Sue Grey, for those who are not aware, is a Nelson based lawyer who also holds a degree in biochemistry, so on the face of it it would make sense to think that she would be a force for good in the world. However, Sue’s world is one of paranoia and scaremongering, where the government is out to take away our freedoms.

Sue became co-leader of the Outdoors Party in early 2020, after the fledgling party was bolstered by orphaned members of the Ban 1080 party. After we went into the first COVID lockdown, The Outdoors Party came out swinging, accusing the government of acting like Nazis and working with unsavoury people like Lee Williams, a popular right wing YouTuber.

Sue Grey sent an open letter (opens new window) to the government on the 31st of March, coincidentally just before April Fool’s Day, calling for the government to halt rollout of the vaccine. She makes claims about the Pfizer vaccine, informed consent and a lack of proof of safety and effectiveness. I find this a little ironic coming from the co-leader of a political party that has a manifesto promise (opens new window) to make Chiropractic, Acupuncture, Physiotherapy, Naturopathy, Ayurveda, Herbal medicines and Homeopathy government funded. This is despite a lack of evidence that any of those modalities actually work as medical treatments.

Sue talks of her "clients" and the NZ public expecting an urgent response, although I can’t find out who her clients might actually be. I wonder if the Outdoors Party could be bankrolling this effort.

There’s an accompanying video, where apart from consistently mis-pronouncing efficacy as efficiency, Sue talks about her concerns that the Medicines Act is being mis-used to roll out the COVID vaccine to the general population. She then threatens to sue the government if they don’t meet her demands by the end of yesterday.

Despite this ultimatum, I can find nothing on Sue’s website, Facebook page or the Outdoors Party page mentioning the passing of this deadline. Maybe it’s all hot air?

At the end of the video Sue credits Claire Deeks of Voices for Freedom, who is already well known as a vaccine denier. Interestingly, I’ve recently been told that there’s a lot of crossover of membership between Voices for Freedom and doTERRA - at the very least, I’ve found the doTERRA page for Claire Deeks (opens new window), who is apparently a "Diamond Wellness Advocate (opens new window)". For those not in the know, doTERRA is a Multi Level Marketing scheme selling over-priced essential oils. doTERRA’s members often make outrageous claims about how their small bottles of smelly stuff can treat a wide variety of medical conditions, and I’ve spent a couple of hours over the last few years talking to doTERRA sellers about their products and have personally heard many of these claims being made. If Sue Grey is looking for legitimacy, name dropping Claire Deeks is not a good way of going about it!