Weeks after New Zealand voted in favour of the United Nations Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, a supposed grand protest against it took place.
Dubbed “Defend New Zealand Sovereignty”, the event was advertised all throughout social media calling for protests to be held in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch on the 2nd of February, to voice opposition to the UN Compact that was supposed to sell-out New Zealand sovereignty.
This is the third such protest against the same Compact. Before the decision was made to support the UN Compact on December 19, a protest took place on Aotea Square, Auckland on the 8th of December warning the Coalition Government against voting for the resolution. Another protest took place, on the 15th of December, in front of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Mt. Albert electorate office.
The rally on the 2nd of February was supposed to be the mother of all UN Compact Protests, but that evidently failed miserably after none of the rallies in three of the major cities produced more than 200 protesters.
An article from The Spinoff estimated the number of participants at the Auckland rally to be “about 100 people”. The estimates from the Wellington and Christchurch iterations of this protest varied a lot, but all accounts pegged the number at far less than 100 participants each.
Not to mention, news of the Compact failed to make the airwaves at all. And while an article on the protests was featured on Newshub a day after the protests, it was miles away from the same coverage and attention that the French “Yellow Vests” protests received – the movement that the “Defend NZ Sovereignty” protests were hoping to emulate.
Even non-mainstream publications that supported the protests against the Compact talked a lot about their supposedly “major” event. The Whaleoil blog only ran two write-ups about the event the day after, both of which were highlights and divulged very little about what happened.
Perhaps there was not much to say about the event to begin with?
Meanwhile, Rightminds.nz – the website of the New Zealand alt-right movement – also ran just two articles about the day, and both were complaints about the backlash they received from counter-protesters rather than any celebratory piece of their big day.
Maybe this proved that there was very little to celebrate regarding the event?
The outcome would have really bothered organizers, who continuously spread disinformation surrounding the UN Compact in the weeks since it was voted for by New Zealand.
Many had accused the Government of selling out NZ sovereignty, despite the Compact mentioning – explicitly – countless times that it respected the sovereign rights of all nation-states and also mentions many times that it is “non-binding”.
There was also a lot of insinuations that the Compact will lead to “mass immigration”, and making New Zealand lose its ability to decide our own immigration policies – despite the Compact being non-binding and is not interested in making countries take in migrants but instead wants them to safeguard the safety of migrants against human traffickers.
The parties leading the scaremongering of the event were the National, New Conservative and ACT parties. Event organizers hyped that there would be representation from all these parties at the February 2 protests, it turns out that only New Conservatives and Stephen Berry – #5 on the ACT party list – graced the event, without anyone from National.
It is hilariously sad that at this early, the Colin Craig-founded New Conservatives have gotten a taste of the deceitful nature of the National Party. Though it is hard to fault the latter party, being associated with that event would have looked bad on them given that the numbers were akin to the regular anti-1080 protests that happen in front of DOC offices.
It is also noteworthy that from the entire ACT Party, only Stephen Berry made an appearance – David Seymour was nowhere to be found. Again, it is totally understandable why he would not want to associate himself with that circus – he currently has his hands full fighting for ACT’s survival after rumours of a new “Blue-green” party that will emerge and be a Coalition partner to the National Party are gaining traction.
Ultimately, appetite for the UN Compact is dwindling not only from the Opposition parties – as evidenced by the lack of interest from National and ACT – but even the media, who at one point paid attention to the UN Compact, but are now realizing that it is a non-issue completely.
If only the organizers of “Defend NZ Sovereignty” will realize that soon, too. Then they won’t have to embarrass themselves in the future with these failed protests.
Louie Encabo is a freelance writer who focuses on politics and current events. He runs a blog, writing commentary on both New Zealand and Philippine politics. He is also a paid member of the New Zealand First Party.
