Liz Gunn appears in court, says she was joking about getting two million votes

Author: Jaime Lyth,
Publish Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2023, 2:57PM

Political hopeful and former TV presenter Liz Gunn, who is accused of having scuffled with security at Auckland Airport, remains upbeat about the election holding out for special vote results.

She also says her two million vote prediction made at a public meeting during the recent campaign was said in jest to manifest into being.

Gunn reappeared in Manukau District Court alongside her co-accused Jonathan Clark today, facing charges after a scuffle at Auckland Airport’s international arrivals hall earlier in the year.

Gunn requested further security footage to be released from the incident which led to her being charged with assault, trespass, and resisting arrest.

Speaking outside the court, the New Zealand Loyal party leader clarified her comments that recently made headlines, where she predicted her New Zealand Loyal party would win two million votes in the election.

“The two million votes [comment] was a tongue-in-cheek thing.”

She described it as a wry way of explaining her aspirations for the party and said she was visualising a dream so it could become truth.

“In the context of the meeting, everyone laughed.”

At the start of the month, Gunn took to the stage at a New Zealand Loyal event and said society was being ruled by “at the very least utter bullies”.

“People are deriding me for saying two million [would support the party], wouldn’t it be funny if just quietly well over a million have actually voted for us. Let’s see what they do with the numbers.”

The party’s highest electorate result so far was in Northland, where over 1170 voters backed the TV presenter turned anti-vaccination campaigner.

However, the party’s results in each of the electorates were dwarfed by National, Labour, Act, New Zealand First and the Green party which all received thousands or in some cases more than 10,000 more than New Zealand Loyal.

Former TV newsreader Liz Gunn has been using her social media channels to spread her antivax views. Photo / Supplied

“It’s a tentative result,” Gunn said of her party’s results.

Gunn said she thought there were at least 700,000 special votes to be counted at a “conservative estimate.”

The Electoral Commission reports there are 567,000 special votes still to be counted.

She said she had received several phone calls and messages from her voters who said they had placed special votes.

“I advise people to let the dust settle.

“We still have a lot [of votes] to count.”

She described today’s court hearing as “very administrative.”

She earlier appeared in court in March, charged with assault, trespass, and resisting arrest after an alleged scuffle with a security guard at the airport over filming the arrival of an unvaccinated family arriving from Tokelau. She pleaded not guilty and was released on bail.

Gunn missed her following court appearance in June, citing illness.

Today in court she and her lawyer raised concerns over missing CCTV footage of the incident, and that police were holding onto the SD card that belonged to them.

Gunn spoke directly to the judge, saying she had “major rotator cuff damage” after the incident.

She said the current footage of the incident available obscures the injuries she suffered.

“It would be a major miscarriage of justice” for the proceedings to go ahead without more reference footage, Gunn argued.

She is expected to appear in court again on January 17, 2024.

Gunn, who was called under the name Elizabeth Cooney in court, told the Herald outside she was tired of being labelled as a conspiracy theorist.

“The public are over that, the term conspiracy theorist.”