Elizabeth Jane Cooney, commonly known as Liz Gunn (born ), is the leader of the NZ Loyal Party, an anti-vaccination activist, conspiracy theorist, and a former television presenter from New Zealand.
Law and broadcasting career
Gunn was a litigation lawyer before beginning her TV career on the TVNZ show Sunday in 1992. From 1997 she was the first Breakfast newsreader, becoming one of the show's co-hosts (alongside Mike Hosking) in 2001. She unexpectedly quit that role on-air during the year's last episode. By then she had also begun broadcasting on Radio New Zealand. Other television roles included reporting for Holmes and newsreading on 1 News. Gunn moved to Australia after her TV presenting days ended in 2002, returning to New Zealand a decade later. She rejoined RNZ until 2016.
In 2017 she became a director and one-third shareholder of a new company, Lifeforce Water Limited.
Anti-vaccination activism
During the 2020s she became a leader in the anti-vaccination movement in New Zealand, and championed conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccine causing harm. When an earthquake struck the North Island in October 2021, Gunn called it Mother Nature's response to vaccination targets (which she described as "jab rape") and other covid-related policies implemented by the "tyrannical" Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern.
She was a leader and spokesperson in the 2022 protests occupying the New Zealand parliament grounds.
In December 2022 she was the spokesperson for parents who refused to allow their child to have a blood transfusion using blood donations from vaccinated people.
Auckland Airport assault case
In February 2023 Gunn was arrested at Auckland Airport. Along with cameraman Jonathan Clark, she was there to film the arrival of an unvaccinated family arriving from Tokelau. They scuffled with a security guard and were both arrested. She appeared in court the next month, charged with assault, trespass, and resisting arrest. Her plea was not guilty, and she was released on bail.
Gunn missed her next court date in June, citing illness, but returned in October. She requested more CCTV footage from the time of the alleged assault and is next expected to appear in January 2024.
New Zealand Loyal
In June 2023 Gunn announced a new political party, New Zealand Loyal. In the launch video she discussed conspiracies involving fluoridation, 1080, Bill Gates, "gender programming", the World Economic Forum, media, the 15-minute city urban planning concept, the "brown mafia", and odd weather patterns. She requested donations of up to $1,000,000 and stated an ambition at the time was to have 500 people (the minimum required to register a party) join within a week.
Gunn said at the time that it is a "compliment" to be called a conspiracy theorist, but by the end of the election campaign she was tired of that label.
New Zealand Loyal was registered two months later on 28 August 2023. Its official logo includes the slogan, "Loyal to You, Not to Them". Gunn said that the slogan refers to "the globalists".
2023 general election
Preliminary results of the 2023 New Zealand general election give NZ Loyal 1.16% of the party vote (26,141 votes), and therefore no elected representatives. This was in line with two opinion polls done in September 2023 for 1 News which reported support for New Zealand Loyal at 0.4% and 1.2%. Gunn had earlier claimed that her NZ Loyal party would win 2 million votes. In response to the preliminary results, Gunn stated that New Zealand was being ruled by a "criminal cabal and at the very least, utter bullies."
The party had intended to run a 15-person list in the election but failed to register most of those individuals in time. Consequently NZ Loyal's official party list contained Gunn, Peter Drew and Phillip George Engel. Engel then left the party so the list effectively contained only two candidates. Had NZ Loyal passed the 5% vote threshold those two would have become MPs with the rest of the party's seats staying vacant.