Move The Anti-Vaxxers On – Now.

By
Chris Trotter
-
174
3414

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.

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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.

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174 COMMENTS

  1. Chris
    Remember when ‘I’ll call the cops’ used to be a threat? Now it’s a punchline to a joke. We all know that Andrew Coster is that joke. A woke joke. He’s not a cop, he’s a copy. A copy of his woke boss Jacinda. But hey, fret not, police minister Potatoe Williams will sort it hahaha hahaha.

    • where is spud head? oh can’t comment because it’s an operation matter perchance?
      …rather than the real reason his brain cell died of loneliness.

      • gagarin Andy Coster has academic qualifications better than most members of Parliament and from the sound of you, well beyond your grey matter too – blaming the police for the demos is dumb, and playing into the hands of past and present politicians.

        • ‘spud head’ is a ref to williams, potatoe-spud get it…do please try to keep up…it wasn’t difficult now was it pip?

        • HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA academic qualifications???? Imagine Pip, if you can, having a Doctorate Degree in Agriculture from Oxford with a fellowship in advanced Agriculture from say Cambridge, but never having stood in cow shit, let alone milked a cow or ploughed a field or even been on a farm on a shitty windy rainy day. That’s Andrew Coster. “Academic qualifications better than most members of Parliament”. That’s why Labour can’t get anything done…because of “academic qualifications better than most members of Parliament”. Country Boy, enlighten this person please!

  2. Nah. They’re ok Chris.

    They’re just exercising their right to protest.

    Much better than the left at doing so. The bunch of pussies!

    As for the right? I don’t see many of them there either.

    A pretty well behaved bunch of people on the whole. It’s the cops as usual been violent, harassing women and children and trying to pick fights with the men. What wankas.

    • Denny Poa – what a wanka you are. Your arguments and cheap shots o kowtowing to the mob, – they must be your sort of people. Now we know what you think you are. They are divisive, argumentative, and narcissistic and not citizens supportive of NZ, just wanting to live off it like land speculators, only with less money because they spend it all on themselves. Is that really you, you tend to give the impression of high principles?

  3. Chris Trotter talking about freedoms and rights whilst happily trampling on freedoms and rights. Stop the coercion and stop the mandates, the protestors will disperse immediately. Simple. Then we can get to dealing with human rights abusers in the courtroom.

  4. 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.

      • For a so-called peace-loving leftie G. promoting hate and killing doesn’t seem to correlate.
        Can you enlighten me?

        The BoR’s gives them the powers under the BoR to protest. Any leftie knows this.

        Cindy just the other day in one of her tv stand-ups dropped the ball and said that people should get the booster for the flu for this winter.

        So tell me, which is it? A covid vaccine or a flu jab with a new name?

        I was with you up till Cindy bailed on elimination and gave into the rich wealthy business folks in September 2021 when we almost had it beat!

        Since then, she’s lost all confidence of the public. The last 9 polls in a row apart from 2, they’re a majority of polls against her government.

        Labour are dog tucker in Auckland for the mayoralty and the next general election.

      • 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

    • Tiger Mountain, it’s a shame that so many like you have turned. Once fought apartheid, now cheer for it. You’re happy with govt, media and big pharma in lock step? I guess it’s easier when you’re fighting someone else’s government rather than your own.

      • My record stands for itself, fought the Muldoon wage freeze at various strikes–Super Liquor and Union Carbide Mt Wellington, opposed Rogernomics all the way, was for Nuke Free NZ, and hundreds of international solidarity issues over the years–200 of us marched up Queen St in pouring rain when IRA’s Bobby Sands died, abused and threatened all the way by fine upstanding kiwis.

        Most of my union activity has involved fighting the NZ Govt! National and Labour and Natzo and labour led in the MMP era. The Nat 199i Employment Contracts Bill was opposed by thousands of us NZ workers. I have battled local Govt. and numerous private developers trying to rape and pillage–and had more than a few wins.

        Māori flags with Trump flags and neo fascist flags don’t do it for me.

        I actually am a big critic of this Govt. and governments around the world should have nationalised COVID drug production so the Pharmaceutical companies did not get a nice big earn out of it.

      • choosing not to be protected against this virus is NOT APARTHEID (legalised discrimination based on race). Choosing not to be vaccinated means you think you are more important than your fellow citizens because their health is irrelevant to your perceived freedoms. Selfish and ignorant.Hence the headless chook approach to the organizational aspects of this “protest” (superspreader event)

  7. 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.

    • ‘Thinking that I know something about freedom, but I’d rather live in fear man’

      Off your high horse please.

      • Off white,

        Ignorance is most definitely not bliss.

        Yes there is feeling in my input motivated by frustration that science is routinely being dismissed in favour of misinformation and complete bullshit by expert-novices eggplants. It appears by your perverse logic that the only people permitted to get on their high horse are the protestors. Those that disagree with the protestors have apparently been brainwashed by the media or Ardern and or are living in fear. WRONG! Ever considered another possibility? Science and those that have invested decades of their life journey to the subject matter. I trust them and science. Those protesting in Wellington wouldn’t know if their arse was on fire.

        As for freedom. You know about the very ill man in Wellington that needed an ambulance but one couldn’t get access to the area he lives in……due to the “freedom’ protest.

        The people waiting for buses to get them home not being able to do so due to buses not having access to the area they are in.

        Wellington businesses that have all but been destroyed during the Covid pandemic having no customers coming into their outlets due to the “freedom” protests.

        Yes, I know what freedom is and I know those protestors couldn’t possible care less about the ‘freedom” of movement etc of others. They have conclusively proven that yet again. Do I care about the “freedom” of the protestors? Not any more. They are worthy of contempt only.

        • Thinking man, feel free to provide citations. You said it yourself that you don’t care about the freedom of the protestors and hold them in contempt. Therefore proving my point.

    • 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”

  9. 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.

  10. “That is why, like it or not, the state has no option but to defend itself vigorously whenever it is challenged.”
    But what is ‘the state’ @ CT? Is it the one that shows an enduring cynicism towards those most at risk, for example, while feeding money to those already rich? ‘The State’ is one thing for certain. It’s a liar. And as such it projects mistrust therefore the protestors ‘see’ an untrustworthy state we’re asked to acquiesce to without question to allow ‘the state ‘ to penetrate our bodies with a chemical to soften the blow of a virus that came out of a Chinese laboratory. When put like that I frighten myself and I’m well vaccinated.
    “both to the symbol of our democracy;”
    What ‘democracy’? Our politic is neoliberal-capitalism. There’s nothing democratic about neoliberal capitalism. Fascism, on the other hand? Now, that’s a whole other kettle of fush.
    I think it’s great that people protest. That, takes guts and I say good on them. Fuck the parking, fuck the ‘disruption’, fuck Wuhan and good on the cops for taking it easy with the protestors.
    P.S. Remember a little kerfuffle involving Wellington protestors? ” Show us your text[s]” At MBIE offices?
    I can’t find any reference to it on-line?
    Remember that? I went along. It was a scam in many people’s opinion. I heard some there referring to the protest as a training program for the cops and political students.

    • does it actually matter where the bloody virus came from (china US funded research?) the moot point is does the vax work? yes you tend to get less ill, un vaxxed you may get a serious case.

    • I’m with you CB!!! People wouldnt be protesting if they didnt feel betrayed by the government. They are not all violent or anti vaxxers or Qanon nuts. Most are ordinary NZers who the government has screwed over in one way or another, others are there because of hate speech or three waters. Good on them for standing up.

      As for violence and force, by all means tow away the cars, enforce masking on the main thoroughfares and stop them from harassing the people of Wellington going about their business but in terms of the protest on public land, Leave them be! The police have let gangs have their funerals and low lives spread delta along with drugs with nary a peep. But set up a legitimate protest on parliament grounds and watch out because we cant have you embarrassing us and calling our policies into question.

      • Have you ever been vaccinated for smallpox, I have and many in my era when we had smallpox in our community. There were thousands of vaccines given in our town, many people became unwell with the actual vaccination the old fashioned type where they scratched it in to your arm, many people developed gaping arm wounds, smallpox vaccinations were seconded from all over just to keep up with demand. With respect you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, the reason we have no smallpox is because of vaccination, there are many childhood illnesses such as measles that would be wiped out if people got their children vaccinated . Our parents did the right thing without reliance on social media nonsense to protect their children . It’s about time these people grew up and jumped off the bandwagon and go home because mark my words many of these people their children and the police are going to get sick and who will be to blame then when our hospital beds are clogged up with these selfish people.

  11. 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.

  12. 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

  13. 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.

  14. Refer your headline: are you sure that they’re 100% anti-vax? Or does that just suit your narative? Because the banners I saw were a concoction of many different things, but I guess it’s far easier to lump labels on a group of people because you don’t like them. Surprised you didn’t call them deplorables.

    Martyn nailed it last night (apart from calling Mallard a good speaker off the house, he’s quite possibly the worst). They should be allowed on parliamentary grounds to protest, but should never be allowed to enter parliament, ever. Martyn had shown consistency in this. If Chris wants to send in the thugs to break this up, then I expect these same thugs will be going to Raglan, Shelly Bay and should have been used at ihumatao. Ah, but it’s ok when we do it….

    It’s indicative of the NZ media on how this is being shown. Stories of suffering businesses, lumping them all as anti-vax (just like Chris) and trying to ridicule them the whole way…no doubt running the govt (their pay lords) line. But people are angry and desperate, and from what I’ve seen around the world desperate people do desperate things.

    • and bg does it suit your narrative to deny they’re a rag bag of right wingers who sniff any fart that emerges from steve bannons fundament
      …..yup ‘hippy karens with dreads don’t make ’em lefties…the actual real nazis were pretty green, big on protecting the german forests stopping animal vivisection and general animal rights..though not so much the rights of humans….so yea being a confused hippy doesn’t make you lefty, anymore than cressida dick being a dyke made her a good commissioner of the met.

  15. This is funny when you think about it.
    This ‘Caretaker Government’, can’t even take care of Parliaments grounds!

    • The BoR’s gives them the powers under the BoR to protest. All lefties know this.

      Cindy just the other day in one of her tv stand-ups dropped the ball and said that people should get the booster for the flu for this winter.

      So tell me, which is it? A covid vaccine or a flu jab with a new name?

      I was with you up till Cindy bailed on elimination and gave into the rich wealthy business folks in September 2021 when we almost had it beat!

      Since then, she’s lost all confidence of the public. The last 9 polls in a row apart from 2, they’re a majority of polls against her government.

      Labour are dog tucker in Auckland for the mayoralty and the next general election.

    • can’t do it for practical reasons who knows what/if the next varient might be it might be benign (lets hope) it might not we just don’t know…things are in flux so a firm date for anything isn’t do-able….imagine your reaction a date is given circumstances change things have to be extended…

      as the military maxim states.
      ‘no plan survives first contact with the enemy’

  17. 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?

    • nooooo many chose to terminate their employment by not adhering to their contracts by violating company policy…..bit like getting drunk on your forklift…irresponsible

  18. 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.

  19. 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.

  20. The sooner the government complies the sooner they get their city back.
    Just comply and it will all be over!
    That’s why i got my vaccines, coercion works

  21. 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.

        • we do have a paranoid despotic foreign evangelical funded segment of the population though.

          the govt we have has done piss all during it’s tenure and that’s the problem.

  22. I take it Chris supports apartheid (at least the medical kind) and wishes all the 1981 protesters were bashed by the state, because it is ALLOWED to use violence against non violent citizens

    • glen, choice over an issue–ie not getting vaxxed, is not the same as skin colour which you have no choice in ……stop trying to play the victim dry your tears pick up your rightard SJW crucifix and sort y’self out.

      • OK mate. Me personally, i wouldnt discriminate for any reason.
        You however, view humans as acceptable or not depending on if they agree with me or not

          • by the dictionary definition, yes it does

            apartheid
            ə-pärt′hīt″, -hāt″
            noun
            1. An official policy of racial segregation formerly practiced in the Republic of South Africa, involving political, legal, and economic discrimination against nonwhites.
            2. A policy or practice of separating or segregating groups.
            3. The condition of being separated from others; segregation.

    • This is the sort of fatuous non-sequitur that makes rational discourse with people like yourself, Glen, a waste of time.

      I suspect, moreover, that if the protesters were there in a cause with which you profoundly disagreed, your fastidiousness regarding their civil rights would evaporate like morning mist – especially if they were blocking streets, assaulting passers-by, and attacking the Police.

      • I am not a fan of the police at all.

        I’d love the right to bear arms and stand my ground. Then we wouldn’t need a police force at all.

  23. 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.

  24. 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.

  25. 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.

  26. When there is a law and order problem it is reasonable to expect the police to sort it out!
    I think Chris is right in that the longer this goes on the worse it will get.
    The tow trucks should have arrived the very first night and perhaps the thought of having vehicles towed would have cleared the streets?
    Or anyone not cooperating could have had their vehicle clamped.
    The lack of decisive action will encourage more people and worse behaviour and let’s see who turns up at the weekend.
    If law and order is not restored and this continues the mandates will come off pretty quick. Our dear leader is good at u-turns.
    I’m vaxxed but disagree with the mandates. We have 90% vaxxed!!!
    Is it worth the alienation and disruption? Especially when we need every teacher and nurse we had.

    • We need every teacher we had? Why? We’ve had teachers since the beginning of time. How many of the deluded defective mob in Wellington didn’t have teachers?

      The irrational, dumb, stupid ones with their ill-informed irrational, dumb stupid ideas about so many of the issues and their inability to deal with knowledge and facts had teachers. Look how they turned out!

    • You are dreaming. Jacinda has proven time and again she is prepared to hold the line regardless of the affects on her ratings. I would bet that you would change your mind pretty quick if an unvaxed and unmasked early childhood teacher gave it to your 3 year old with health issues and they ended up in IC with a machine breathing for them. Or the policeman/paramedic that turned up first at your wifes heart attack gave her covid to go along with the heart problem. Yes i know that they still could but you are a fool if you don’t realise that if they were vaxed and masked the chances would be much much much lower.

  27. 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/

  29. 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.

    • well tui as the ‘strategy of tension’ was from the 70s italian neo-fascist playbook*
      more in the rightard line dontcha think?

      *see bologna train station bombing.

  30. So funny the frothing of hte left at the sight of the blue collar working class voicing their opinion. How dare these people, don’t they know their place. And Chris and his mates of the academic pundits that serve no one but themselves is upset at these working class people raising a ruckus and being less then submissively polite. How dare they. Lol.

    • Spare us, you seem to have a good mouthful of reactionary bratwurst today also.

      Alienated, discarded, and lumpen working class elements do not glow in the dark. They have no special place in the world if they do not get organised, acquire some class left understanding, and show solidarity with others.

      Trump supporters, neo fascists and conspiracists are no friends of the working class.

  32. Very sad to see CT’s comments but it is consistent with his view over the last few months. Where do I start.
    Maybe we will start with why is it that many western countries have people in power who are determined create division in society by villifying anyone who does not comply with their mandates.
    In different countries same labels losers, racist, mysoginist pedo all because they do not agree with Draconian policy that has for the most destroyed million of people lives
    It is clear that labelling the most published Cardiologist a spreader of misinformation because he goes against the narrative is part of a bigger plan.
    Why get your medical advice from a doctor when you can get it straight from an aging rocker like Neil Young or Jodi??
    The doctors who signed the Barrington declaration all labelled spreaders of mis-information. Some of the smartest people on the planet from top universities all labelled idiots.
    There are two places I would never go for medical advice, a politician and a drug company and for holding that view i am somehow a heretic or insurrectionist. It is such a sad time when people start acting and behaving in a way very much at odds with their values largely as a result of a government sponsored campaign of lies and mis-information all for the benefit of the WEF and big pharma.
    If anybody has a better idea about how this came about let us all know but I have seen the pivots, the lies and mis-information come from the podium of truth and that is my reason for concluding that the person I voted for and adored as potentially a great leader has become just a foot solder for WEF in their plan to fuck everybody up the ass

  33. 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.

  34. There is always the very heavy handed approach to sorting out protestors. Why not send in the tanks like the CCP did at Tiananmen square back in 1989 ? The Chinese military cleared the place of millions in a half day and put the insurection down and firmly under military control. And the Chinese people have never dared to protest in Peking again. Oh hang on NZ does not have any tanks anymore.

  35. 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.

  36. 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.

  37. 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.

  38. 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.

  39. 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.

  40. 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.

  41. This crew look like and are a genuine mix of folks who look like the same folks who attended and supported Ihumatao.

    So what up with that. That was private land whereas this is on public land.

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