At a demonstration against vaccine mandates and Three Waters legislation, an Otago Uni lecturer spoke for five minutes to "educate" the opposing counter-demonstration across the road by reading the Britannica definition of fascism and sharing a stage with a prominent alt-right leader.
The lecturer, professional practice fellow Iain Hewson from the Computer Science Department, appears to have been a local organiser, taking care of the car speaker system that attempted to drown out the antifascist and pro-LGBTQ+ groups on the opposite side of the Octagon. The anti-mandate, anti-Three Waters demonstration was led by Derek Tait of Brian Tamaki's Freedom & Rights Coalition (FRC), known for collaborating with white nationalist group National Front, and featured a prominent local anti-trans agitator who yelled “women don’t have penises” unprompted at the crowd as they arrived, and who later spoke out against vaccine mandates for nurses.
According to his University profile, Iain Hewson has been teaching at Otago Uni since the end of 2000. In his day job, he enjoys programming and getting “great satisfaction watching students acquire new skills”. Until October 2020, he ran a small church on Frederick Street, called the Preach the Word Baptist Church. He has been publicly espousing conspiracist anti-vaccine views since at least 2017. He said his “primary motivation for participating in the March on Saturday was to protest against the continued healthcare mandates”, and that he “spoke at the rally because Derek asked me to.”
Donning a green Voices for Freedom cap, Hewson went on to conflate fascism with socialism, then compared the freedom of "the rainbow community" to live with their sexuality and gender to the freedom of nurses to work unvaccinated, before thanking Derek Tait and FRC, (a group formed by an explicitly homophobic church and pastor) for coming down to Dunedin. Iain was “surprised by the counter-protest which seemed to be against Fascism, against Nazism, and for Gay rights. I was a bit confused how those issues related to things we were protesting about. I am strongly opposed to Fascism and Nazism, both of which feature strong government controls and lack of personal freedoms.” He went on to claim that “there are many people in the Rainbow community who are opposed to vaccine mandates and are part of the freedom movement in Dunedin”, though the vast majority of that community seemed to be on the other side of the fence.
Hewson spoke alongside protest leader Derek Tait towards the end of the demonstration, introducing himself as someone from the University, here to educate us. “As I was speaking off-the-cuff, it just seemed natural to introduce myself and say where I worked”, said Iain. “Although I don't speak on behalf of the University, I know that as an institution we place a high value on free speech, academic freedom, and diversity of thought.” When asked to comment about Hewson publicly identifying as a Uni staff member there to “educate the crowd”, Otago Uni’s Human Resources Director, Kevin Seales, told Critic Te Arohi that “The personal views of the staff member Critic described in no way represent the University’s views or values. While noting that the Education and Training Act 2020 allows academic staff to speak freely publicly on their area of expertise, Mr Hewson’s area of expertise is Computer Science.”
Iain claimed that “the latest Ministry of Health figures on the Radio New Zealand website show infection rates 4x greater for boosted than unvaccinated (162 vs 41 per 100,000).” Our science editor couldn’t find that claim online, but pointed out that according to MoH data, unvaccinated people (4% of the population) make up 3.7% of cases while boosted people (around 73% of the population) make up only 47% of cases. When it comes to hospitalisations, that 4% accounts for 12% of beds, while the 73% boosted represent only 41%. Finally, many unvaccinated people have demonstrated a distrust of government. Our health system is government run, so it’s not inconceivable that some unvaccinated people won’t be reporting their positive RAT test. This means the unvaccinated data cited by our staff member could be fake news.
Hewson also admitted to being at the Parliament protests in February, and camping "for three weeks" before "things turned a bit pear-shaped at the end and some of us got arrested, but that's what happens." When Critic approached Hewson at the Saturday event to confirm his name and University role, he told us that “I’m pretty easy to find… but you’ll have to do some work for your money.” It was, indeed, very easy.
Computer science students who have been taught by Hewson told Critic he didn't bring up any extremist views during lectures, despite a few subtle comments about masks. Nonetheless, Hewson is vocal and active in his beliefs; he has been posting anti-vaccine misinformation on his Facebook page since at least September 2021. However, his views seem to have been public earlier than that, based on the sermons uploaded to his former church’s YouTube channel. As far back as 2018, in a sermon titled “Suffering at the Hands of Physicians,” he claimed “a lot of what passes for medicine these days is unscientific nonsense.” He also claimed psychiatric medicines were to blame for a number of mass shootings. This sermon has also been uploaded to the New International Fundamentalist Baptist bitchute channel, a conservative, King-James-Bible-only movement noted for its vehement opposition to homosexuality.
In a 2019 sermon titled “Vaccination Lies,” he called vaccines “dirty” because they contain “disease substances and various other types of chemicals”, which is the entire point of a vaccine. But as the Covid-19 outbreak began, the rhetoric shifted focus. In a March 2020 sermon titled “You’ve Been Lied To About Covid-19,” he called Covid-19 “a lie which deceived the entire world,” and that “vaccines are another lie”. In May, he preached about “Wicked Leaders,” claiming that disproven Covid-19 “cures,” like hydroxychloroquine and Vitamin D were really being covered up by the likes of Bill Gates. In August, in a sermon titled “Unmasking Evil,” he called (all) vaccinations “a complete scam,” saying that “you’re only scared of coronavirus because you’ve been told to be scared about coronavirus.” Recordings with audience members laughing in the background suggest they continued to meet in-person throughout the lockdown, potentially breaching Covid-19 restrictions.
Asked to comment about how the Uni will respond to Hewson’s actions, Seales told Critic Te Arohi that “We are unable to comment publicly about employment matters relating to individual staff members.”