Susan Jane Grey is a political figure and environmental lawyer in Nelson, New Zealand. She is the co-leader of the NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party and of Freedoms NZ. She is known for promoting medicinal cannabis rights and opposing COVID-19 vaccination, 5G technology, and the use of 1080, frequently sharing misinformation on social media about the effectiveness of COVID vaccination.
Education and early career
Grey has law and science degrees, the latter majoring in microbiology and biochemistry. She also holds a Royal Society of Health Diploma.
Grey was admitted to the bar in Auckland on 1 October 1990. After being a partner in MS Sullivan and Associates, she became a self-employed lawyer based in Nelson.
Career
In a 2003 investigation by the Ministry of Fisheries into corruption in the scampi industry, Grey was appearing before the select committee representing fisheries company Barine Development. Grey began a relationship with Green Party MP Ian Ewen-Street, a member of the select committee, who at that time was separated from his wife. Both Grey and Ewen-Street were obliged to step down from the investigation; ACT leader Richard Prebble claimed that by having an affair they had "made a mockery of the enquiry". The couple had a child named Ysabella together, but later split.
In 2008, Grey represented a group of wool growers in a High Court case against the Wool Board, known as the Saxmere Case. After losing the case on appeal, it was revealed that the Wool Board's counsel was joint owner of a racehorse stud with one of the three judges. Grey argued in the Supreme Court that because of this conflict of interest the judge should have excused himself from the case, or disclosed the relationship in open court. The case grew to involve Attorney-General Michael Cullen, by which time Grey was working as a lawyer for the Department of Conservation. The Director-General of the department, Al Morrison, claimed her role in the Saxmere Case was in conflict with her work for DOC and fired her. In 2010 Justice Bill Wilson resigned over his part in the affair.
Brook Valley Community Group
The Brook Waimārama Sanctuary near Nelson had planned three aerial drops of 26.5 tonnes of brodifacoum-laced bait from July to October 2017 to eliminate all rodents within its predator-proof fence. This action was challenged in June by a group calling themselves the Brook Valley Community Group (BVCG), with Sue Grey as their lawyer and spokesperson, protesting the aerial poison drop near a waterway. Although portraying themselves as a community group, many of the organisers were anti-1080 activists from outside Nelson. The drop was halted while Grey took the case to the High Court on 7 August, and then, two days before the first drop, to the Court of Appeal; in both cases the court ruled against the BVCG. Nelson MP Nick Smith was accosted on 3 September 2017 (the day of the first drop) by two protesters who abused him, rubbed rat poison in his face, and threatened to poison his family. That same day, a hole was drilled in a fuel tank for helicopters performing the drop, several protesters attempted to block access, and three were arrested. Also on the day of the drop, several BVCG activists claimed on Facebook that they were being poisoned; Grey stated that her "exposed skin was red and burning", and asked her supporters "If my health suddenly deteriorates please can someone make sure that I get an urgent injection of Vitamin K."
The three poison drops subsequently went ahead, and no bait was dropped outside the sanctuary boundaries, nor was any trace of brodifacoum detected in the stream water. Grey defended the protestors who abused Nick Smith in court, but they were found guilty of offensive behaviour and fined.
Grey attempted to take the BVCG's appeal to the Supreme Court, but was denied – a decision Grey called "unbelievable" – and the group ordered to pay over $70,000 in legal costs to the Nelson City Council, the Minister for the Environment, and the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary Trust. The BVCG considered disbanding as an incorporated society to avoid having to pay the costs and "starting again somewhere else". After attempting to recover some of the $100,000 it had spent responding to the BVCG's legal action, the Nelson City Council applied in 2020 for the group to be liquidated.