The distribution of what is being described as a book of extreme propaganda and religious rhetoric is causing concern around the country.
The book, National Sunday Law by A Jan Marcussen, is connected with an independent group of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
It is not endorsed by the New Zealand church.
Originally published in 1983, the book criticises the Catholic Church and claims the US Government is due to introduce laws reducing freedom of religion.
The 94-page book tells recipients “a stupendous crisis awaits us” and claims to take readers “behind the scenes.”
The mother of an 11 year old newspaper deliverer is disgusted distribution company Ovato expected her daughter and other children to deliver the booklet.
Children should not have been asked to deliver material containing “a conspiracy theory” and “extreme propaganda,” Haley Rivas Herrera says.
”It’s one thing to hand out supermarket flyers, but it’s another thing to be spreading around the messages in here,” the Lower Hutt-based mother says.
The books arrived with material including advertising for fast food chains, healthcare providers and liquor stores.
In Tauranga, the books were delivered with copies of The Weekend Sun in Tauranga without the knowledge of Sun Media director Claire Rogers or any of her staff.
A Tauranga resident contacted SunLive to raise concerns about this sort of material being delivered in a time of high anxiety.
“I’m used to getting all sorts of junk circulars from liquor stores to real estate agents boasting how great their sales capabilities are,” the resident says.
“I’m not offended at the “religious” character of the pamphlet. I don’t care about religious flavours.
“But I find it offensive to distribute religious, fear-mongering propaganda at a time when many people are in a vulnerable state of mind because of Covid.
“Anxiety, alcohol and other substance abuse are already on the rise as coping mechanisms.”
“We don’t really need any religious doom-and-gloom pamphlets to make things even worse for those who happen to read this stuff.”
An anti-junk mail group is shocked that 1.5 million copies of a religious propaganda book are being distributed throughout New Zealand.
Ecomailbox waste minimisation advocate Charlene Fitisemanu says any unsolicited, unordered book distributed to households is a huge waste.
“Multiply that by [the 1.5 million that were distributed] and it’s enormous. It’s not just the huge waste of trees and resources needed to produce it, it’s the cost to councils and households that are left with the responsibility of disposing of the material.
The books are published by an organisation called the NSL Project.
New Zealand news media website, Stuff, called a number listed in the book which was answered by a man who identified himself only as Brent.
He confirmed 1.5 million copies of the 94-page paperback had been printed and distributed in New Zealand.
He declined to comment further.
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