‘Farcical stitch-up’: Calls to boycott Auckland Pride parade after board wins vote
The Auckland Pride board will stay in power after a vote of no confidence failed to pass on Thursday night.The vote came after the board’s controversial decision to bar police officers wearing uniforms from the parade caused uproar.
But some are calling the victory the result of dirty tactics. When the controversy erupted in November there were only about 200 members in total, but by Thursday there more than 600 voters.
The end result was neck-and-neck with 273 voting no confidence, but 325 voting against.
Appearing on The AM Show on Friday, Rainbow NZ chair Gresham Bradley said there had been a “political takeover”.
“The People against Prisons Aotearoa people and some of their union friends stacked up the membership,” he said.
“They’d leapt through a loophole in the constitution which would obviously need to be closed if this organisation indeed manages to survive.”
Of course it was a stitch up, PAPA sent out an email calling on people to enrol so that they could protect the decision…
Kia ora whānau,
As many of you may have heard the Auckland pride board decided to not to let police wear uniforms in the pride parade. Obviously we ideally we would not like police to march at all but this was a good first step and compromise. There has been a lot of backlash though and the people who want cops to march in uniform have been signing people up to be members and are planning on calling for a special general meeting to try and get rid of the current board members. So if you’re LGBT please sign up so that we can push for this decision to not be overturned.
Ngā mihi,
Auckland Branch
…but that’s the way you play politics so complaining about their ability to stack the voting process seems pretty weak. The decision to keep the Pride Board is an enormous win for the Pure Temple Exclusionists and heralds the new rise of left wing politics that defines itself by exclusion rather than inclusion.
It’s pretty much the Green Party strategy for 2020.
The woke have won the battle, the question remains if they can win the war. The anger this has generated in the wider rainbow community could lead to an enormous boycott of the event itself, and the woke will need to truck in most of Wellington to make the parade look as full as previous years.
The woke have managed to raise some cash for the parade with all the sponsors pulling out so perhaps splintering off to do their own thing and pay for it makes sense long term.
Ultimately identity politics has to work out how to get to the democratic majority of 51%, this decision to exclude suggests the democratic majority under identity politics will be a very difficult mountain to climb.
As someone who has gone to almost every Hero and pride parade and has loved taking my Daughter to show her what inclusion looks like, I fear 2019 might be a lot less friendly and far more aggressive so I think I’ll sit this one out until the Rainbow Community has sorted it out.
So are you complaining because PAPA did organize to enroll people and the other side did not? If the side opposing exclusion can not get themselves together to organize a counter enrolment strategy then they were never as overwhelming as they thought. They had the loud voices and the economic power but not the numbers. We probably should think of this fight when we look at how our elections go. The people who use the media and their economic clout in a very savvy way are not necessarily the majority but can make it appear like they are.
Sounds like shitty events management, honestly. Board meetings I’v gone to never has an issue with providing an event that complies with the basic laws of Event management in central Auckland, and there are a shit ton of exceptions to the non-basic ones covering this kind of thing.
Gays can be cops to yknow.
“So are you complaining because PAPA did organize to enroll people and the other side did not? If the side opposing exclusion can not get themselves together to organize a counter enrolment strategy then they were never as overwhelming as they thought.”
So that’s how democratic action should be done? Both sides doing their utmost to stack the numbers of enrollments?
Fuck that.
I don’t know what thats called but I do know it ain’t democracy and it has a rotten odour.
that is democracy Mjolnir when we go and vote it is the parties who get people out to vote that win elections! That is the entire point of organisations they are a group of people with a shared goal. All clubs have elections for office holders and vote on the way forward. I have been involved in Playcentres, Rugby Clubs, School Committees, Student Unions, Trade Unions they all operate in the same way. The people who do the work do it at the behest of the people who vote for them and who vote for the direction the organisation is to go by voting on rules. Most organisations do this and if people feel disempowered they do one of three things – they leave or they encourage people to join who think the same way they do or they argue at meetings – all three things look like they were done here. It does not have a rotten odour as this is the way change happens within a non consensus organization.
If “pure temple” is the edict from certain factions, they may find popular support for their causes dwindling.
Who will be next to be excluded because someone is “triggered”??
Pastor Neimoller’s poem has never been more true.
I’d call it the other way around, standing by those who have issues with the police is solidarity with a minority. And one that was part of their cause from the beginning (where feminists were not).
Clearly new voting members came in on both sides, if even the losing side had more voters than total members earlier.
“It’s pretty much the Green Party strategy for 2020.”
Oh admit it you won’t the Greens to go under 5%, Labour to go back into opposition because only your left is deserving.
No you admit that Metiria got it wrong and should be co-leader right now.
Hilarious Mr Bradbury is attacking them for being too “woke”, rather than more mainstream – for the poor and the environment, and you …
It wasn’t so long ago in 2014 that I was sitting there wondering what Martyn Bradbury was all about. He’s been a great influence on a great many people. Controversial yes, but that’s the risk people run when talking about important issues / topics.
There’s a great many things that established organisations in practice and law don’t want normal people to know so that they have an informational advantage vs you guys. And people like Martyn Bradbury brave arrest so that you do know so stay woke my G.
I’ve voted Green most of my life, and you will note TDB ran a campaign to vote Green last election to stop them from disappearing into oblivion after Metriria – however they have simply become so alienating with their woke middle class identity politics I believe they will slip under 5% in 2020. Maybe that is for the best, as I’ve outlined, a class based Green socialism is required to combat climate change, not middle class virtue signalling
It only confirms to me that this group are no better then the nazis!
As a homosexual I’m disgusted…..they don’t represent me or anyone I know.
I do not believe that PAPA stacked the meeting. I happened to sit just in front of the PAPA group at the meeting and they only numbered a few dozen in a packed Church with 400 members of the LGBTI community present.
This is backed up by the proxy votes which were about 100 for each side – indicating that attempts to stack the meeting through proxy voting did not affect the actual vote.
The voice of the LGBTI community have spoken and we have decided to back our very brave and competent Pride Board. I find that a huge victory for popular participation and community organisation in the face of attempts to roll the Pride Committee by big business corporate sponsors, their media lackeys, and the state repressive apparatus.
The Pride Board have gone out of their way to listen to the community, and to stand with our most marginalised members: our rangitahi, Maori, Pasifika, transgender, working class, poor, homeless, who have often experienced mistreatment by police: harassment, sexual assault, bashing, and even rape.
Our Board decided to stand with the victims of police mistreatment and I congratulate them for doing so. Our board also spent, and continue to spend, considerable time negotiating with police and did all they could to find an acceptable compromise, which was in the end dashed by the decision of the police hierarchy (not LGBT police) to pull out.
I think it is entirely reasonable to ask to police to march as police, in a police continent, but in the police’s own Pride TShirts but not in uniform. Many of those who have been mistreated by police would not feel comfortable at participating with police in uniform and the police’s own statistics show the police mistreatment is actually getting worse and their use of force against Maori is up to 14 times that against Pakeha.
The police stopped doing LGBT awareness training 2 years ago and the police themselves admit they have a long way to go to improve.
As for PAPA being radicals, well Jesus was a radical too, and so were the founders of the gay rights movement. The demands of PAPA for reform of the prison and police system are not actually all that radical at all – the Catholic Church shares many of their concerns.
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