Welcome to Episode 1 of KEEP IT TWISTED, the official podcast of the Motorcycle Advocacy Group NZ.

Host Pete is joined by MAGNZ Chief Executive, Richard Tohu and National Rider Coordinator, Antz Nathan.

Richard and Antz discuss origins of MAGNZ, which now boasts 14,000 members. They recount key milestones along the way, including rallies and the Rego Freeze campaign as well as the legal action against the ACC and their calls for transparency and accountability.

The episode serves as both an informative narrative of their advocacy journey and a rallying cry for motorcyclists to unite against perceived injustices in government policy.

Find our more about MAGNZ at www.magnz.org.nz

Visit the MAGNZ fundraising page at https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/help-magnz-challenge-unlawful-motorcycle-levies

Shop in the MAGNZ online store at https://magnz.ezymerch.co.nz/.

Takeaways:

• Motorcycle registration costs in New Zealand have seen significant increases, causing widespread frustration among riders.
• MAGNZ is actively challenging the ACC motorcycle levy increase through legal avenues and public advocacy.
• The podcast features founding members of MAGNZ who share insights into the organisation's mission and the community's response to rising costs.
• The discussion emphasises the sense of camaraderie among motorcyclists, uniting them against perceived injustices regarding registration fees.
• MAGNZ has grown rapidly, with nearly 14,000 members joining to voice their concerns over motorcycle registration policies.

Are you frustrated by the constantly rising cost of motorcycle registration here in New Zealand? If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone.

I'm Pete and this is Keep It Twisted, the official podcast of the Motorcycle Advocacy Group New Zealand or or MAGNZ.

If you've seen the news reports, followed us on Facebook or checked out the MAG NZ website, you'll already know that we're fighting back against the ACC motorcycle levy increase.

I joined MAGNZ earlier this year and like a lot of you, I've been trying to get my head around the issues, the data, the arguments, the politics and all the different opinions. It's complex stuff. As a motorcycle rider, I've been directly hit by these increases and as a podcaster, I wanted to do something about it.

So here we are, the very first episode of Keep It Twisted. Today I'm joined by two founding members of MAGNZ, Richard Tohu, chief Executive, and Antz Nathan, the national ride coordinator.

What you're going to hear is a full free flying conversation about the story of MAGNZ, how it all started, the.

Key battles they've fought, the milestones they've.

Achieved and what's driving them on. We won't be going deep into the legal case today. We'll tackle that properly in a future episode.

Instead, I wanted to set the scene and let you hear the story straight from the people leading the charge. So here we go, let's Keep It Twisted.

So I'm joined today by Richard and Antz from the MAGNZ team. I'll introduce them one at a time so you can get used to their voices. But fellas, it's lovely to meet you. And Richard, G'. Day.

Hey, Hutchie, thanks for having us on board.

Thank you for agreeing to let me do a Keep It Twisted podcast on your behalf.

Thank you for asking us. It's actually quite exciting and I think it's going to be great for our movement. I'm thankful that we got connected. Hutchi.

So that's excellent, mate, thank you.

It's funny how life turns out sometimes. And I'll introduce Antz. Antz, how are you, buddy?

I'm good, thanks, Hatchie. It was quite interesting how our paths met. We had our rally down in Christchurch. It all sort of fell into place from there.

I've been following the MAGNZ page for maybe a year, maybe a little bit longer than that, and I saw that you'd done the ride in Auckland. I've known Paul geeke for about 10 years and he phoned me and said, hey mate, can you ride Tail end Charlie on the protest ride at the High court.

And I have to say, and I said it in the trailer, it's the best day out I've had on a bike in a long time. It was just fantastic. The passion from everybody there, the organization, it was just an awesome effort.

As I rode my motorbike back home, I thought, you know, this has just got the bones of a really cool podcast. And here we are. Thank you.

It was quite ironic because after the court hearing, Richard and Mark had a briefing. And Richard will be able to explain the conversation that they had to lead us to where we are today.

We were having a debriefing, we were just yarning away and Mark Chappell said, what we need is some multimedia and we needed somebody to sort of help us out with that. So we had another whiskey and we had a little think about that a little bit more.

And then I think it was the next day, somebody muted this idea and I said, that's what we were talking about. This is it, this podcast. That's going to be it.

We might help the listeners by going back to the very beginning because some people will understand where we're at and others might be new, especially those who are listening in from overseas. They'll be new to the situation.

So can we just set the scene as to what happened to make you fellas feel so aggrieved that you felt the need to start a protest movement?

Richard and I have known one another most of our life. Like we went to primary school, high school, college together, we ventured out into the world and then we came back.

Well, yeah, yeah, we were having one of those catch ups because our paths crossed again. You know, we hadn't seen each other for a long time and then we. We crossed paths on a motorcycle ride. That's what usually happens.

And me and Antz were having a whiskey and we were quite annoyed as well. And basically we just looked at one other. Well, we should do something, mate. What are we going to do?

Well, to give people an idea of the scale of it, you've got something like 14,000 members on that Facebook page now.

Yes, that's correct. With a closer end to 14,000, which.

That's a huge achievement.

It's approximately 100 a day coming on now. Just about probably 80 to 100 new people joining daily. It's really ramping up now. That's the beauty of social media. It's helping us grow.

Not me, not really.

And when you started that page, did you have a plan?

It's kind of evolved over time and somebody will come up with an idea and then we'll have a yarn about it and say, oh, that's not a bad idea and let's look into that a little bit more. And it's just kind of amazing how, how things can develop. It's just like a big boom and snowball rolling down a mountain.

By October, we were knocking on the back door of our first 1,000 members. That's how fast it grew from September to October. We have our first rally in October. That was just to see who was interested in the St. Richard.

That was really nothing. It was everyone come together on a Sunday just to get some head count of numbers.

29 November was the ACC one and 3 November was the regional, the 12 regions.

And what was the turnout?

Auckland was quite huge. Hamilton one was huge. Probably a thousand riders on a street in Hamilton.

Did you organise that through the police and the council or did you just put the word out on your Facebook page? Everybody were having a get together.

It took us a long time to work that one out and we learned by our mistakes. Every rally we did, we virtually just nominated an area in one of those 12 centers and said, everyone go there.

Another thing we learned from planning on Facebook was when you set up an event on Facebook, especially this type of an event, bugger all, people are going to say they're coming, they're not going to commit because it's kind of like, oh, we're going to a protest, am I going to commit to this or no? So we always got way more people turn up on the day and then said that they were committing to it leading up to the event. So now we know.

Don't take this as any indication of how many people are going to turn up because more are going to turn up.

See, my experience is always the other way that I've tried to set up rides for the motorbike clubs that I'm a member of and you get 10 or 12 people say, I'll be there. And on the day you're the only person on these bikes sitting in the car park waiting for everyone to turn up. So I'm just hugely impressed.

And I guess what it shows is that people who ride motorbikes are genuinely upset and aggrieved by this government policy.

That's what it is. That's what it is. Hutchie.

It's a very emotional topic and like there's a range of emotions and one of them is anger because people just feel ripped off. It's quite easy to motivate people when they're already motivated, you know what I'm saying?

They just needed somebody to say, hey, well we're doing this, let's all join together and all do it.

All that was missing is they had the motivation, they just needed to be moved and inspired.

And the motivation comes from the fact that registration fees include an element which is a levy imposed by the Accident Compensation Commission. And that's gone up from a couple of hundred dollars three or four years ago to $600 this year.

Correct.

It's a huge payment, especially when you think if you've got a three ton, four wheel drive, you're only going to pay $245 a year.

That's right. So it does seem unfair, unjust, a lot of other things.

But it wasn't really until recently, talking a couple of months ago, where we decided maybe it's actually unlawful and started us on what we're doing now, taking.

Them to court to get this advocacy group up and running.

You've done a huge number of freedom of information requests and there in the last maybe two or three months, you formed an incorporated society which is actually formalized the legitimacy of the Motorcycle Advocacy Group.

We wanted to be taken seriously as a legitimate organization and to do that we needed to follow a few steps. And that was one of the steps. So that we're not just a Facebook group. We are that.

We are a Facebook group, but now we're actually a legitimate incorporated society.

So we're a proper organization and we can operate legally, we can take people to court or we can support others that are taking the government to court. So that's given us a good standing.

Before we even got talking about incorporation.

Rick brought some skills to the table that he was good at and I bought some skills to the table that I was good at and they happened to gel quite nicely together with social media and then my organization skills. And it was a big thing that we had to trust one another right from the start and we had that bond growing up together.

So it was quite easy for us to throw things at one another and give it the tick of approval if it deserved it or say, hang on bro, let's talk about this. And because we had that trust in one another along the way, we had to learn a lot of things, eh Richard? It was a lot of learning, especially.

The past month learning legal stuff. I don't really want to do that again.

Yeah, it's been a journey.

I don't imagine there's many fellas who take the government to high court. Sitting out there listening to this though,.

Just to be clear, it's Mark Chappell taking the government to court and Megan Z. Is there as support. So we're in a support capacity. So that's how the case is set out. But yeah, definitely we are a big part of that.

Richard, can you talk about how you came into contact with Mark?

Sure. Mark contacted me through email because I've put my contact details up on our page and I get contacted by a lot of of people with a lot of ideas.

A lot of them are not that flash, but some of them are okay.

I think I did about three emails with Mark before we had a phone conversation and that led to a group phone conversation because it was looking like, no, I think Mark's got a. Got a really good idea.

Richard, you're working as well, aren't you? You're not just doing this all the time.

I'm a risk management specialist. So in layman's terms, what that is, I'm a health and safety compliance trainer. So I train employees for companies on a contract basis.

So I'm not working every day so I can do this. You know, if I was working a full time job, I wouldn't be able to put in as much effort because of the Flexibility of my work arrangement.

So it works in quite well. Yeah.

And Antz. You're not a retired gentleman, are you?

No, I'm still clocking in 60 to 65 hours a week, mate. And then trying to put as much time into jumping on the page, assisting with moderating, training.

Part of our growth was we always at the start, tried to stay one step ahead of our members, determine what kind of questions they were going to ask and try and say one step ahead and then have the answers. And it got to the point where it was just too much for Richard and I to moderate and do that.

So we had to recruit some moderators and they're doing a magnificent job.

I know there's a group of people who helped at the protest ride on the day. The one thing that struck me was how well organized it was, the planning and the briefings beforehand on that ride.

And I think that's a reflection that. Anthony, you've got a role as the National Ride Coordinator. Can you tell us how that came about?

I've attended every single rally bar this one. And I was talking to you about some of the skills that each of us brought to the table.

I ride and organize rides for a couple of three motorcycle clubs. I'm usually the road captain for them, so I brought those schools along.

And Richard has been involved in a couple of those rides that I've organized, so that gave him the confidence to let me roll with it.

And that's really important, isn't it?

Because when you get people on motorcycles in a big group, the risk threshold goes up quite a lot because you've got all that traffic on the road, you can never be quite sure how other people are going to ride. And I suppose you always have to factor in that some people just are going to blip the throttle and show off.

Yes. Our first couple of rallies, the police was never involved.

The Harbour Bridge would have been the first one we got involved with the police, but we were always about rider safety. That was our most important thing, was the safety of the members as they rode.

Another thing I want to mention is that it was a lot of educating members that most people are used to a start point in an end point, like you ride to a start point, you gather and you ride to an end point. Our rides are a bit different. You ride from wherever you are to the end point and then we go to do the rally after that.

That was quite hard, trying to educate people that, no, there is no ride. The riders you ride into where the rally point is. That's the Ride.

So they're coming from all different directions and there's not a big convoy. The meeting point is the meeting point.

Yep. You get a specific time and then you're there. That was quite, I wouldn't say difficult.

It was just out of people's comfort zone to ride to an end point.

When you came to the Harbour Bridge. Ride for people who aren't from Auckland to understand this.

The Harbour Bridge is a four lane motorway that comes in and out of Auckland from the North Shore.

And.

And it's not the sort of thing that you're allowed to just ride over in a great big convoy without any permission or control.

No, we had reasonably good control of the previous rides, but we knew that if we're going to ride across the Harbour Bridge, there's going to be police involvement whether we invited it or not.

And it would be better that we invited them and told them what we were doing beforehand, got them on board and worked with them so that we could make sure that it was going to be safe for everybody, not just the riders, but members of the public and all that sort of stuff. We had a couple of meetings with them and it was really good.

If you let them know what you're doing and that your aim is to be safe and not be a pack of idiots, do burnouts and stuff. Which we were clear, no, this is not the type of protest, guys.

Because inevitably you did get some coming up in the feed saying, oh yeah, we're going to stop on the motorway and we're going to block it for hours. It's like, no, that's not what we're doing. That is not what we're doing. We don't do protesting like that.

We are following a different path, one where we can kind of try and work in with members of the public and not piss them off too much, but still get the visibility that we needed.

Because, you know, that's why we're doing the protesters, so that we can bring our issues to the public and not have them think that we're all just a bunch of dickheads that just don't want to pay the bill.

And that turned into a fairly major event. It was on the national tv. Did you get an accurate count of how many people turned up on bikes that day?

I walked around the Crowd introducing myself to people, just saying hello and stuff. And a lot of the people there were not even part of our Facebook page, but they had heard from somebody else.

So either their mate was a Facebook member or they'd seen a poster put up somewhere or word of mouth. So there was a lot of people just turned up, but they're not even part of the group, so we try and get them to join as well.

Most of our events prior to the Auckland Harbour Bridge, we spent two to three weeks on.

First of all, we had to look for nine different organizers for each destination, and then we had to train them, educate them on how we want the ride to look like. So that took two to three weeks. The Auckland Harbour Bridge took 12 days, and then the Christchurch one, that was under two days.

That was pretty quick. Like I said before, we learned each rally where we could make things better, and then we're able to speed up the process of organizing events.

The rallies really have a purpose. It's about showing the depth of feeling and bringing people together so that you raise public awareness of the issue that's facing motorcyclists.

On the back of that, how did you plan for your media coverage? Because I have to say, it's been exceptional.

The amount of tv, newspaper, online coverage that you've had for the High Court action has just been stupendous.

It's the same as how we've grown. You get a PR guru who sees or hears about what we're doing and decides, you know what, I wouldn't mind helping these guys out.

And so they throw their hat in the ring as well. You can email as many media as you'd like, but whether or not they're going to pick up a story is, you know, it's pretty hit and miss.

But for the Christchurch one, we had extra help. So a friend of Mark Chappell's has been helping us out with that. So that really, really did come together, didn't it?

Like you say, it popped up in newspapers. I've never even heard of the protest.

Rides and the Facebook page were all one part of the action. But you also launched a campaign where you encourage motorcyclists to put their registrations on Freeze.

Can you explain to me how and why that came about?

The Rego Freezepeople were saying, oh, you need to get 10,000 bikes and go and park up at Parliament. And we're like, you know what that's been done before and what happened?

Not a lot.

We need to have a different approach.

And we both said, let's hit them in the pocket. Let's hit them in the pocket.

We decided we have to make them feel the financial pain like we are, by trying to encourage people to put it on hold, to use hold strategically, to not pay and just withhold that money. And it's starting to catch on now we can see the figures coming back. So that's good. We know that it's actually working.

And as our group grows, as our visibility grows, that will just have an even bigger impact because more people will put their bikes on hold. So, I mean, the government needs to do something about it. They're forcing non compliance, really.

You know, they should make a better price, a realistic price that motorcyclists will choose to pay and have more compliance. But no, they've chosen the wrong path. So this is what's happening.

You might be able to rattle off some of the stats on that, Rick. I think it was 10,000 bikes. So. So many million.

Yeah. That's a lot of money. Potentially that's going to cost the government the more people put their bikes on hold. And it is in the millions.

And that was 20% increase of people that have put their bikes on hold from December till May. The week before I got an FOIA response from NZTA which said it was a 1% increase, which was negligible and they weren't bothered.

And then a week later, just last week got another one, another OIA response which was like, oh, hang on, ask. If you ask the questions in a different way, you get different answers and it's. Oh, no, it's, it's a lot more.

The percentage of motorcyclists that are putting their bikes on hold is closer to 20%. And I think in the larger capacity it was even more. So we are having a real impact on their revenue stream.

They need to do something about that because, you know, we need to pay for people's injuries somehow.

So that's actually a very clever form of protest. And it's a legal form of protest, isn't it? You can take your motorcycle off the road and declare it as unregistered or off road.

And if you do that, you then don't pay a registration fee because you're not using your bike on the road. If I did that, the government wouldn't get three months worth of registration is the minimum period you have to do.

But if 10,000 riders do that, all of a sudden that starts to add up to a lot of money, doesn't it?

Yes, it does. Millions. I think the figure was 5.5 million of 10,000 bikes.

As a motorcyclist. The downside of that is that I legally, I can't ride my bike on the road if it's been declared off road.

Not legally.

There's a risk involved.

Yeah, it's a potential offence. It's only an offence though, if you get caught.

We don't condone people to go out and break the law, but we know for a fact that thousands of motorcyclists are riding dark. They call it riding dark. Right. They've got it on hold and they're still riding it anyway. Like I said, we don't condone that. But that's the reality.

The reality of the government's policy is more and more people are saying, you know what, it's going to cost me $816 to register it. I'm just going to take the risk. If I get caught, it's only going to cost me $200 and some demerit points. So I'll just take that risk.

That's bad policy. That's what that is.

I agree. And it's crazy that the government have forced people into that position.

It's crazy, crazy.

And we've also sort of worked out through some polls that some people that have been riding for a very long time have been doing this for a very long time. The hold, even before Mags even mentioned it, they were legally putting their bikes on hold and registering them when they wanted to go for a ride.

Yeah, I know a lot of riders on the south island who put the bikes on hold through June, July, August because it's cold and wet outside and it's not much fun, especially if you're on an unfair bike.

The annoying thing about that is that it's a minimum of three months and if you decide you want to go out on your bike during that three month period, you have to pay back to the first day of the hold.

Yes. Or take the risk.

Which we don't condone.

Which we don't condone.

Are there any insurance implications if you ride without current registration?

Some people believe there is, but we've looked into it and we've had people from the insurance industry confirm that an insurance company can't lawfully default payment or refuse to pay just on the grounds that your motorcycle didn't have a current rego. A lot of the companies will try it on because if somebody just says, oh, okay, then my bad, then they save money. Right.

But if you say, well, no, that's not fair, that didn't cause the crash. In fact, it wasn't even my fault. This other guy took it out. I had a warrant of fitness, my tires were good, my brakes were good.

It just didn't have a paid up rego. You still have to pay my insurance and that is true. So you, you have grounds to take that insurance company to.

There's a, an Insurance Council and nine times out of 10 if you threaten to do that, they'll just back down and pay out. As long as it wasn't your fault, obviously you were speeding or your tyres are bald or what have you.

We've got information on that up on our page in the guides section. We will even support riders with letters to the insurance council.

I've got a template letter there if anyone ever needs that to email to the insurance council. We can help out with that.

But of course you don't condone any body riding without current registration.

That's right. That's law breaking. But again we're back to that policy thing.

The policy is turning normally law abiding citizens into people that are willing to break the law because the policy is that bad. That is bad policy.

And that's not just your opinion, is it? That you've had so much support from people, professional people as well, who've chipped in and agree with that position.

This isn't something that you've made up just because you're upset that the rego fees have gone up. It's a more fundamental issue than that.

That's right.

This policy belongs to the government through ACC and the New Zealand Transport Authority.

This is not our policy, this is their policy.

How do you actually go about engaging the people who are in a position to A explain the policy and justify it and then B to change it? Because that's what we're after. We're after a change to the published policy.

Richard, I think this might be the. Is it the second or the third minister we've dealt with?

ACC minister? Yeah, I think it's the third ACC minister. Yeah. Third since we started.

Yeah. Matt Doocy and then somebody else can't even remember his name because he was only in little time.

And now there's Scott Simpson.

Scott Simpson. Oh yes, Scott Simpson.

Do you think I'm.

An idiot or something, mate, what the hell, why would you even say that? You just make yourself look stupid saying stuff like that.

So I followed that straight up with a follow on OIA putting them straight, saying, well, actually no, you still have to provide that information. Just because you took the job on then doesn't mean we can't see what happened before then. So please provide it when we're still waiting.

This is why we have to take them to court. They just keep dragging it out.

Fundamentally then, the policy, the decision to increase levies was based on the fact that injuries caused in motorcycle related accidents cost more to treat.

Yes, but the scant evidence to support that, especially that they've linked the size of the engine or the CC capacity of the bike to the level of risk. And yet you're saying there's no substantive evidence to support that position.

So acc, they won't explain it and they won't show us the evidence behind it. They keep just making excuses right back at the start.

We asked them when we first got on, hang on, we haven't actually seen the evidence that justifies these increases. They're saying that these higher CC or these larger engines are more higher risk. Where's that evidence?

So in several OIA requests they've pointed to data and studies and information that doesn't even prove it. They say, well, here it is here. So we go and have a look at it, analyze it, It's. Well, actually, no, that doesn't even prove it.

Have you got anything else? Because that didn't work. But they just stick to their guns and say, well, that's it.

We don't actually use crash studies to determine how risky motorcycles are. We use the cost of the injuries to determine the risk. Well, that's not how proper risk rating is done.

They're rating the risk of how much it's going to cost them, not how motorcyclists get hurt. Their evidence that they're showing us doesn't prove that the bigger the bike, the higher the risk.

All it proves is that motorcyclists are more vulnerable. That's what their evidence proves. We are more vulnerable because we don't have A protective shell around us.

So when we are involved in a collision because somebody pulled out in front of us, we are going to get damaged and killed. Whereas if it was a car on car, potentially the injury would be less or less death.

But in those accidents that are caused by other vehicles, it's costing us.

They're piling the cost back on us as if to say, well, the fault lies with motorcyclists because you chose to ride a motorcycle and in doing so you will be more vulnerable. That's on you. Well, no, we don't accept that. We don't accept that that's a proper way to rate the risk. They have to do it differently.

No, there's not. In fact, we've found studies which say that the 250s and the smaller bikes have more accidents. So they've really kind of fudged it a bit.

They've fudged it that much that there was a stage there.

We were throwing all these OIAS out and there was a little point there where one of the analysts that they get the information from was blaming another one and then they would say, no, we haven't got the information, they've got it. They were throwing one another under the bus. Okay, we haven't got it, they've got it. So would OIA them. No, we didn't get it.

We gave it to them, we gave it to acc. No, ACC would go, no, no, we haven't got it, we gave it to nzda. So with OIA that they go, no, no, no, we handled it, but we gave it back to acc.

So it was like, these guys are just.

Thing is with the OIAs is that if you hammer them with enough. So it was averaging 3.6 OIAs a week and they, and they complained that it was too many OIAs.

And it said, well, just give us the information that we want to see.

Well, it was fortunate enough that through them throwing it backwards and forwards, we got some pretty powerful information out of them.

If you ask for some information and they won't give it to you, you've quite often just got to ask in a different way to try and try and get that information from them.

And so then what happens is because they're throwing it around between the agencies and then sooner or later one of them trips up and contradicts the other one. So we then say, oh, we've got it. This is, this is contradictory. This is good. We'll have this, we'll use that in court.

An official information request isn't something they can ignore either, is it?

Absolutely can't. They have to. They've got 20 days and they can add another 10 days on, get an extension. So it's about a month.

So it's a bit slow turnaround, but we're just keeping the pressure on them.

At this point, as MAGNZ asked, it's 15,000 members to lodge multiple OIAs that.

Potentially would be vexatious, So we probably wouldn't do that. And the other thing is too, like the more OIA requests you've got, then you have to process them when they come back.

So, you know, sometimes there's five pages but sometimes there's 300 pages. It's a lot to process, but thankfully to AI, we can process those pretty rapidly.

So I suspect that the government is using their AI to sort out our OIAs and it's coming back here and then we're just scanning it with our robot. And so we've got Megan Z robots arguing against government robots because aren't they sacking off all their humans?

And it's important to stress there that the purpose of those official information requests isn't to upset ACC and calls them extra work, it's to find and establish the true rationale for this policy decision which has led to higher fees for motorcyclists.

Another interesting fact that the listeners might want to hear about is the Ombudsman.

If an agency fails to give the information that you've asked for, because they can, they can deny under certain sections of the Freedom of Information act and they can redact information, all that sort of stuff, but it has to be legit. They can't just tell you that you can't have it because they just don't. They want you to find out about it.

They, you know, they have to have legitimate reasons if they won't voluntarily give us the information. Personally, I don't think that they have the evidence to back up the CC rating, risk rating. I don't think they have any.

So that's why they can't give it to us. Because if you had that information when you came up with the policy, why is it now so hard to find it?

The only conclusion you can come to from that is that it's poor policy at best and it's a legal policy at worst.

Unlawful, mate. Potentially unlawful. Which is why when Mark Chappell contacted me and told me a strategy I said, mate, I think that's the winner.

So, yeah, potentially it is unlawful.

I know we're planning to record an episode with Mark and we'll go over the legal action in much more detail there. But is it worth giving just a quick overview of it at this stage? I know there were two parts.

There was the injunction to stop the rise on the first of July, and then there's the judicial review. Is it worth just explaining the complexities of that simply for people without getting.

Too, too deeply into it? The interim order or the interim injunction was an attempt to stop the increase going ahead on the 1st of July.

That was always going to be a high bar, right. That was not going to be easy to get. So we were under no illusions, but it was worth trying for. And the judicial review still goes ahead either way.

Okay. So we had to try for that. We kind of run out of time because we were under a lot of pressure putting the case together.

Perhaps if we had have had a month up our sleeve, perhaps we could have done it differently or I'm not sure. But in a sense it achieved a goal of improving our visibility. Like you said, it got really good media coverage. So in that sense it was successful.

We always knew the judicial review was going to go ahead in any case. Regardless of that decision, I will leave the judicial review for Mark.

Just saying again that it's Mark Chappell that is bringing that hearing to court. We're just there as support for him and as well, all the members that are opting in are there to support Marks.

And it was a strategy that was chosen for a number of reasons which Mark can help our listeners understand. It just worked out as a good way to do it.

I know people can join the Facebook group and they answer the couple of questions to come on board and be a member of the MAGNZ community on Facebook. How do they actually join the Incorporated Society? Is there a mechanism that lets them do that?

Yeah, that form.

So that online form where they opt in, they can also join Megan Z as a social member of the Incorporated Society and they can either opt in as well to the case as a supporter of Mark Chappell if they wanted to. That's all part of that online form that pops up every 100 new members. That message pops up and shows them the form link and the Give a Little.

And important to say that the Give A Little campaign is in the name of the Motorcycle Advocacy Group.

So that's going to help us support Mark and our fight against the government or against ACC. I just had a look, it was just about 35 grand. It's building pretty good, eh?

It's not in your individual names. And all the money that is raised for that is going towards the legal challenge.

Absolutely. It can only be spent on the legal challenge. So all the costs associated with getting Mark through court, we might have to buy some legal advice soon.

So we're in a position where we can afford that now and get him to court. Because they're trying to push to move it to Wellington. He's trying to fight to keep it in Christchurch because he lives in Christchurch.

ACC is saying that the decision was made in Wellington, therefore the case should be heard in Wellington. Mark is saying that he is adversely affected by a decision made in Wellington.

In Christchurch, because he lives in Christchurch and that's where he pays his registration bill. So therefore it should be in Christchurch. So that's the next little wee skirmish that's. That's coming.

But if we need to get him to Wellington, we will get him to Wellington. That's what this fundraising part of.

It's for those illegal costs, just getting him there or getting him to a video audio room in the courthouse or somewhere, you know, we. Because on 22 June, those lawyers for ACC were on video, so why can't they do that again? But Mark will be fighting for that.

It wasn't so long ago, Hutchie, the Rick and I. I think it was just before the Auckland rally, Rick and I were looking at one another and we were going, who would have thought? Two country boys taking the government to court. We're actually gonna do it. We each have a passion and that passion is for the same cause.

And I think that's what brings us together is the passion.

And, you know, that's one of the reasons why I was keen to get involved, using my skills to help you with this podcast, because it's such a cool story. It's a real David and Goliath. The everyday man in New Zealand is standing up for his right to ride a motorcycle.

And we're being priced out of the market, we're being priced off the road. And I'll take my hats off to you fellas for the amount of work and effort and just energy that you've brought into it.

There's one other thing that listeners won't have seen, and that's the tremendous sense of brotherhood, of fellowship, of people who've come together to fight this cause. It's been a unifying force. And if ACC thought they were going to divide and conquer, they've really picked the wrong fight, I think.

Yeah.

And even before Maggie and Z come along, one of the things I love about motorcycling is it doesn't matter what your background is or what type of motorcycle you ride. You pull up to a servo to fill up with fuel and there's another couple of people on their motorcycles. You say, g', day, how's it going?

Great day for a ride. You start talking bullshit about motorcycles or what have you, but it's that camaraderie and you don't even know them.

You know, you can talk to total strangers and it's like, hey, we've got a thing in common that is awesome. And that is a thing that won't easily be broken. That camaraderie that motorcyclists have without even knowing one another.

We can just join together like we have done with MAGNZ. We've come together and there's going to be many thousands more come together and join this thing. We're at what, 14,000 members.

It's just going to keep on growing. So.

And that's part of was quite interesting, Hutchie.

Our first couple of three rallies and we had all these big tough Harley riders riding with these big soft road bike riders and then we had some enduro riders. It was quite funny to see, you know, coming together all shapes and sizes,.

But everyone was there with one purpose. Yeah, I think that's a nice place to finish it off.

I'd like to thank you both for taking the time to A, let me create this podcast for you and B, for taking time to on the show with me. I've really enjoyed the conversation and I'm sure the listeners will learn a lot from it.

That cool, man.

Thank you, Archie.

You're very welcome.

Cheers, mate.

Before I leave, I'd like to thank the Mag NZ team for trusting me to create Keep It Twisted on their behalf. And of course, I have to give a massive shout out to Richard and Ant for carving out time from their insanely busy schedules to join me for the chat.

After we finished recording, Richard sent through some fresh stats from his latest official information request.

According to NZTA data, the number of motorcycles on exemption hold jumped from around 85,600 at the end of December to over 103,000 by the end of May. That's a net increase of around 17,700 bikes.

Even more telling, their data shows that the biggest increase came from the highest capacity motorcycles, those of 751 cc's and above. If just 10,000 riders put their bikes on hold for three months, the government would lose $2.1 million in revenue.

Stretch that to six months and it becomes 4.1 million and a full year. We're talking over $8.1 million. Those are powerful numbers, and it shows that the Reggio Freeze protest is already hitting them where it counts.

If you haven't already done so, please visit the MAGNZ website, check out the link to the High Court Action, the Give a Little Campaign and our merchandise shop and every dollar we raise will help us take this fight to court.

And before you leave, please click Follow or subscribe in your podcast app to make sure you get the next episode of Keep It Twisted delivered direct to your device. Thanks for listening, folks. Stands up, visors down and keep it twisted.

We're not gonna pay it and no, we ain't gonna pay it we're not. Not gonna pay.

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