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]

@SAHZ74 @NZNationalParty Quick remove the turban and get off your knees Chris, they're on to us.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

Against his better judgement, @SimonRAnderson has invited me on SimonTV LIVE this Sunday from 7:30pm (streamed to his X account).

We'll discuss a wide range of policies affecting the future of the country.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@JoeBlog97166574 Kicked in the guts is an apt analogy. Their policies are quite literally New Zealand Last.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

It's time for a serious conversation about what motives produced a first-ever prohibition on New Zealand's sovereign right to control its own immigration flows in the India FTA - and what that means for national sovereignty.

[Max "Trevor Down at the Pub" Waters @MaxWatersNZ]

Josh is exactly correct here. I never thought I'd see a NZ government lie as blatantly as Ardern did about COVID. I was wrong. The level of pure, calculated, in your face, "Yeah we're lying to you. What are you are gonna do about it?" from @NZNationalParty is on a Baghdad Bob scale. They tried slip the Movement of People Annexe by unnoticed. When that didn't work, they tried Alice In Wonderland gaslighting- denying the plain meaning of the king's English that we can all read for ourselves. " Uncapped' means what we say it means, nothing more and nothing less". That didn't work either, so now they're straight up lying to our faces. My family held our noses and voted National last time. No more. #NoTicksBlue. I don't care if that lets Labour in. There's no material difference in the end result- rapid collapse or slow collapse. I'm voting @nzfirst and let the chips fall where they may.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@NZNationalParty You're also giving India the ability to flood our country and job market.
https://t.co/lEaBNoa8E5

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

The India FTA builds a pipeline to permanent residence that, by design, no future government can close.

The India FTA's uncappable Specialist visa, with no minimum prior employment requirement, unlocks domestic residence pathways that would otherwise be unavailable to them. Because those pathways require exactly what the Specialist visa provides:

1. NZ work experience: the new SMC Skilled Work Experience pathway requires 2 years in NZ. The 3-year Specialist visa delivers that.

2. Skilled employment in NZ: Green List pathways require it. Three years of in-country 'Specialist' visa experience meets that requirement.

3. Physical presence: partnership visas require evidence of living together in NZ. They will have been here for 3 years.

This is part of other systematic changes to our immigration policies - engineered to substantially increase net migration.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@lateplanet09 ACT MP Parmjeet Parmar said the select committee process "really undermined the role of the select committee" because "select committee should have done this work independently of government."

She also said the recommendations appears to be a predetermined outcome.

[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]

@midnightrun69 For that you would need to prove criminal intent - a high bar.

At a minimum we need legislation that prevents anyone from ceding our sovereign rights via a treaty (or otherwise) to a foreign nation.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@_Simon_K It could be argued that such a system of propping up trade deficits is precarious and always bound to implode - it's a question of when.

And as real payment to that system, NZ sacrifices its culture, and now, some of its sovereignty. That's unsustainable.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

The India FTA builds a pipeline to permanent residence that, by design, no future government can close.

The India FTA's uncappable Specialist visa, with no minimum prior employment requirement, unlocks domestic residence pathways that would otherwise be unavailable to them. Because those pathways require exactly what the Specialist visa provides:

1. NZ work experience: the new SMC Skilled Work Experience pathway requires 2 years in NZ. The 3-year Specialist visa delivers that.

2. Skilled employment in NZ: Green List pathways require it. Three years of in-country 'Specialist' visa experience meets that requirement.

3. Physical presence: partnership visas require evidence of living together in NZ. They will have been here for 3 years.

This is part of other systematic changes to our immigration policies - engineered to substantially increase net migration.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

It's time for a serious conversation about what motives produced a first-ever prohibition on New Zealand's sovereign right to control its own immigration flows in the India FTA - and what that means for national sovereignty.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@Kiwi_006 I don't know many people who immigrated & assimilated to NZ culture (regardless of original nationality), and who also want hordes of their own nationality flooding the country.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@Bouncesince2019 @SeanPlunket National survives on the residual, now misplaced, trust of their voters.

[Joshua Riley 🇳🇿 @VoteSovereign]

@Snowbun85395351 @NZNationalParty Writing the India FTA in a way that binds our future governments from placing visa caps was a deliberate decision that runs directly counter to our interests.

[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]

@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]

@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.