Joshua Riley 🇳🇿

Seeking a sovereign future for New Zealand.
Entrepreneur, Software Engineer, Certified Flight Instructor
Auth by A Riley Lvl 2, 40 Lady Elizabeth Ln, Wellington

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

After one select committee, National's bill has gone from a U16 ban to mass internet censorship

We have a front row seat to where this ends. The UK arrests 12,000/year for social media posts. People marching in the streets against immigration policies they can't protest online.

Proposed bill expansion:
⚠️A new independent internet regulator with power to create binding rules without going back to Parliament
⚠️Force platforms to hand over proprietary algorithm designs to the regulator
⚠️Regulate recommendation systems
⚠️Explore restricting VPN use
⚠️A catch-all recommendation to "consider further matters" and task them to the regulator - the blank cheque

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@NZPoliticalNerd @IrnBoru @worldiswatchu Hopefully. It does several things:
1. Over 20% gets close to eclipsing National for bargaining power + PM. Australia's showing this is possible
2. Those votes would come mostly from red/blue, breaking the Uniparty's quasi coalition
3. More seats on select committees as mentioned

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

New Zealand First did not have members on the FTA or U16 Select Committees due to their limited MPs this term.

Their current polling would change this.

A larger NZF caucus means more accountability and fewer Uniparty-only SC meetings on critical, often detrimental legislation.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

Imminent threats to the New Zealand way of life:

1. National's online ID & censorship regime
2. National's mass immigration "FTA"

National secured Labour's support for both. The Grand Coalition is operational.

Blue/Red is a myth. Both lead to the same dystopian endpoint.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@worldiswatchu The 2026 election will be defining. New Zealand First over 20% is the only shot I see at reversing this course.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@NZNationalParty Tell me how much your really care about Kiwi jobs:
-You put uncappable visa channels in the India FTA - a nation of 1.5B directly competing for local jobs.
-You removed NZQA assessment for many Indian degrees.
-You removed the median wage requirement for accredited employers.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@ElliotIkilei https://t.co/01H0LBJ7pB

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@BlaseWager @worldiswatchu To align with an illogical philosophy they pretend to suddenly have no ability to logically define a woman. That is cult-level obedience.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@Dysart2321311 If taken to court National will likely argue the suppression of free expression is a justifiable limitation for combating 'disharmony'. A liberal court might agree.

Courts should not be able to suspend NZBORA - which should an be absolute constitutional guarantee, but it's not.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

How a 3-page bill became a vehicle for UK-grade censorship:

B416 privately lobbied the PM via an aide-mémoire. The select committee delivered their asks - plus algorithm controls, VPN restrictions, and a regulator with broad powers. None of it was in the original bill. The public never got to submit on any of it.

The committee explicitly recommended NZ follow the UK, EU, and Australian models. In the UK, 12,000 people a year are arrested for social media posts.

The DIA is already spending $30.7M building the enforcement system - before any legislation has been sent to Parliament.

No privacy impact assessment. No comparative analysis of age verification methods. No legal advice on Bill of Rights compatibility.

Comprehensive online censorship was always going to be the end point - regardless of how narrow the original bill was.

Thank you @RCR_NZ for the conversation.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@gracefool @NZFreeSpeech That should not be possible without enabling legislation. FSU's OIA confirmed DIA has no legal advice that its actions are lawful - and withdrew its job ad (recruiting to build the infra) when the FSU questioned it.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@Dysart2321311 It's definitely not headed toward greater liberty and limited government. National should update their party constitution - or simply add a caveat that their stated principles are satire.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

My full @RCR_NZ interview with Paul Brennan covering the origins, development, and overreaching elements of National & Labour's SkyNet:
https://t.co/cLbKQ6lbWf

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@gracefool @NZFreeSpeech NZBORA affirms "the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form".

Sovereign's policy to make this stick: Enshrine NZBORA as an Absolute Constitutional Guarantee

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@gracefool @NZFreeSpeech NZBORA, but it's not enshrined, and therefore often trampled on by bureaucrats and ministers alike.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@maxxy64 @TrevorH53038397 @NZNationalParty That's indeed where it's going. What they did to Renee was the prequel. Wait until it's actually a crime.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@TaxpayersUnion 'Responding to' often means spending heaps on legal advice to justify refusals.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@XXisnotXY Some ideas...
https://t.co/ZRJ3pnGkvZ

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@bindygeee 1. Stop voting Uniparty
2. Spread the ideas you agree with to other platforms
3. Volunteer for a party (leafleting, event help, etc)
4. Make public + oral submissions on bad legislation
5. Talk to people about politics (not a taboo)

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

This is NOT about protecting kids.

Select committee: NZ should be a "fast follower" of the UK model - used to arrest 12000 per year for posts, including posts critical of mass immigration policy.

Wake up before you lose the ability to object to the dismantling of your nation.

[🗣 Free Speech Union ✊ @NZFreeSpeech]

📣MEDIA RELEASE

$30.7 million committed to enforce a law that does not exist

This morning the Children's Commissioner and a cross-sector coalition called on the Government to build an independent online-safety regulator. They are too late to ask. The Government is already building one, and it has not waited for a law.

Budget 2026 allocated $30.7 million to the Department of Internal Affairs over four years to "develop policy and possible regulatory options to improve children's online safety, subject to future policy and funding decisions." That is the language of scoping: options to be considered, decisions not yet made… Continues online. 

📌 Read the full release here: https://t.co/iTOTIfIcnE

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@dellavaris Replace Minister of Ethnic Communities with Minister of Assimilation

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@XXisnotXY Likely no. There was a public submission for an inquiry into 'social media harm' sometime back but included almost none of the select committee recommendations for the U16 bill - so no member of the public was consulted on the most extreme components and censorship powers.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@JournoGoneBadNZ @TrevorH53038397 @NZNationalParty Any new censorship laws will undoubtedly be expanded - none should be accepted.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@TrevorH53038397 @NZNationalParty Nat+Lab are a threat to New Zealand full stop. Their FTA is a surrender to India that precedes a following invasion. The U16 bill will give them the power to silence dissent.

For some that might sound extreme, but only for those not paying attention to the direct UK parallel.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

I co-founded Sovereign in 2022 during the Ardern disaster. I see more need for our group to defend sovereignty now than under her administration.

That says a lot about the direction National is taking us, together with their coalition partners Labour and Act.