IT IS DIFFICULT to understand the Police tactics on display today (10/2/22) outside Parliament. What is the objective of the Police commanders? To clear the parliamentary precinct of protesters, remove their tents and Portaloos, tow away the cars and trucks blocking the streets of central Wellington? Or, are the tactics deployed more concerned with the “look” of the operation. Is the objective to show New Zealand how very different our modern Police Force is from the baton-wielding riot squads of forty years ago?
If it was the “look” they were after, then they certainly achieved their objective.
Police commanders in other jurisdictions, watching the live feeds from New Zealand on their computers, must have shaken their heads in disbelief. Constables in their shirtsleeves, unhelmeted, inadequately masked against a crowd of unvaccinated citizens, and deployed in numbers insufficient to enforce the law effectively, were being asked to confront a defiant crowd of several hundred.
The tactic, referred to by the Wellington District Commander, Corrie Parnell, as a “graduated response”, seemed to involve steadily pushing the protesters back, and herding them out of Parliament Grounds and into the street. This was to be done without the use of any of the crowd control equipment available to officers overseas. There were to be no shields, no pepper spray, no tasers, no batons, no tear gas, no rubber bullets. Arrests were permissible, but since it required at least two – usually four – police officers to subdue each protester, cuff them, and lead them away, it was soon apparent that the process was unlikely to reduce the size of the crowd quickly. Indeed, hours went by, and the number of protesters remained fairly constant.
This inability of the Police to make any serious impression on either the size, or the intentions, of the crowd, combined with the public’s awareness of the infection risk posed to the constables on the front line, very soon altered the “look” of the Police operation dramatically.
Far from being impressed by the restraint of the Police, those watching the live feeds began to feel angry and frustrated at the utter ineffectuality of the tactics being employed. The Police commanders seemed paralysed. Unable to withdraw, but unwilling to deploy either the numbers, or the crowd control measures, needed to bring the protest to a close. All that the public saw was a crowd of anti-vaxxers successfully defying a New Zealand Police Force that either could not, or would not, compel them to disperse. The message conveyed was not of a restrained, compassionate – but effective – Police Force. All the New Zealand public saw was a weak one.
A state may be defined as a set of institutions with a monopoly over the exercise of political control – a monopoly made possible by its exclusive access to the means of organised violence. No state can afford to allow its citizens to gain the impression that it lacks either the means, or the will, to deploy violence against those who defy it. Why? Because those who look to the state’s “body of armed men” for protection against disorganisedviolence will become alarmed. And those who would seize the authority of the state for their own purposes will become emboldened. That is why, like it or not, the state has no option but to defend itself vigorously whenever it is challenged.
Paradoxically, the vigour with which challenges to state authority are addressed in their earliest manifestations, the less chance there is that serious, perhaps deadly, force will be required to resolve them.
The Canadian model for the “Freedom Convoy” currently defying the New Zealand state is a case in point. By refusing to expel the truckers from downtown Ottawa immediately, using overwhelming police force, Justin Trudeau’s government only emboldened the protest organisers to escalate both their disruption and their demands – to the point where the entire economy of Canada is being constricted at its border-crossing choke-points, and the protest organisers are demanding the resignation of Trudeau and his government. It is difficult, now, to see Canada’s rapidly escalating crisis being resolved without the intervention of the Canadian armed forces. Tragically, Canadians are going to end up killing Canadians.
New Zealand prides itself on the fact that its political leaders are forbidden from interfering directly in matters of operational policing. All well and good, we do not want politicians issuing orders to the Police.
But, this does not mean that a government is required to remain indifferent to what most of the public would regard as a serious dereliction of duty on the part of senior Police commanders.
That the grounds of Parliament have been occupied by protesters who have obstructed public ways, harassed innocent passers-by, closed down places of business and administration, refused to obey lawful instructions, and have reacted violently to all attempts to move them on, is a situation that cannot be allowed to continue. With the Police appearing to construe the “Right to Protest” as an open invitation for protesters to ignore the rights and freedoms of their fellow citizens, the Prime Minister and her Cabinet have a duty to make it crystal clear to Police Commissioner, Andrew Coster, that this ongoing affront: both to the symbol of our democracy; and to the rule of law itself; must be brought to an end – now.
Let’s see what “a state of enforcement action” looks like.
The Stuff livestream video whilst offering grounbreaking new media for this country and compulsive viewing is emboldening the protestors.
The livestream is hobbling the police response, mobilising further protest and spreading misinformation via the deluded speeches to an already fractios population.
This protest does not have the power of the singular cause that previous demos had and i suspect these people would run a mile if confronted by Red Squad.
I agree they would quail at what we face in 1981 when us Baby boomers faced the red and blue squad in full cry.
Martyn is wrong these assholes need to be put down and put down fast.
So many of you, so brave touting the Springbok tour. How does it feel being on the losing side of segregation this time?
We need some more rain in Wellington lets hope the skies open up asap and they (the protesters) all get soaked. And the talk of bringing in a lot of children today, I find this tactic to be sick given more children are now being diagnosed as positive.
covid is pa. Agree 100% about bringing in children, and heaven knows what message this is giving them.
The Stuff livestream video whilst offering grounbreaking new media for this country and compulsive viewing is emboldening the protestors.
The livestream is hobbling the police response, mobilising further protest and spreading misinformation via the deluded speeches to an already fractious population.
This protest does not have the power of the singular cause that previous demos had and i suspect these people would run a mile if confronted by Red Squad.
What a difference 40 years makes…or does it…
I kept a dented helmet for years from the final test at Eden Park, 1981 Springbok rugby tour.
I was saved by a split second crouch from more than a headache when a cop in a skip bin by Uwanta Car Spares, Sandringham Rd. dealt me a two handed baton blow to the head.
Macho, thuggish policing was the method du jour through much of the 80s & 90s. And it was definitely approved of even if tacitly by many politicians and citizens.
There was a different approach at Ihumatao, and at effective union pickets, or Maori nationalist and peace/anti arms industry protests.
Perhaps privatised state surveillance and neo liberal hegemony have subsumed cracking heads and tasering? Not in provincial Police cells they haven’t!
If I would ever support the plods getting heavy it would be the existential situation of COVID. There are proven links with some Convoy members and filth like Steve Bannon-grounds enough for removal from Parliament forthwith.
The Police are paralyzed by this upside down world where being offended now means you must be correct and in urgent need of mollycoddling. It’s in the soft-cock handbook on how to destroy the resilience of a human being so they can’t function in this world unless they are being indulged.
We are all in favour with freedom and the right to protest but the balance has been utterly destroyed. The protestors have used numbers to out maneuver the Police. They have used anger, belligerence and gang patches to intimidate law abiding citizens exactly how gangs operate. They have taken children to a protest they absolutely knew would be confrontational clearly for appearance sake and to paralyze a Police response. They have intimidated business in the area and even those that would ticket their vehicles.
These protestors couldn’t possibly care less about your freedom and have happily created the biggest super spreader event in NZ during the Omicron situation. We will all pay for this including some that will pay with their life.
They’ve made a complete mockery of our laws and all the sacrifices the vast majority of Kiwis have made and the Police have mostly stood by and treated them with kid gloves while we all watched and recoiled. This has been a very predictable epic fail.
The protestors are worthy of contempt only as is the dynamic that’s been created that effectively puts the handcuffs on the Police.
A total embarrassment and yet another example of reaping what you sow.
I think it was labour that have made a complete mockery of our laws. Consider how they have cruelly destroyed the right of citizens to return, stolen the property of others to cover their incompetence, rushed law changes through under urgency to retroactively cover their failure to get the health act sorted before enacting some of the harshest lockdown restrictions the world saw.
What we are seeing now is the natural response to locking us all up in home detention for months, lying to us daily and demonising those who hold a different view.
Labours divisive strategy wrapped up in Orwellian language has ostracised these people to the point where they feel they must rise up and fight the power.
The whole Team of $5 Million and Be Kind messaging is so evil – if I don’t agree with everything, I’m not in the team and worse than that, I am by default being cruel or nasty.
Those biblical people knew what happens here – Galatians 6:8, “for whatsoever a man soweth, that he shall reap”
Keep it up thinking man. Agree entirely.
I’m guessing you may have noticed that
What a useless article. Entirely consistent with the government’s continued ignorance and obfuscation of the substantive issues which matter today. There will be an unfortunate political price to pay for such continued stupidity.
Previous comment posted early!
I’m guessing you may have noticed the police under the current Commissioner is quite a different organisation from whatever it used to be. Whether it is gang members taking over highways or streets with motorcycles doing burn outs or driving how they feel, or criminals not stopping for police who then give up or lycra clad bicyclists taking over the Auckland Harbour Bridge while police watch on, it’s not really a police force nowadays, rather a social working knitting group. Arrest appears to be beyond the last option, a person deserving it more likely to win lotto.
So 122 arrests thus far must be giving Mr Coster heart palpitations. I assume there will be formalised warnings galore allowing the newly released arrestee to rejoin the fray. Anything to avoid the court process it being held accountable.
And I’m guessing a “graduated response”, that being one above their favorite “monitoring” aka doing nothing, is like the nuclear button for Costers social working vision.
This is what Labour wanted in policing. Toothless pussy cats. They’ve got it. Fleas and all.
But, it must be soon ironic for our government to call in police to clean up this embarrassment only see this protest carrying on undeterred.
Chris, I’m shocked to see such thoughts out on paper from you.
The right to protest should be respected despite what any of us may think of their views.
The hypocrisy rising from the left about this protest is so confusing. It seems that you’ve all forgotten the BLM protests not that long ago, during which I heard not a peep about obstructing the protests let alone unleashing the full force of the police wielding batons, pepper spray and god knows what else to brutally harm those who feel that their individual rights have been trampled and thrown aside by an uncaring and cruel government
I’d wager good money that if the Foreshore and Seabed hikoi had camped out in parliament grounds, not one person would be calling for such violence, least of Chris T
Ant Chris Trotter falls into the state thinking trap. They are NOT anti vaccinations, they ARE opposed to the continuing heavy handed mandates (for those that are vaccinated plus those who choose not to) that restrict freedoms.
Round the world the freedom restricting mandates are the problem, not the vaccinations.
Compare the police (state) actions at Ihumatao. Shelly Bay. Pukeiahua. Raglan Airfield, versus the occupation at parliament. Compare the police (state) actions when gangs take over the streets with their tangi parades versus the occupation at parliament. One set of protest has seen a light handed, benevolent, pat them on the head attitude, the other pepper spray.
So go you good thing Chris Trotter, rules for one but no fore the other? And the sight of those new barriers around the steps of parliament is a monument of how far the 120 politicians, the 350,000 odd state servants plus a paid for press gallery has moved away from representing and serving the people of New Zealand. Let the new orange barrier forever be a monument to the state indifference to the peoples concerns.
The could just name a date to end all mandates and it would be over for the most part.
yep, that and cyclone Doni would sort it real quick
#0.03%#notamandate
These people are a mixture of anti mandate, anti vaxxers and anti vaccine passport. At least two of those are worth fighting for. Many have lost their jobs and their careers over this. They can’t go to the movies, they can’t get into a restaurant and they cannot travel by plane. If there was ever a principled reason to protest, it was this.
Miss ‘team of 5 million’ has turned into a little fascist, hasn’t she? Costa is her puppet, another Mormon from the same district as her cop dad. What’s the betting she describes them as ‘insurrectionists’ next? Are you getting the picture now?
Wow Chris, one of the more assumption-loaded pieces you’ve put out for a long while. A fan of LeftCarthyism are you?
“All the public saw was a crowd of anti-vaxxers successfully defying a New Zealand Police Force that either could not, or would not, compel them to disperse.”
Maybe they did. I wuldn’t know. But if they did, I’m really not sure they can be so confident about what they saw. We definitely saw a lot of undesirables emphasised in the media, but watch any live stream and you’ll see 100s of folks of all kinds. Who are they? Don’t know. No one has seriously gone down to ask them.
Why are they there? Are they “anti-vaxxers”? An obtuse assessment.
No doubt some of them are. Intelligent me like you would do a service if you stopped using overly-broad labels. What do we actually mean by this? There are a spectrum of perspectives under the one label it seems. At one end are your 5-G, QAnon microchip types – who we might find stupid or selfish or worse. Even many of these people we might find compassion for, swimming as they are in the polluted information ecoglogy we know we all are. Some less so – it is obviously unacceptable to try and enter Parliament. At the other end are those who have listened to Albert Bourla on Lex Fridman, Malone on Roagan, or read the Collins/Diasak/Fauchi emails, perhaps the recent Johns Hopkins study on lockdown efficacy, whatever. Maybe many those people didn’t actually buy what they heard, but simply noted that no legacy media have had these people on for challenging long form interviews – and concluded that there must be a 1%er dimension to all this. strange you cannot empathise with those types, given your consistent class analysis of every other issue. And that’s just those concentrating on the vaccines themselves.
What about the anti-mandaters? On these, there are the no-jab-in-drag types. But many others also. Some of the more sophisticated will note that there are question marks about efficacy – witness merely the ever-shortening time between jabs. Leaving those issues aside, they would question whether “protecting the most vulnerable” really means the old-school, and in my view correct, starting point there, which is “women and children” (as you’ve articulated in recent weeks), adding the very sick – or whether our vulnerable is simply anyone born 1945-1965. For me, a mandate is justifiable in principle, but not when we exchange important right in the context of this therapy, not for this ailment, and not with these consistently opaque leaders.
But who knows the true composition of those down there, as concerns mandates? No one down there asking.
And as to the Police, I wept. They were under cooked, and I was glad for it. They were clearly set up to chill and yarn with the protestors, as would have been sensible. But then, contra your assessment that pollies kept of their decisions, they obviously went in because we have a Speaker who simply does not understand how to avoid damaging the integrity of Parliament.
And the most our “leaders” seem to want to do is issue parking tickets. Petty, pathetic. Time they actually responded to some of this.
If we had a Speaker who did understand how to avoid damaging the integrity of Parliament in these circumstances, what should she have done instead? From the beginning?
Hi Peter,
In my view he ought to have had faith in his Member colleagues to engage in the dialogue that is the only way through this, and in his gardners to fix the lawn a few weeks hence.
As to parking, if you want to do that for any old reason like hitting the shops, like the rest of us you deserve a fine, and will likely have a good old grumble about it. These people on the other hand aren’t “parking”, they’re engaging in serious civil disobedience in an (as yet inchoate) attempt to make a political point. It is virtually a necessary condition of a protest that it disrupts – and its up to the people to decide whether your shopping or whatever, or things like civil liberties, are more important.
In my humble view, of course.
Thanks for exchanging views, brother.
Let’s see what “a state of enforcement action” looks like when I go to Wellington this year and park illegally in the same vicinity. If I have the car in the same place for a couple of days and do get hit with a $40 ticket it could be cheap parking.
If I’m given the apparent luxury afforded here maybe it’ll be more than a day before any action is implemented meaning I’ll have free parking for the day.
How long do vehicles have to be there with enforcement notices not attended to before vehicles are determined to be abandoned? How long do vehicles have to be there with enforcement notices not attended to before vehicles can be towed? Due care taken and logistics take-in into account and all the rest of course, could a start be made on towing the vehicles at the front of lines? Reclaiming your vehicle so you don’t have to walk back to New Plymouth would be fun.
Cindy needs to have some backbone. She needs to use the army and tanks to remove the unwashed ferals on Parliament grounds. Chinese had the right idea on how to deal with protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989!
What an appalling comment, ‘unwashed ferals’. Human beings frustrated at lots of things. Tiananmen Square was slaughter by a paranoid despotic government.
Leave them there they will leave eventually.
This is definitely not Ardern’s call at all.
When you read around you’ll find enough who think we’ve got a paranoid despotic government. And worse. As I wrote the other day, if we had the government some claim we have, there would have been blood on the steps and lawns days ago and the whole thing would have been over very quickly.
And they wouldn’t be posting their ignorant paranoid nonsense because they would have been quietly taken care of.
I keep finding myself in disagreement with articles. Police restraint and respect for protestors – no matter how annoying and disagreeable you may find them – is a positive. It’s a sign of high levels of discipline and excellent use of de-escalation strategies within our police force. How is this a bad thing? How does the author who thinks Maori co-governance is the end of democracy in NZ and wanted Stephen Molyneaux to full rights of free speech reconcile his authoritarian denial of the protesters democratic and free speech rights?
Had the protesters come to Parliament, delivered their speeches, issued their demands – and gone home – like every other protest crowd which has turned up at Parliament these last 30 years, no one, least of all me, would have had much to say about it.
You can turn away from their behaviour all you want, Peter, so as not to see that what is happening now has moved a long way from a legitimate, peaceful protest. But, that doesn’t make it any the less real.
The best time to tame a Tiger is when it is a cub.
Chris T Correct. And nor have previous protests put other people’s health at risk, or seen innocent passersby abused and threatened as is happening now in Wellington.
You can still bring about a resolution by being patient and respectful – as was done with the Ihumatao protest. It may take longer, use resources and affect local business but that is better then tasking the police to use violence – we can take our time, we can engage and we can be kind! Yes – that’s right – walk the talk NZ!
They are fellow NZers not enemies of the state. It’s hysterical nonsense the way these people are being portrayed and treated. And I say this as someone who doesn’t support there views but I don’t see them as dangerous or bad people deserving of brutality.
Yes, I thought the police response seemed measured and non-violent but so was the start of the Tiananmen Square protest. What happens if the protest grows to 50,000 people camped outside the parliament for more than a month. You will need the army to contain the protest and the majority of the population won’t want this government to fall so will support belated violent Action.
So does a protest that continues overnight loose it’s legitimacy?
To be clear I’m not a supporter of the protests, but we cannot be selective over who gets to protest and who doesn’t. Contain and arrest protestors who are violent, threaten, damage property etc, otherwise you are making martyrs.
The economic conditions of the next few years are going to be very tough with predictable civil unrest. There is already a trust-deficit with government and institutions in most anglophone countries. Do you think begging authorities to be more authoritarian is the solution? A graduated or proportional response by the Police seems entirely reasonable here, and a very difficult task to perform so good on them.
“The best time to tame a Tiger is when it is a cub”
Really for a protest? sounds more like one for aspiring autocrats and Bond villains.
Listen to this podcast of 7 episodes to see why we are so screwed up.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001324r
These so called protesters lost my support the moment they took their situation out on the general population of Wellington .
These people are all me me me.
Most of them can take the vaccines but refuse to because of the conspiracy bullshit which is only going to get worse.
The podcast lays it out loud and clear.
These people want to be able to give the finger to the General population of NZ and refuse to accept the consequences of their actions.
Chris is right Martyn is wrong.
Yep.
Is this the government speaking through Christopher. Not one word about why people are protesting. People be damned and government entities, stop mucking around – deal to the people! This is the state of the Left today.
Its a tragedy and boy, won’t we, the people, pay even more dearly for this in the not too distant future and beyond.
Of the two Daily Blog pieces on the topic this morning, Trotter’s is the more persuasive to me. Bradbury’s seems more sentence slogans than reasoned consideration. January 6th was just over a year ago – violent mobs trying to disrupt democratic process (reopening of parliament, rather than vote counting, in the here and now), can’t be expecting too much leeway.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2022/02/11/no-need-to-send-the-riot-cops-in-today-trev-youve-done-enough-damage-for-1-year/
Chris must have access to copies of Ces Blazey’s 1981 speech to the NZRFU AGM.
Ces effin Blazey–thats a blast from the past! Ron Don! Hiwi Tauroa!
Sure for acts of violence, property damage and full on rioting otherwise they should be allowed to protest. Even if the protestors are delusional, you’re falling into the trap of begging the authorities to be more authoritarian, it’s very Leftist-2022.
If we cheerlead the state into cracking heads however delusional we think the protestors are, what’s stopping a similar crackdown on future protests that you do approve of?
Martyn is right on this one.
Isn’t it a (non-masked) mass gathering, in breach of COVID health regulations?
They should have given them 2 hours to disperse after speeches on day one and then either brought out the water canon or have ignored it completely.
In-between measures are just losing options.
I’m not at all impressed by news services streaming it live as entertainment and delivering a propaganda coup to them for whatever they think they stand for. It just encourages the fiasco.
Im very disappointed with you Chris, very! You have become an old reactionary curmudgeon. And that is being kind. Please find some resolve and bravery to replace knee jerk responses. Have a look in your cupboards, you might find your principles.
Working Class my arse. The rabble occupying Market Square in Picton and harassing business people aren’t doing any work and mostly look unemployable.
1.Why are they in Picton?
2.Who is funding them?
QAnon and National Party dirty politics are behind all this Chris.
It would have been better to have kept Judith Collins as leader.
At least her malevolence was motivated towards her perceived personal enemies.
But, this heaving hateful mass of rent-a-haters in their convoys is sinister.
When you see the video posted by Action Zealandia, the execution list at https://www.nuremberg.nz/ and the BFD site, it makes Mike Hosking and Paul Henry look like right wing choir boys.
These people have protested. Now they need to go home and do some work for their living. And let others get on with theirs. We have a country to run you airy fairy loudmouths. We have heard you and indulged you and all the silly commenters who support you showing how unreliable they are. So many of you seem to think you live in a kindergarten running around the motu expressing yourselves, finding yourselves etc. You never will. You are all full of theories, rights and principles but not prepared to work for the rights of all people, only those with the loudest voices. If you want street theatre, organise it and pay for it and don’t obstruct others trying to earn their daily crust and pay the taxes that keep this shambling lot away from starvation and disease, despite them not being responsible enough to do so for themselves.
I’m astonished and bewildered so many on the left are enthusiastic about closing down a protest. The police can (and should) tow away vehicles blocking streets and arrest protesters who are harassing passersby but Parliament’s forecourt is public land.
Do these members of the left think the 1932 Queen St rioters should have been teargassed and batoned? What about the Springbok protesters?
It should not a question of whether we like or approve of this bunch of protesters. They have a democratic right to protest.
Unfortunately Graham the “Left” as it was has become a schill of the the “email classes”. You might notice the calls in the comments to “get a job” and similar. The “email class” bloggers working from home, timidly avoiding contact with the virus whilst never missing a paycheck. How they have suffered, poor little pampered dears. In 81 the Left needed courage in the face of batons, todays Left have only courage to bash those who uphold principles. So sad.
I have a democratic right to protest againsst the protesters. It’s no use me going into the street and attempting to put my beliefs forward and wait for them to say you have a point and a useful alternative to this street gathering is to …. No way would I get listened to and I would meet vituperation. They have protested and received publicity. What useful thing do they want? It seems they want to not be real and co-operating NZs and are on about mandates. That is already a dirty word for other reasons held by other loonies.
So basically I don’t agree with a bunch of deluded people without clear principles which include living in harmony and goodwill with others whose rights they try to respect as well as their own. ‘Do as you would be done by’ etc. They have had a fair suck of the sav’ but any more encouragement will be you supporting a siege of Parliament and our politicians. And I have no more respect for those who just want to cut down tall poppies for personal satisfaction, than I have for the active participants out there having a pseudo-Gathering. or a concert. That’s an idea – back to the future – play opera to them. It has worked elsewhere.
I think Chris needs to spell out exactly what is legal and what is not in making a protest. It also needs to be borne in mind that any protest all over the world quickly attracts trouble making individuals who grab the opportunity for violence against authority who are not associated with the genuine protesters cause; the organisers of the protest, however focused on staying within the law as these are, can do little to prevent this from happening. Authorities all over the world have noticed this and commonly recruit such people deliberately , or even dress police in mufty to act this way in order to justify using violence against peaceful protest that is inconvenient to them.
Exactly what is legitimate protest and what is not please Chris?
D J S
Yes David S anyone watching the news can see the truth of what you are saying. A time limit on protests is necessary advised hours or a day before so that most can disperse.
This topic really requires a whole new post, DJS.
In brief, therefore, I’ll limit my response to this: Legitimate protest takes place in a democratic context where even the protesters acknowledge both the rule of law and the rights of others. Even those engaging in non-violent civil disobedience do so understanding that the law they violate should be and will be enforced against them. That’s what gives their action a strong measure of moral force.
I do not see this at Parliament grounds.
The anti-vax mandate protesters should be moved on – now – by whatever means necessary.
Chris, by “whatever means” you say. I left your site because of the drift of you and other commenters to “whatever means “. Think about it.
Comments are closed.