NZ Teachers Take Their Case to the High Court: NZTSOS

A Bid to Remove the Education Mandate

PRESS RELEASE

NZTSOS Inc.
New Zealand Teachers Speaking Out with Science Incorporated

NZTSOS Inc. (New Zealand Teachers Speaking Out with Science Incorporated) will take their case against the Minister of Covid-19 Response, the Director-General of Health and the Attorney-General to the High Court in Wellington over the next week (Thursday 3rd, Friday 4th and Monday 7th March) in a bid to have the mandating of Education Staff REVOKED.

“The timing is perfect.” says Mike Shaw Deputy Chairperson of NZTSOS. “We urge the Government to put on hold the 1st March Mandating of Vaccine Boosters until after our court case is heard”. He went on to say:

• “First and foremost, we see this order as an issue of human rights which has been reinforced by the High Court with the finding against the Covid-19 vaccine mandate for Police and Defence Force staff”. In his ruling, Justice Cooke upheld that the Vaccination Order breached their rights under Section 11 and Section 15 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/462265/covid-19-high-court-quashes-unlawful-vaccine- mandate-forpolice-and-defence-force-staff.

“If mandatory vaccination breaches the basic human rights of the Police and Defence Force staff then it breaches the human rights of every teacher and education worker who has been negatively impacted by these mandates, because we are human too”.

• “The science doesn’t stack up. The Ministry of Health themselves said ‘Schools are low risk’” and a recent article says that our tamariki are more likely to catch Covid at home than at school. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300523470/covid-spread-among-children-is-more-likely-at- homethan-school

• “We have already won our case in the court of public opinion. I think this weekend’s unprecedented protests across the country and numbers of Kiwis who turned out to those protests, have got to tell you the public in New Zealand are with us. We definitely have New Zealanders on our side. A poll taken earlier this month showed that 30% of Kiwis support the stand against the mandate”. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/127808790/parliament-protest-new-poll- shows-30-per-cent-of-kiwissupport-antimandate-protest

NZTSOS inc. was formed in October 2021 with the purpose of contesting in Court the mandatory vaccination of education personnel. NZTSOS represents pro-choice, vaccinated and unvaccinated NZ education staff; Principals, Team Members, Heads of Faculty, Board Members, Teachers, ECE owners and workers, Counsellors, RTLBs, Educational Psychologists, Wellness Counsellors, Learning Assistants, Administrators, Grounds Staff, Kitchen staff and more.

With the strength of 1200 members who joined in only four months, NZTSOS is asking this Government ‘Can the already strained NZ education sector afford to lose this experience and expertise?’.

NZTSOS is also asking ‘Why aren’t the Rapid Antigen testing kits available to schools as they are to other employers?’

NZTSOS Chairperson David Vesseur said, “The Government has caused many of us to choose between the job we love and the jab we don’t want. This means many schools, early childhood centres, small businesses and the education system have lost a wealth of Kiwi teaching experience and years of accumulated educational knowledge.

The question remains:

Why would a Government that cares about building a strong and globally competitive education system destabilise that system by removing invaluable teachers and leaders in the middle of a TEACHER CRISIS?