence force personnel, who recognised the seriousness of the threats we faced and believed defending us was part of defending the true New Zealand. CENSORSHIP AND COMMERCIAL SUPPRESSION Censorship was brutal and ongoing. Our Voices for Freedom Facebook page, which shared mainstream news articles, scientific studies, and official government statements and statistics, was removed in July 2021 without warning, despite having around 12,000 followers. My personal account faced constant bans, particularly when posting about vaccines, masks, police actions, or highlighting the ridiculous, contradictory, and anti-science government policy of the time. A senior NZ Herald reporter openly bragged about lobbying Facebook to have our page removed, a direct attack on the principles of free expression. Suppliers refused to print our flyers and merchandise, not merely out of fear of association but because the government’s massive COVID advertising spend kept many businesses afloat during lockdowns, ensuring compliance. Advertising agencies — billboard companies, newspapers, and street poster firms — blacklisted our work. We were forced to find creative ways to get our message out, using post-it note campaigns to spread awareness. People were trespassed from supermarkets simply for leaving post-it notes. Pieces of paper. Our website faced relentless cyberattacks and was even temporarily deplatformed by the domain registrar. The Canadian freezing of convoy supporters' bank accounts made it clear that similar extreme measures could happen here, and we acted accordingly to safeguard ourselves. PERSONAL CONSEQUENCES: ISOLATION, FEAR, AND LOSS The cost was immense. In our small community, people crossed the stream at the beach to avoid me and my children. Eventually, we stopped going altogether. Our address was posted online. Hate mail and violent threats arrived. We received hand-delivered packages, a deeply unsettling prospect given the lies and hate deliberately stirred up against us. Police said it was a grey area - nothing they could do. We adopted two large security dogs. One of them, particularly aggressive by nature, would bite if necessary. We did not discourage this. Police protection was not something we could rely on. Behind closed doors, the personal toll was extreme. I worked 16-hour days, barely stopping, not to prepare food, not for the bathroom, not even to call family or friends. My children cooked, cleaned, and sacrificed normal teenage experiences because I was simply not available. I could not help with schooling, homework, driving lessons, or anything really. My husband lost his wife to the cause of defending New Zealanders' rights and freedoms. These are years we will never get back. Public appearances were carefully limited. We challenged lockdowns and traffic light restrictions, organising and participating in protests at a time when protesting was barely allowed. Arrest would not have been devastating because of prison itself, but because we had responsibilities, families, and work that could not afford even a temporary interruption. COURAGE AND CONVICTION Ironically, this experience unlocked something within me. A lifelong fear of public speaking almost completely dissolved. I found a voice I never knew I had, a voice for freedom. Yet it remains heartbreaking that our efforts were even necessary. Never did I imagine this would be my life. Had you told me in 2019 that I would be standing against government tyranny five years later, I would have laughed you out of the room. But it seems every experience in my life led to this point — standing for truth, alongside others, fighting for freedom in New Zealand. At Parliament during the 2022 protest, we worked tirelessly to establish mediation between protesters and the government, but we were arrogantly ignored. We flew vaccine-injured, bereaved families, censured scientists, and dismissed professionals to Wellington to present their stories to the Human Rights Commission (HRC) team. Everyone in the room cried, police, professionals, families, and freedom advocates alike. Still the HRC sat on their hands. I also attended meetings with port workers, healthcare staff, and midwives, hearing first-hand the coercion and betrayal they endured. I infiltrated closed meetings where government-aligned officials, including the heads of hospitals pressured employees and Olympic athletes alike, treating informed adults like ignorant toddlers. Through it all, I remained deeply committed to the principles of informed consent, the right to choose, free speech, open dialogue, questioning authority, and defending the rights and freedoms of the next generation. The personal stories I have read and heard — of hurt, harm, loss, devastation, hatred, sadness, anxiety, forgiveness, trauma, gratitude, love, and hope — have touched me deeply. Few people in this country have read as many accounts from real people, desperate and hurting, as we have. Our mailing list of over 100,000 people has given us a window into the real cost of the government’s actions. These stories generate a rage that transforms into fuel. The fight for justice is why I remain committed to this day. We are awake now. We see that many "authorities" are captured. Change begins with us. We will never go back to sleep. CONCLUSION: MY CALL TO THE INQUIRY The treatment of peaceful citizens like me must never happen again. This Inquiry must fully investigate: 👉 The state surveillance of political dissenters. 👉 The weaponisation of media against lawful free speech. 👉 The abandonment of fundamental rights under the guise of "public health." 👉 The vast personal, social, and democratic damage inflicted on New Zealanders who dared to question. We need truth to be told, heard, and published without censorship. We need people’s stories to matter, influencing future policies so that the tragic decisions of the COVID-19 years are never repeated. We need formal apologies to the people of New Zealand for the trampling of their rights, freedoms, and lives. We need accountability, real consequences, and where appropriate, compensation for the harm caused. New Zealand deserves nothing less. And we, the people, are watching. We will not forget.