By Penny Marie NZ
This is the crux of the training material we look at in this video, and it raises serious questions about ideological capture, psychological warfare, and who gets to decide what “extremism” looks like inside our military.
A fictional enemy that looks a lot like us
A leaked NZDF training pack sets its scenario in a made‑up country, but the map names – Murchison, Nelson, St Arnaud, “Rainbow” Ski Field – give the game away: this is New Zealand in all but name, and we hone in on the RAINBOW CONNECTION.
The “Visayan People’s Front” (VPF) is described as a “Christian extremist group” recruiting indigenous youth with promises of a “return to the traditional ways of a Christian nation,” explicitly mirroring Maori–Christian history and present‑day rural/urban political divides.
See the training manual documents in this post:
NZDF Leaked Training Documents
These documents were used in a training exercise conducted in November 2025 for a Junior Non Commissioned Officer Course in Burnham Army Base in Christchurch. I was sent what was deemed the most concerning pages, and all are shown below.
Ideological capture and psychological operations
The script of the exercise reads like a cut‑and‑paste of today’s culture war: Christian so-called “extremists,” (which are VERY MUCH NOT), Islamic extremists, campus occupations, referendums, coups and armed factions, all woven together in a way that treats conservative or Christian worldviews as a security problem.
This as an example of fifth‑generation warfare: narrative, language and training materials being used to dehumanise, destabilise and push populations toward crisis so a pre‑baked “solution” can be imposed.
We connect the training scenario to NZDF’s broader DEI and rainbow commitments: Pride Pledge membership, compulsory “rainbow awareness” training, and the embedding of DEI language across policies, KPIs and leadership structures.
We obtained an OIA response showing NZDF spending roughly NZD $46,000 over three years on Pride Pledge fees alone, on top of internal time and other rainbow‑industry consultancy – public money underwriting an ideological programme, not just neutral “inclusion.”
The Brad in every organisation
We introduce Brad Poulter, a he/him, ex‑Navy, now in a strategic diversity role and a former chair of the NZDF rainbow network OverWatch, as profiled by the Rainbow Excellence Awards.
The point is not personal but systemic: Every large organisation with a Rainbow Tick or Pride Pledge will have one or more internal champions whose job is to operationalise DEI, sit in cross‑agency rainbow networks, and ensure that “rainbow KPIs” flow right up to executive leadership and into training.
Extremism, children, and the spiritual dimension
The latter half of the conversation widens out: From NZDF training to the police‑endorsed “Anti‑Transgender Extremism” guideline that effectively labels ordinary parents and critics of child medicalisation as extremists.
The trans rights activists try very hard to connect ordinary parents who reject trans ideology who are of all faiths/no faith to ‘extreme right wing Christians’… which is total rubbish. Now, we can see why that’s an important part of the rhetoric they have created. Are we seeing the start of the next ‘phase’ of psychological warfare in New Zealand?
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Via https://www.pennymarie.nz/p/why-are-the-nz-defence-force-training
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