FACT Aotearoa News Briefs 9 November 2026

Journalist who broke Michael Laws’ sexist comment story addresses ‘claims and conspiracies’ on reporting - The Herald
The journalist who broke the Michael Laws story says the “claims and conspiracies” around the reporting are unfounded. On his show on The Platform, Laws made remarks about Opportunity Party’s female candidates, comparing some to primary school teachers, commented on another’s hemline, called them “stern” and “princesses” and questioned what their face would look like “post-sex”.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/journalist-who-broke-mike-laws-sexist-comment-story-addresses-claims-and-conspiracies-on-reporting/D3MNQQGEJRDGJMRCDZ64QPJY5A/

What a decade of Pizzagate has done to America - The New York Times
Like all good conspiracy theories, Pizzagate was an accretion of highly charged, lurid and politically valuable distortions arranged around a pearl of truth: Sexual predators, especially powerful ones, are too rarely held accountable. That truth is why the theory broke into and has remained in the mainstream, minted a class of pundits and politicians and indelibly changed the rules of public discourse.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/01/opinion/pizzagate-conspiracy-epstein.html?unlocked_article_code=1.OVE.X5pw.TUXr45tACL46&smid=url-share

Qiulae Wong’s fun run bib and other enormous scandals from Election 2026 - The Spinoff
“Qiulae Wong and the Opportunity should front up to explain this. Are they telling the truth? Are they telling a lie?” Marie demanded. Her online posts spread quickly among conspiracy-minded social media users, convinced that Opportunity had pulled some kind of bait-and-switch to trick voters into thinking their leader ran 11km. If any of them had thought to check Wong’s Instagram page, they’d have noticed a stream of selfies and videos from Wong documenting her run over the harbour bridge.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/05-11-2026/qiulae-wongs-fun-run-bib-and-other-enormous-scandals-from-election-2026

NZ First candidates float ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory - Newsroom
NZ First MPs and candidates, including the party’s deputy leader Shane Jones, have made multiple references to an extremist conspiracy theory about migration in recent months. Asked who was being replaced, Jones said, “Those of us who are indigenous New Zealanders, white and brown. And if you want to replace the foundation influences, the foundation character of New Zealand, go and campaign on it.”
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/10/21/nz-first-candidates-reference-great-replacement-conspiracy-theory/

Striking number of Swiss find discredited conspiracy theories plausible - Le News
Nearly half the respondents in a Swiss survey considered it plausible that the coronavirus had been manufactured as a biological weapon in a Chinese laboratory. More than a third gave some credence to an antisemitic claim that Jewish networks secretly control much of Western politics.
https://lenews.ch/2026/11/06/striking-number-of-swiss-find-discredited-conspiracy-theories-plausible/