Leighton Smith Podcast #244 - June 19th 2024 - Jodie Bruning

Sociologist Jodie Bruning has produced a paper, ‘Don’t Be Mislead - Judging the Risk From Central Bank Digital Currencies in Isolation is a Rookie Mistake’.

That paper is associated with a much bigger, ninety page production, regarding democratic risks that arise when Digital ID’s are coupled with CBDC's.

It’s an area where most of us are ill-informed, which if concerned about your personal sovereignty we should not be.

This is an important issue for all of us.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news talks it B.
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Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to Podcasts two hundred and forty four. For June nineteen,
twenty twenty four, sociologist J R. Brunning guests on podcast
two four fourth and for very good reason. She has
forced her way into public attention through research and producing
papers of relevance. Her latest production, and it is a production,

(00:48):
a ninety page effort, is on a most important issue,
digital IDs and cbdc's, the combination of which threaten results
we should be aware of, but patently we're not. Let
me quote. CBDCs have not been pushed into policy space
by the citizens of nations, but by the big global

(01:10):
central banks and the fintech industry. There is compelling evidence
that power and interoperability of the digital infrastructure will not
only enhance government control and surveillance, but that it presents
a real risk to civil, constitutional, and human rights. This
tech is scalable, and it's out of sight because of

(01:33):
the mixture of interests involved, from the Reserve Bank of
New Zealand to allied government agencies, to the fintech sector
and RB and z's Central Bank colleagues, the decision making
processes and authorities will be difficult to track and assess
should something go wrong. Now, may I suggest that you
listen to this interview from beginning to end and then

(01:55):
look up a couple of the papers that she has produced.
But more details on all of that very shortly, but
just a note on this week's podcast. It is shorter
than normal. We are covering the interview and then we
do a shortish mail room. The reason for it is
that there has been a bit of sickness in the
house over the last week and hopefully you won't be

(02:17):
exposed to much of it. Due to the ability to
edit things, it's been a full time job, let me
tell you. Doing the interview, I had my microphone closed
most of the time. However, I think that it all
come out right in the end. Jr. Running is very
very good. Now. I wanted to mention that because it's

(02:39):
been a case of spending more time in bed, particularly
in the morning, and the other morning I heard the
news I think it was at about six point thirty
or something. Usually i'd be up by then. There was
the story of Jasindra Dern and her latest well whatever
you want to call it, and I immediately started rolling
words around of my head about what I would say

(03:00):
about it, and then I thought, no, let it go.
It's gone now who cares? And then reality set in.
Of course, reality set in because it's fine to forgive,
but when people are not repentant, when people carry on
in the same manner of what as to what they
have in the past, then there's no forgiveness to be had.

(03:25):
And I think the best way to cover this is
to read a letter to you that came in that
same morning at five point thirty three from Liz just
when we thought it was safe to go back into
the water exclamation mark. The extrag below is from just
sindro Render's Facebook page. It details how she has started

(03:47):
an excite quote an exciting new initiative called Field. It's
all about humanizing leadership with empathy and kindness. She also
says she's focused on unity without using fear to divide people.
For those of us who lived through her tyranny, who
lost their jobs, had loved ones locked out of New

(04:09):
Zealand or die alone. Her lack of self awareness and
blatant stupidity astounds me. Liz goes on, this is another
of her attempts to remain relevant and to suck the
ill informed and bewildered into supporting her socialist idealist agenda.
She is not and never will be remembered as a

(04:29):
kind and empathetic leader. She was driven by her ego
and vanity projects, and she almost single handedly destroyed New Zealand.
I sincerely hope that field is not her way of
working her way back onto the global political stage. Her
influence is dangerous, and the potential outcome of that influence
on the ill informed and those who are not aware

(04:53):
of what she did to our society would be devastating.
Extract below largely waffle with no substance, no change there
best wishes Liz. Now. Anybody who doesn't understand that's most
who doesn't understand what the word progressive actually means in
political terms, is at a loss to describe what her

(05:14):
politics are. Is very simple. Progressive progressivism is the road
to Marxism, to communism. If you like, I'm not making
it up. There's plenty of reference to it, but that's
the way that it is. And I think that what's
going on, what has been going on since her flight
from office, indicates that that is much the case, and

(05:37):
in just a moment, Jody Brunning. There are essential fat
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(06:45):
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and health stores. Always read the label and users directed

(07:06):
and if symptoms persist. Seainguid healthcare professional farmer Broker Auckland
Leighton Smith j R. Brunning is a consultant sociologist. Her
work explores governance, cultures, policy and the production of scientific

(07:30):
and technical knowledge. Brunning is a trustee of the Physicians
and Scientists for Global Responsibility New Zealand or. The address
is PSGR dot org dot enz.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
Now.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
If that sounds dull and boring, let me alert you
is not. Her most recent work involves digital ideas and
central bank digital currencies, about which there is growing public concern,
both individually but especially when coupled together. Now, if you're
trying to imagine why, think of the World Economic Forum

(08:01):
at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand as bedmates. Running's
major contribution is a ninety page paper stepping back from
the brink the programmable ledger, which I was term as challenging,
but there is a safety net. A nine page that
is one tenth size of the Monster report. A nine

(08:21):
page reduced version which is much easier for most of
us to grasp, is available. Details to follow shortly. Jr.
Jody Brunning, it's great to have you on the Latensmith podcast,
and I thank you.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
Look, it's great to be here with you. Lton, thank
you for inviting me on.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
You start by saying, this is on the ninth pager.
Don't be misled. Judging the risk from central bank digital
currencies in isolation is a rookie mistake. Did you know
it was going to be so long when you started?

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Absolutely not that. And you're talking about a recent article
in the Daily Telegraph, so people just have to can
quickly search for that. Yeah. No, I didn't know it
would be that long. And this is because, as you
learn something about a very complex subject, was a very
open ended bit that needs to be addressed Otherwise people

(09:13):
are left questioning. I guess, so we had to sort
of keep talking about this issue and fleshing out those
those gaps.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
I guess It's interesting you say that, because I probably
three years ago, no more than that'd be four years
ago now. I interviewed a professor from the Melbourne Institute
Melbourne Tech. He and two others had had written a
book that was on digitization and it was going to
be the release of freedom amongst the community in the world,

(09:46):
and got I got quite a bit of hefty feedback
on it, saying that this is a con they're not
they're not working on something to This was the suggestion,
they're not working on something to give us freedom, They're
working on something who's going to do exactly the opposite.
And I could see the point of the people who
were saying that, do you run into any of that, Well,

(10:09):
I guess we shouldn't be surprised.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
I guess it's a very very ancient sort of things,
looking at power and aggregating power, and powerful people usually,
you know, they're not usually happy with one super yosh
or whatever. They normally like three or four, and so
I think it's pretty natural for powerful interests to want
to consolidate their interest and sort of the game of monopoly,

(10:36):
you know, is an ancient sort of concept, and we're
used to sort of the oligopolies or the oligarchs in
you know, old societies ruling and so it's not a
it's a very human thing to concentrate power.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
And but we've never seen anything like it before like
what we're experiencing now where we're headed.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
Yes, and so this is just just to let people
to help people understand. My undergraduates of BBS and I
have masters in sociology, and what I've been looking at
for the last decade or so is technology and science
and how we regulate technology and science, be it a
commercial formulation, a pesticide and nanotech. And now we're looking

(11:21):
at the silicon, we're looking at digital technologies. And so
the difference that we have now and this is why
I think PSDR we're happy to take this paper on
is its scalability potential, so we can use tech for
good to help us in our everyday lives. But the
trick is powerful interests. Also we'll see that that technology

(11:45):
is is very able to be scaled up and we
can get into how it can be scaled up for
their own interests. So it's the scalability potential. And we
put this together with the programmability of the digital currencies
that we're going to be talking about, and that changes
the game.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
What's an alternative word for scale up or scale.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
Well, sort of increase exponentially.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
I guess I was thinking of those who can't quite
place the meaning.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Well, it's the the idea of going from the horse
and cart to the car. How could we, you know,
consider what would be the outcome of that? What? How
did we have to change all the rules on the
on the road to ensure that people weren't, you know,
rolling the car at every fast corner. So it's, you know,
scaling things up creates all these you know, it's the

(12:40):
no known, it's the unknowns, unown unknowns, it's you know,
it's it's we just cannot And this is why it's
a very much a governance issue, and y p SR
are hoping that, you know, people from the school of governors,
legal experts in public law, constitutional and administrative law, will
become interested in this. It's it's a very big issue

(13:02):
because of the scalable potential.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
I want to ask you a blunt question at this point,
which I might have left till later. Considering those organizations
in the world who are backing this and promoting it,
and some of them dishonestly, Is there any real way
that little Old New Zealand can control its own future

(13:25):
by escaping what might be coming down the track?

Speaker 3 (13:30):
Well, if we're simply talking about central bank digital currencies CBDCs,
we can very easily step away from that. And of
course the issue here is around the public waking up
and being courageous enough to share information that looks critically
at how these technologies can be scaled up. And I

(13:51):
think we're seeing some examples of countries pausing or moving away.
And it's very clear that all internationally. When you see,
for example, the CBDC, you know, the Reserve Bank of
New Zealand, take go and have a look on CBDC
website and it will show you how many countries are involved.

(14:13):
And of course the cbd website is controlled and overseen
by the Boston Consulting Group, so we see that all
the main Wow Aunt, CBDC is awesome. All those and
this is where PSR are talking. All those sort of
policy papers, those white papers have all been produced by
the organizations with the financial and dare I say political

(14:38):
conflicts of interest. So because most of the and we
can call that propaganda as well that has been produced
that they hope that will be adopted about by our
governments and then pushed through really quickly, is by these
organizations with the conflicts of interest. The people of New Zealand,

(15:00):
you know, they can say we don't actually want to
do this anymore. It is possible.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Can I offer my opinion that it's possible. But it's
only possible if there is a is a if there
is a very large ground swell. And at this point
of time I struggle to see that.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yeah, and that's because I mean what we have now Unfortunately,
you know, in April there was an RB and Z
you know Digital Cash in New Zealand puff piece and
what we see is a very obsequious legacy media that
will not critically analyze this. And one of the big,
the big takeaways that we want people to understand from

(15:40):
our paper is that there is not a single academic
expert or an expert that is lacking you know, the
financial conflicts of interest, the complex of interests having worked
with a management consultancy firm or you know, a big
global bank. There is not a single expert in New
Zealand talking about cpdc's critically and the potential for these

(16:03):
technologies and the risk of what might happen should there
be what's called unified ledger in time. So there's a
there's a policy creep that can happen that can further,
you know, push policy into the arms of the big
big banks. So this is the this is the and
this is what I've observed in my work looking at

(16:26):
policy and regulation and new technologies is the information supporting
the safety and efficacy of these technologies is produced by
the very institutions with the conflicts of interest and and
part of that real problem later and this is what
my masters looked at, is the difficulty scientists and researchers
have in accessing funding to research issues that is contrary

(16:53):
or that might contradict the position of the government of
the day. And so it's very difficult for any scientist
or researcher to get long term funding that is not
aligned with the interests of the ministry that is responsible
for funding science. That's the Ministry for Business and Innovation

(17:16):
and Employment. So mb is responsible for funding science. And
that is a really big problem. So that scientists are
cought and researchers are caught by the short and curlyes
because they're financial because their funding is so precarious today, does.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
It make it worse that we are driving through an
economic period that has put us in a very very
difficult position.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
Well, well, I mean you have this sort of combined forces.
You've got the lack of the freedom, of lack of
academic freedom in New Zealand. You've got the obsequious sort
of legacy media that doesn't have the resources or the
somehow the inclination for long form critical journalism. So we've got,

(18:02):
you know, and they're meant to be the fullest stay.
Then if you think that, if you think about the
scientists researchers that can't independently research, who do judges go
to when there's a decision to be made or when
people are calling for advice. So we see that the
judiciary are always going to be a little bit captured

(18:24):
by the executive, by the ministries and the agencies because
they're producing the information inverted commas, evidence, the policy papers,
the risk assessments. Then you add to the fact that
there's an economic downturn, and the economic downturn provides if

(18:46):
we lack sort of that information about how we make
cash or the potential about of fiscal policy and the
appropriations process. If we just only default and think that
we need a UBI and that can only be made
through the retail the seed, you know, sorry, the central bank,
the Reserve Bank of New Zealand having the power to

(19:08):
retail currencies. People think that's the only way we can
actually solve financial problems. And we're in deep doo dooos,
you know, So that the economic downturn is an antecedent
I think, excuse my pronunciation, it's sort of alongside these
other problems, but it's not the biggest problem, you know.

(19:29):
And one of the interesting things I think is that
we need to understand that the Reserve Bank of New
Zealand has gone through, as Christian Hawksby stayed in twenty
twenty two, the most significant changes since the Reserve Bank
of New Zealand reforms of the nineteen eighties. In twenty
twenty four at the he said to the Financial and

(19:50):
Expenditure Committee, you know, they're going through this massive process
of transformation and modernization. So the Reserve Bank has, interestingly,
during the depths of COVID, when we have been really
distracted with COVID, we've been very distracted. The people that
are interested in politics or interested in justice and sort

(20:15):
of civil constitutional human rights have been busy looking at
what has been happening in terms of COVID legislation. Several acts,
several bills have been passed that have been part of
the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's transformation process. You know,

(20:36):
one of the bills had the Monetary Policy Amendment Act
had only fourteen submissions. The Financial Market Infrastructures Act in
twenty twenty one had nine submissions to it, The Reserve
Bank of New Zealand Act thirty one submissions, the Deposit
Takers Act twenty forty three submissions. So the Reserve Bank

(20:57):
of New Zealand has gone through the most significant transformation
process through all this new legislation, and you look at
how few people have sort of known about it, ormitted
to it. And so we look, we again turned to
the conventional legacy media that there's only been sort of
reporting of this is what the Reserve Bank's you know,

(21:18):
doing in a happy, little puffy, puffy pand you know,
there's there's nothing critical critically looking at all this legislation
and picking it apart. So, you know, Michael Riddell has
been on poaking. Cassandra been doing quite a bit of
work criticizing the RB and Z, but it's we've had

(21:39):
such an amazing time and it's really surprising that that
in particular has occurred over COVID.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
The Reserve Bank management reminds me very much of the
military governance in the United States at the moment. And
if you don't know what I mean, they have They
have launched themselves into different directions, both of them different directions,
but both of them woke and woke to an ultimate degree,

(22:08):
I think.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
Yes. So the reason people are traditionally now and let's
just preface this latent because because I'm a sociologist and
I've been looking at this in depth over the say,
the last three or four months, But I am very
happy for people to criticize me if I am incorrect,
But as long as we have a discussion about it,

(22:33):
that is a wider, broader discussion looking at the big,
big issues. So when you talk about them being woke,
being woke means they're taking on this is what I
aren't My understanding is they're taking on political issues or
values that might not represent the average key way. And
of course, the reason people have historically trusted central banks

(22:57):
or the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is because they don't.
They don't they're very constrained in what they can politically
do because they can print money. They've been very construing.
So if all of a sudden their powers in encompass
climate change, which this has happened, that is a political

(23:18):
shift and I think people need to understand that. So
the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has actually more powers
than the average and we discussed this in our paper.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has more powers than
the average central bank. So it's not only responsible for
monetary policy, so you know, the ocr the central Bank

(23:42):
is a financial markets regulator responsible for oversight of the
financial system and prudential regulation of banks, deposit takers and
insurance companies. As well as that the Reserve Bank engaged
in large scale asset purchases and over COVID. And that's
interesting because we think there's been about eleven billion dollars

(24:04):
in losses there. And then interesting with this Financial Market
Infrastructures Act in twenty twenty one, they introduced into this
legislation the concept of the systemically important financial institution so
they si they and that's the too big to Fail
clauses that you're seeing coming through America that were introduced

(24:28):
after the global financial crisis. So they're really broad powers
are not just all those responsibilities. But we're seeing sort
of we're seeing the political things come in the DEI,
the climate change, and their budgets doubled as well. So
this is extremely worrying because when you listen to the

(24:53):
Select Committee February twenty twenty four, people are sort of
asking the Bank's questions as if they're an organization that
should make political decisions. I think people do not understand
how important it is that that is the role of parliament,
not unelected bureaucrats sitting in their own office, you know,

(25:17):
sitting in offices that can't actually get voted out of office.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
So we're talking to the administrative state, and the administrative
state has has has made huge in roads into many
aspects of life. And I refer again to the United
States where where basically it saw its birth. But here
the best example that I can utilize is Auckland Transport,

(25:41):
who have taken on roles that they were never they
were never associated with, not supposed to be associated with
extended their powers and during the period specifically that you
refer to the COVID period, they were they had free
hand to just do what they want. And we know,
we know that they're under inspection because various people, starting

(26:05):
with I suppose the latest mayor of Auckland, have been
in assaulting them. Not to forget one or two podcasters,
but the point being that that is one example, but
there are lots of others, including I think the medical field.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Absolutely, and so I think the the other problem is
that these agencies and these ministries become so big that
they become this rolling ball getting even bigger and bigger.
And I am a very big fan of a working
democratic government. But when the information that is supporting their

(26:45):
policy agendas is solely being produced by the agencies who
will only grow bigger, then that doesn't work. So, you know,
we have this is why we have the problem that
science is now controlled by the Ministry for Business and Innovation.
This is why we have the problem that agriculture is
you know, funding for agricultural research is controlled by the

(27:08):
agency who likes innovation and patents. So we're not going
to solve drought problems when the only money that they
want to spend on research has got to be tied
to a patent. And you look at for example, education,
you know, education has been you know, the curriculum development
is core core, and that's I think, I believe in NGO.

(27:32):
So if you had, if you had teachers being responsible
for example, for their own you know, for improving and
upskilling the curriculum, you would actually have more fighting more.
It would be slower, it would be difficult, but it
would be the people who are who have the most
expertise doing it. This is the same so science, but

(27:53):
right now you're getting these agencies creating their own agendas
and so Jeffrey Palmer has talked about this recently and
he said, what happens is the parliamentarians they've got no funding,
they've got no research resources, so they must, you know,
divert genuflect to the big agencies because that's where all

(28:14):
the information and the knowledge is coming from. This is
a very big problem in a democracy.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
Is democracy under a threat in this country? Do you think?

Speaker 3 (28:23):
Absolutely? But it's not dead. But we very much people
need and my interest is information. So I see how
the flows of information then can perpetuate power or the
flows of information can help us understand situations and chat

(28:44):
and wage war and debate and get cross with each other.
But the most important thing is that we should be
actually talking about all these different issues. And this is
why you know, pstr and Zena have released this paper,
because if we don't talk about the issues, this is China,
this is you know, Russia in its darkest days. It's

(29:05):
an authoritarian state does not let the people you know
chat and debate, and neither does it let they're elected
members debate and challenge each other. And we're moving, I believe,
into a very polarized environment. And when we're polarized, we
go into our corners, and we've got to come out

(29:26):
of those corners and know that even if it's really difficult,
we've we've got to keep talking to each other. And
the problems of governance are never black and white. They're complex,
they're nebulous. You know, they involve going upstream into you know,
into I guess environments that often have lots of political

(29:49):
and financial conflicts where you'll see large, powerful interests. And
that's a little bit why you know, often you get
when you start asking questions about sort of technologies you
know from nanotech to GM to to pesticides to the
tech we're talking about today. It's very easy for people

(30:10):
to call you are you're a team foil where you're
a conspiracy theorists like, well, actually, I think it's incumbent
upon us ever since, ever since they put spikes on
you know, heels to make horses go faster, to say,
what what what is this tech achieving? Is it going
to make the horse go faster or they're going to
get some you know, saws in the sides of their flanks?

(30:32):
You know, So we actually always have to ask how
how is the tech going to support us and make
human you know, society, tribe, and perhaps we're actually the
tech we're seeing today, we're not thriving more so maybe
we can ask what is going wrong here?

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Have you in your in your work spend any time
on digital currencies per se bitcoin specifically.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
No, I listen, look, I try to be really informed.
I listened to a lot of podcasts my you know,
my husband's a software engineers, so you know, talking about
this sort of tech is not outside our spectrum of conversation,
but we haven't and so I try to be really informed,
but not not really because I guess I only have

(31:21):
so many hours in the day, so you know, I've
been listening. You know, your excellent interviews with John Orcock
are really great for helping people understand about bitcoin. I
guess my question, Laighton, I am. You know, like I
didn't grow up you know, in that happy family with
the mummy and you know, and everything been great. So

(31:45):
I was lucky enough to be an at home mum
and you know, then started working when they were younger.
And on this my situation always is, you know, how
can a woman that is working, probably a little few
more hours because she's got to do the cleaning, do this,
do that? How can she be as informed as a man?

(32:06):
How can she access you know, if bitcoin? Bitcoin has
to work whatever social strata you're on, whatever education level
you're on, it has to actually work similarly for females
and males. And right now I don't see like how
bitcoin is equally as accessible, you know. And and this

(32:30):
is I guess this is my point why I see
governments as being really important. It's the single woman, you know,
in the supermarket. Can she afford good quality meat, good
quality of veggies? How do we create a social structure
that means we're going to thrive and that our young
people are going to grow up healthy and strong. And
so I guess I keep coming back to the Bitcoin

(32:53):
seems to be the really great if you're a guy
and you can do a ton of research and you
know a lot about it. But that's sort of that's
a that's my kind of thought for bitcoin really at
the moment.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
But it's well, I think I'm not in a position
to you with you. Well I suppose I could be,
but I'm not. I just want to quote you quickly.
This is a little outside what we're here to discuss,
but there is a connection obviously. Fred Krueger quote bitcoin
is going to replace Fiat. In a recent interview in Entrepreneur,

(33:28):
investor and mathematician Fred Krueger said bitcoin is going to
replace theat According to Kruger, FIAT is unable to compete
with bitcoin. He sees the world moving to a global
monetary standard based on bitcoin. And then the author of
this short article says, realize what Kruger is saying here,
and I'm going to take a gamble here and reach

(33:49):
the next five lines. The global M two money supplies
currently around one hundred and three trillion. The market capitalization
of bitcoin is one point three trillion. This means for
bitcoin to become the global monetary standard, it needs to
go up by one hundred times one hundred. Is this
possible Since the famous pizza incident, I don't know what

(34:13):
that is. In twenty ten, bitcoin has risen one million times.
Krueger knows of no other asset that has done this.
His message is simple. This is a make or break
moment for a lot of people. If you want to
accumulate wealth by bitcoin now you could argue that that's
a promotion if you like, or even propaganda. But I'm

(34:35):
seeing more and more confidence in bitcoin now. The connection
between the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's CBDC and bitcoin
or the differences, take that approach whichever way you prefer,
what is it?

Speaker 3 (34:51):
Well, so at the moment, central bank digital currencies globally
aren't really looking at being on the blockchain, and Bitcoin's
on that blockchain, and of course, of course all the
greenies buying bitcoin. When you look at the energy required
to do all those mathematical formulations to keep working, is

(35:12):
a sort of an interesting thing to you know, a
little thing for the greens to go down and CBDCs.
So at the moment they're not on the blockchain, they're
just basically going to be sort of controlled and overseen
by reserve banks, central banks. But of course the etiology,

(35:32):
if you look at the design, how how CBDs c's
have come about. They've come about by a lot of
policy work by the financial, tech, finance and technology industries
who have also you know, being involved with the establishment
of bitcoin. But so whereas you know bitcoin has you know,

(35:53):
the doubling and the production or the reduction of coin
is is a mathematical formulation, CBDCs can be produced at
will and at whim by central banks. This is where
they're very dangerous because they can be and they will
likely be a political tool. And when I say a

(36:15):
political tool, this is because the Bank of International Settlements
and the large global banks are very much seeing them
as a as a way of achieving policy, you know,
the desire of what sort of policy might be achieved,
and so we can we can provide those financial incentives.

(36:36):
And it's carrot, it's carrot and stick stuff. We know that.
For example, so if a reserve bank was going and
I think it's a terrible idea, they can if they
were designing a CBDC, they can choose to have a
negative interest rate, they can choose to have a you know,
positive interest rate. They can choose, you know, all the

(36:59):
program the payments will be programmable. So the Reserve Bank
of New Zealand and its current consultation says, oh, we
won't make the money program But the problem is the
payments will be programmable, they will be revocable because they
have to be revocable in case the mistake is made.
So we know that all this program these programmability functions,

(37:21):
which is not there with bitcoin. So a third party
locks can be put in place where so, for example,
the Health Ministry might decide that, you know, this group
of welfare benefit beneficiaries can get this much money if
they get their kids injected with the latest vaccine and
get their teeth scene too, and then they tend them

(37:44):
to school, they'll get this extra money, you know. So
the Ministry for Health can instruct that through to the
Central Bank of New Zealand, who could then send that
advice out to whatever fintech industry is contracted to then
design the smart contract. Sorry that is a smart contract

(38:05):
that would be third party processes. It would be involved
with the financial and tech industries will be contracting and
designing the software perhaps, so this is how disaggregated it
will be. And this is this is part of the problem.
So like the blockchain is, you know, you can see
your ID code wherever you want. It's quite transparent, whereas

(38:27):
this stuff is all black boxed like in an aircraft.
You can't see what's happening when you can't know. And
there's a term they use called composability. So smart contracts
which are let's let's they are self little self executing programmed,

(38:50):
self executing applications of programmable platforms that can trigger an
action if some pre specified condition is met. And that's
that's a Bank of International Settlements. That's the way they
see smart contracts. So they can be composable. Smart contracts

(39:11):
can be bundleable. So that's so you're you know, you
were talking about not being able to you know, your
your bank account could be frozen if you go outside
the region of the Bay of Plenty, so it could
you know, the smart contract could be applicable to all
people in the Bay of Plenty, so they don't have
any you know, they can't fill up with petrol outside
that region, and of course.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
Contract which, of course which which of course would make
lockdowns far more readily available to the powers that be.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
And this is a scalability potential. Yes.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
The biggest problem I believe is how to advise people
who don't usually care, who haven't got time for it,
who don't care, who think you're, like you said, a
tenfoil hatter or whatever, and they're just not interested in
knowing what's going on. How do you how do you
best apro Well?

Speaker 3 (40:09):
I think for me, I am informed, and I want
I work in this area, which is politically often politically
uncomfortable because I have children, and my children are young
adults and they are growing up and I I'm not,
you know, And part of it we're not We don't

(40:30):
look at we don't look at history, so we don't understand.
So we might learn about World War Two, we might
learn about and Frank, we might learn about the concentration camps,
but when we're at high school, we don't actually learn
about the extent which there was a massive propaganda campaign
be fleeting up to that with Russia, with the Chinese Revolution,

(40:52):
how now gained young students? You know, the history of
propaganda and gaining the youth to to to jump on
board without the nuances the experiences of older generations, and
so younger people can achieve really powerful, important things. But
we need to I think as older people you know

(41:15):
listening to this podcast, and I know you know, young
tradees will be listening to this as well, with you know,
common sense people will be listening to them. It's exactly
it's learning to speak up when it's a little bit uncomfortable,
because if you don't speak up now, there's a very
big chance in hell that that is not going to
get any easier. And so I have two there's two

(41:38):
reasons why I believe democracy is the most at risk.
And one is because we keep sort of delegating authority,
whether it's through trade agreements or through other agreements such
as you know agreement you know, tacit agreements with UN
agencies such as WHO. So when we delegate authorities to them,

(41:58):
we lose a little bit of our you know, sovereignty,
our democratic strength. And the other way we're losing is
through the fact that the as I said, the information
is controlled by those big agencies, and when those big
agencies need an extra portion and they need an extra
they want to follow a little bit more of this

(42:18):
you know, digitizing government stuff they get in the big
management consultancies. And so people need to understand how bad
this situation is. So the Reserve Bank of New Zealand
are the only people right now producing the evidence for
how marvelous and wonderful CBDCs are. So there's no you know,
like I said, there's no expert lawyers out there, no

(42:40):
expert governance people out there, no one there's kids, you
not PSDR and SRE. This is why we've come into
this space because no one else is here. It's not
our dream. And so we need to understand that if
the governments are only looking at the agencies doing this,
and I'm probably going on about this too much, we

(43:02):
are fully ignorant and we are victims to that policy.
So the question at the dinner table is should the
RBNZ be the only agency providing all the evidence for
the safety and efficacy of central bank digital currencies? And
this is when we stop being tinfoil hat wearers, because
we're actually saying this is a reasonable question.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Let me quote the beginning of your monster paper in
the executive summary by releasing this discussion paper Physicians and
Scientists for Global Responsibility New Zealand, that is psg r
n Z aim to encourage debate around governance, democracy and
the interoperability of digital identity systems and central bank digital currencies.

(43:50):
What are the risks from adopting CBDCs which are tied
to your digital ID, your digital twin? What is the
answers to that? So, Jody, what are the risks from
adopting cbdc's which are tied to your digital ID, your
digital twin as.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
You put it, so thank you for that. Yeah, that
we haven't talked about digital IDs yet, so so digital
ideas are increasingly so the whole of New Zealand government
hasn't has put in put out the requirement that all
agencies offer they accept real me, they accept a digital

(44:29):
identity for as equally to a passport. But what we're
seeing now is we're seeing it increasingly increasingly they might
only only accept your real me identity and so when
you get your digital ID, you they take them er scams,
so they have your biometric data. And the issue here

(44:52):
is so the Department of Internal Affairs controls all this
information and so the Department of Internal Affairs is sort
of has information sharing agreements across the whole of government,
so they can share your data and we don't know
how much this is shared or shareable because of course
it's black boxed. So the DEA administers the Digital Identity

(45:17):
Services Trust Framework Act and the Electronic Identity Verification Actors.
So that's the back end management of our personal data.
So then you add that, you toddle that to for example,
if CBDCs where your main money account of retail CBDCs,

(45:39):
then we have the capacity for a surprising amount of
control acrosshole of government. And so you know, psgr And said,
we've always looked at the fact that often you know,
it's a round up the Glacious eight trials. It was
what came out in that was that the formulation was

(46:01):
so much more toxic than the active ingredient. So when
the Reserve Bank only talks about CBDCs, the formulation is
more toxic than the active ingredient. When they're combined with
digital ideas, that's when i've got the capacity to survalue
when you're walking down the street and know where you are,

(46:22):
then they've got the capacity to understand your transactions because
you're using your CBDC and you're transacting, transacting on your
real may identity, so that, like we keep talking, the
scalability of this is significant. And so it's when all
this is linked together that harm happens. That's the problem.

(46:46):
And so this is normally if you have your and
this is the other problem. And we have the same
problem when we have retail banks operating in an oligopoly.
So this is why sort of Richard Werner, who's an
international economist, he says, we need to do a heck
of a lot of work, and this is government policy.
Governments can turn around do this tomorrow to let small

(47:08):
local banks establish themselves and serve small local communities. The
minute you get oligopolies, you get the government and the
oligopolies naturally working together to shape regulation to make sure
it's virtually agreeable. And often this is a way of
not just it's a strategic way of the large corporations

(47:33):
reinforcing their position because it makes it harder for the
little guys to get going. So you know, this is
a this is a very good industry tactic. It's done
across big food, it's done across pesticize regulation, it's you know,
it's it's it's a common thing to do. So you know,
when these things are linked, you know when digital ideas

(47:54):
linked to cbdc's harm happens.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
So where are we out at the moment then with
the existence of both and their connectivity in the in
the future.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
So right now, government, if you want a government job,
I don't know if you're able to get a government
job unless you have a real May identity. Right now,
if I wanted to get funding through the poking through
the Losttery grant scheme, I would have to get a
digital identity. If I was PSDR and Z was looking

(48:29):
for funding through that, I personally would have to get
a digital identity. So they're bringing it in through funding mechanisms.
I'm aware that if teachers need if they have something
that's been contested and they need to get it resolved
or envy, they need to have I believe, a digital identity.

(48:49):
So the digital identity creep is happening. So all the
students now they're devaulting to digital identities to the real
May identities to apply for tertiary education because it's just
easier and quicker. So they've got a definite creep of
people onto digital identities. So if we look at China, China,

(49:12):
in China, they're paying wages of people through CBDCs, and
we know that the Chinese are quickly getting rid of
their CBDC money. They don't trust it, they quickly truncefer that.
But we know that this is you know, say, the
public sector will use the power of the public sector
to force people onto this. So when and I guess

(49:37):
I became a lursi and started getting really into this
when I saw that ad for the trial project the
cbdc's and when I saw that ad, I directly put
in an official Information at request. I wanted to understand
where the cabinet, the Prime Minister, where the ministers had

(49:59):
to what extent have they been briefed on CBDCs, to
what extent did they understand the risks? Now that was
a December in December official Information at Requests. I heard
back from that two weeks ago. That's how long it
took me to get that.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
And in terms of weeks, how long is it.

Speaker 3 (50:21):
So December to May? So it took five and a
half months to get a response for this official Information
at Requests because they transferred it back to the arm
in z because the cabinet cabinet ministers didn't want to
answer it, and because they haven't been briefed. They really
have not been briefed in general, so our MPs are

(50:45):
lastly ignorant about the potential. So it comes back to
the academics. The experts aren't speaking up, media is not
speaking up. You know, Members of payment have no idea
and this is the biggest transformation in in you know,
money potentially.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
Yeah, yeah, Well tell me this, Grant Robertson, because you've
you've you've attached yourself to this, or you've asked this
question in one of them, in one of the pieces
Grant Robertson, how much did he know about the advancement
of this?

Speaker 3 (51:19):
Well, I don't think. I don't think they've been briefed.
You know that I haven't. I tried to get I
asked directly, how much is the Minister for Finance, the
minister responsible for you know, basically the treasury in the
RB and there and I don't you know, there's been
nothing zip. It's just impossible to understand this. And of

(51:41):
course the minute, this is a big loophole. The minute
a minister gets moves out into a different portfolio. They
don't have to answer question official information, actual quests from
their previous portfolio. But I don't you know there has
has Nikola been briefed to what extent does she know?
But and the truth is she will only know as

(52:03):
much as she knows from the RB and ZAT and accenture.
So you know, this is we can talk about eccentia
in a bit. This is this is a major problem.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
We all right, so quickly some quick Q and as
if we can, if I can think of the questions
fast enough. There is an old argument. It's the greatest
loser argument I've ever known. I think, if you've got
nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear it, what
do you say?

Speaker 3 (52:32):
So that leaves us really really, really really really big
space for the demagogues and the tyrants to step in
and to create unfair laws. And then you wake up
one day and you say, but that law's unfair. But
you can't fight back. You can't fight back because the
laws have been put in place that stop you. So

(52:54):
you presume everything's going to be fair and lovely. But
what happens if it's not? And when it's not so
and the problem is, I think again, this is this
is when you're at the barbecue. How many laws have
been pushed through using emergency rational emergency excuses, And then

(53:14):
COVID that all the all the the mandates came through
using what's called delegated or secondary legislation. It came through
with perhaps only two ministers, maybe three ministers making those
decisions for the mandates to go through without any reviews
of the scientific literature. That's remember, that's a game being played,
is they don't actually look at the published scientific literature

(53:37):
and they say that this is the evidence. But the
evidence only involves the evidence that the industry involves. You know,
during COVID that was that was Spiza gives them. So
we need to understand that when agencies are making decisions
that do not involve using independent, impartial researchers and actors,

(53:59):
then we cannot trust the decisions being made of those agencies.
So that I have nothing to hide means that you're
sitting dark when things are that when things go wrong
or they become unfair.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
Well, I've had an argument for as long as I
can remember now, and I don't know where it came from.
I'd like to think. I thought of it myself. But
you you've got nothing to hide. You think you think
you've got nothing to hide. You're not the one that
makes the decisions on what should be hidden or not hidden,
and what what's right or wrong at any given stage.

(54:34):
You're not the authority in charge of the rules. That's
the point exactly. I just don't get. I don't understand
how otherwise intelligent people, and I can think of two
prominent people still still argue that now you included, you included.
Did you want to say more?

Speaker 3 (54:54):
Well, I would those two intelligent and prominent people, I
would quickly like to draw their attention to So the
attorney general. Can we take a quick talk about the
attorney general? Right? So attorney general has constitutional responsibilities. Judith
Collins is required to ensure that the operations of executive

(55:15):
government are conducted lawfully and constitutionally, and that the government
is not prevented, through the through use of legal process,
from lawfully implementing its chosen policy. Now, remember, lawful lawfully
implementing means it can just go bang bang bang through
emergency powers or secondary legislation. But we have a big
problem because Judith Collins is the Attorney General. I have

(55:39):
never seen an Attorney General with the extent of ministerial
portfolios that Collins had. She's the Minister for start you know,
just breathing deeply everyone, because this is a long list,
Minister for digitizing content. She's the Minister for Defense. She's
the Minister for the GC s B. She's the Minister

(56:01):
for the nz SIS. She's the minister who is leading
the coordination of the government's response to the Royal Commission's
report into the terrorist attack on the christ Church Mosques.
She's the Minister for Space, and she's the Minister for Science,
Innovation and Technology. And if you remember, Science and Innovation
and Technology is caught under MB and will not do

(56:25):
any research that is contrary to that of the Government
of the day. Should the Attorney General, who is that
the Minister for responsible for good law also have those
ministerial portfolios?

Speaker 2 (56:42):
The answer is it's crazy.

Speaker 3 (56:45):
It's just I think the word is diabolical later and
I like crazy.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
Or diabolically crazy. But anyway, there's two more things. At
least I want to slip in digitally. These heavy criticism
by New York University Law School paper. This is something
I only read the very short time ago, and I've
got to go back and deal with it further, because

(57:14):
coming from a university in New York, little in America
at the moment, something like this seems out of context.
At twenty twenty two, paper paving a Digital Road to
Hell question Mark by the Center for Human Rights in
Global Justice New York University School of Law heavily criticized

(57:36):
the models of digital ideas that have been propagated by
these large organizations. The policy development that followed the World
bank initial efforts have reflected the concern in this New
York University School of Law paper. Key issues include privileges
economic identity is disconnected from legal status and steers attention

(57:59):
away from civil registration, threatens a range of fundamental rights,
from the right to social security to the rights to privacy.
And that's the big one for me. The surported benefits
remain mostly unsubstantiated in the absence of serious baseline studies,
cost benefit and value for money analysis and impact assessments.

(58:20):
I'll stop there because I don't want to take up
too much time. But the authors the authors just went
on to note all too often digital ID systems are
mired in a lack of transparency. Even the legislation underlying
digital ID where it exists often does not provide adequate
information about what the system will entail you go.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
So this is really interesting. They looked at the World Bank,
the role of the World Bank's bank, that World Bank
singular in setting the white papers, the policy, the framing,
the language for digital identities. In our PSCR and Z paper,
we've gone and said, look at look at the Bank

(59:01):
of International International Settlements the BIS. Look at how they've
set the policy, the language, the framing, the principles, the risks,
and so what we have is these big, global, powerful
banks that have legal indemnity that are outside the purview
of any democratic nation, setting the language, the risk framing,

(59:26):
all that sort of stuff. And so that's why those
those academics looked at that background, and then they came
down and they looked at how the risks and so
there's a there's an image that we've reproduced in the
latter later sort of twentieth fifth of our paper, and
it's there. They're they're showing how digital identity stretches into

(59:47):
every single part of society. So when you overlay digital
identity stretching into every single part of society, how we
pay your access, Every single stratu of society is overlaid
with that. So that's a really important paper to consider.
And we've cited that and yeah, yeah, we've that's that's

(01:00:08):
highlighted in a chapter in our paper. It's really important
to understand.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Off the top of your head the four democratic myths.
Can you recall them?

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
I said, four democratic risks? Risks?

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Sorry, did you?

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
Yeah? So the first thing is that they and this
is what you will talk about a lot, is that
they The first one is that digital IDs linked to
cbdc's enhance all of government oversight over private activity, so
that is surveillance on steroids. The second one is that

(01:00:44):
they will be transferred electronicity electronically using these pre programmable
smart contracts that are all so composable they can be
bundled together. Then we have the third one is the
potential for erosion of parliamentary oversight. So what will happen
is that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand will basically

(01:01:05):
take on more powers relating to money for production, and
that will be outside of the appropriations process that normally
is our democratic way of you know, creating ways which
say poorer communities might have a little bit of a
more access to resources or better access to health and education.
That helps, you know, results in less inequalities. So for example,

(01:01:29):
then the fourth one is the continued increase in oversight
and delegation of the production of policy, strategy and rules
to the BIS, that Bank of International Settlements and the
International Monetary Fund. So what happens is these guys, with
all their big white papers and all their big expertise,

(01:01:50):
they become the go to institution for the Reserve Bank.
Now we've already seen that following this massive, big consultation
with the IMF and twenty sixteen that resulted in all
this changing, including building in those too big to fail
clauses in the financial markets infrastructures at So we've got

(01:02:11):
those four risks and as well as that which we
didn't obviously I should have put in, is the financial
like this, the Reserve Bank has oversighted financial market. If
they enter as a player, they're saying, oh, no, it'll
be good because there'll just be another player. And I'm like,
so another player that can't go bust and is too
big to fail. That's not an equal playing field. So

(01:02:35):
you know, they're the main sort of risks because you know,
and then and then you've got that other risk that
they could there could be a digital run to foreigns.
So that our bank our central banks think that there
could be a digital run to foreign CBDCs if other
CBDCs are doing this, and it's unlikely. I think the biggest,

(01:02:59):
the biggest people aren't wanting to get on CBDCs because
they fundamentally don't trust the expanded oversight and powers of
the government. The only way governments right now getting people
into c bydcs is through regulatory or mission creep, where
they force people onto them.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
I just questioned whether expanded oversight and whatever has reached
even fifty percent of the population, whether we are with
regard to all of this, And that takes me back
to your comments right at the beginning about the legacy
media and their failure, and I to be honest, they

(01:03:38):
don't deserve the job in the first place. That I often.

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
Well, I mates with the next mainstream journo, and they
got so sick and tired of basically pulling off the
Reuters press releases and rehashing that or the government agency
press releases and rehashing that they're disgusted by it. They

(01:04:03):
know that's the formulation of legacy media.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
I wonder, because this has been so good and there's
been so much left unsaid and discussed, whether you would
consider a return in the not too di some future.

Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
Well, I'd be grateful if I could just quickly talk
about psdr's recommendations in our paper.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
I think you should go for it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:30):
So what I think we can ask for so right now,
right now, they're looking at these digital cash trials. I
don't believe so I see trials as there is as
a soft launch, and so instead we should say that
there is a minimum sixty moderatorium two election cycles at

(01:04:52):
least until twenty thirty of any trial or CBDC release,
and so we can we can observe what is happening
in foreign jurisdictions. And then after twenty thirty that decision
for the RBNZ to enter the CBDC world should only
be taken by Parliament at all of people's vote. And

(01:05:14):
this is after we see a heck of a lot
of information and data produced by independent people. I also
we've also recommended that that digital ideas, digital IDs, a
real mey identity should never ever be the only form
of identity that is accepted by any government agency in

(01:05:37):
any form, and that passports and driver's licenses are equally acceptable,
and we know that passports and driver's license in Australia
have a historically low rate of fraud. And then the
fourth one is that the DA, with their expansion of
powers and their capacity to control real meat, we should
be really examining the context of information sharing cross government

(01:06:02):
behind the scenes. So they were just before recommendations and
I'd love to come back on it, mat.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
That would be great because I'm just looking at some
stuff here. I have a full print out by the
way of the of the monster stepping back, stepping back
from the brink where where you said you said that
the original one which arrived in my inbox was from

(01:06:31):
the Telegraph.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
So you've got you've got the If there is a
Daily Telegraph New Zealand article that's come out, hope I'm
hoping will be a Brownstone paper coming out next week.
But if you search for on Instagram, on Twitter, on substatic,

(01:06:54):
and you will for at p s g r n
Z so psgr is in New Zealand, twenty five year
old New Zealand charity. We've been around for ages, but
we've got no money, so no one knows about it.
And ENDZ is on the end because that is the
only like, the only handle I could get that is consistent.

(01:07:15):
So if you search for PSCR and Z on subset,
Twitter or Instagram, you'll find a link to us, and
you'll find a link to the paper or ps TR
dot org dot.

Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
NZ, PSCR dot org dot NZ that eighty page ninety
page whatever piece is. They're both worth reading. Start with
the shorter one and you'll know you'll get a line
on yourself if you find that you're interested in more.
And I'd approve that. So Jodie, it's been great and

(01:07:52):
we shall talk soon.

Speaker 3 (01:07:54):
An absolute pleasure, late, and thank you for this chance.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
Now I have to report some bad news. We did
have a mailroom and it was a very good mail
room I my dad. Unfortunately the male failed to get delivered.
That covers a lot of areas I know, and it's
got all of us confused, but it's going to have
to wait until next time. So the only thing left

(01:08:22):
to say is with apologies of course, is that we
shall return with two forty five in the not too
distant future. Until then, thank you for listening and we
shall talk soon.

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
Thank you for more from News Talks ed B. Listen
live on air or online, and keep our shows with
you wherever you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio