New Zealand Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins, has taken a page out of the gaslighting politician’s post-Covid playbook by claiming the vaccines were never compulsory.  

Hipkins, the former-Education Minister who took leadership following Jacinda Ardern’s resignation earlier in the year, said those who took the Covid vaccines “ultimately made their own choices.”

“In terms of the vaccine mandates, I acknowledge that it was a challenging time for people, but they ultimately made their own choices,” Hipkins said.

“There was no compulsory vaccination. People made their own choices.”

Of course, Hipkins isn’t the first politician to attempt to rewrite history and dodge responsibility for oppressive actions enforced during the “pandemic.” Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison have both claimed the jabs were never mandatory, laying responsibility for any negative side-effects on those who “chose” to take the vaccinations.

But despite Hipkins’ claim, New Zealand, like many other Western nations, did in fact impose harsh vaccination mandates on the people, with the government even threatening to “go out and find” the vaccine-hesitant and those who failed to “come forward” for their jabs.

The so-called “choice” many New Zealanders faced was simple: Get vaccinated or lose your job, lose your source of income, lose the ability to provide for your family.

Sure, we might call that a “choice,” but it was the government that reduced their options, like an armed robber demanding his victim either hand over the cash or get shot.

There’s usually a choice in an armed robbery, but that doesn’t make coercion any less coercive. It doesn’t make the vaccines any less compulsory when failure to comply means your career is destroyed and your finances ruined.