We don’t negotiate with Trevorrists! Why Mallard’s offer will fail & what Government should have done
This won’t work…
The conditions of Speaker Trevor Mallard’s cross-party offer to negotiate with protestors revealed
“Following discussions of the Parliamentary Service Commission, I have been authorised to make the following statement of the view of all parties in Parliament.
“There will be no dialogue with protestors currently occupying the Parliamentary Precinct and surrounding areas until the protest returns to one within the law, including the clearing of all illegally parked vehicles that are blocking streets, the removal of unauthorised structures, and the cessation of the intimidation of Wellingtonians.
“We note that there is a history of Parliamentarians attending peaceful protests or hearing from the leaders of groups who are at Parliament peacefully.”
…this won’t work for a couple of reasons.
1 – If these protestors are all monsters with no legitimate argument, then Michael Wood, Neale Jones, Clint Smith and all the other apologists for State force against protestors MUST NEVER allow Mallard to negotiate any deal with them because they are all Nazi Monsters.
How can you negotiate with Nazi monsters?
This is the terrible blind spot in woke culture. If you exist to cancel the other, how can you walk that back intellectually when you actually have to engage?
2 – This is being offered by a Speaker who threw a tantrum on Thursday Stupid Thursday, sent in the cops, created a common enemy and inspired a 10 hour live stream recruitment video. He then went on to do a Warehouse bargain basement psy-op campaign to deprive them of sleep by playing songs he sourced from Twitter. There is no good faith in this Speaker.
3 – You don’t negotiate with feral lunatics who are threatening you! These protestors, for whatever righteous grievance they have, are manipulated into believing a fractured and demented version of reality. You can’t negotiate with crazy.
Here’s what the Government SHOULD have done.
The Government SHOULD have selected an MP with real mana, someone from the Maori Caucus who has standing beyond politics, to formally go down and meet the protestors to take their concerns to the top table on the understanding that this is the Government’s response.
That after taking their concerns to the top table, the protestors have to start making this protest legal and that starts with the immediate towing of all cars parked illegally.
This is not about negotiations with extremists, this is about listening to their valid concerns and continuing with a functioning Democracy while public order is maintained.
The Government can’t negotiate with people threatening and abusing them – that’s not how protest works, but they can and should listen to their concerns.
Half of this problem has been about the Left refusing to engage because the Left in their smug arrogance have told themselves they know best.
Those being punished most by the yoke of economic and social mandates have every right to be angry, every right to protest and every right to be heard.
They don’t have a right to make life unliveable for those near by and they don’t have a right to threaten and abuse.
By sending an MP with mana to hear their concerns and take them to the top table, the Government avoids incentivising illegality to force interaction.
By acknowledging the concerns, the Government then have the right to start dismantling the parked car issue while allowing the protestors to stay on the lawn and avoid a Bastion Point style moment that will tear at the fabric of the nation.
By demanding the tents and cars go first before negotiations, the Government will fail and look weaker than they are now.
Where are the adults and why is a man child like Trev still being allowed to enflame things?
This protest must be respected, but negotiating with it only highlights how weak the Governments response has been.
Move the cars and wait for Omicron to clear the rest.
It will be pure luck if we can de-escalate this now.
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Two issues that are separate but bound.
One is to disband the various camps. You have all sorts of options from fencing in the precinct (create a concentration camp) in order to logistically force the camp abandonment. One could simply bulldose the sites and accept the casualties. Tow the vehicles (logistically time consuming). Or simply start to alienate the protestors from society like the Canadians are doing, by freezing their bank accounts, prevent them using social media, stop medical and nutritional supplies entering the precinct.
All doable.
But that does not solve the second problem. Sure you have dispersed the people but not solved any of their mandate concerns. The protestors will splinter back into society to recruit more to their cause.
Building up enough societal resentment towards a government, that simply refuses to address ANY mandate issue (not even a simple timeline with KPI’s), and you will simply have a massive vote against this government. The mantra is “WE will let you know when WE think the time is ripe to lift the yoke of the governments mandates.”
Labour needs to pull on the big boy pants, get rid of the frilly girls blouse, and actually come up with a workable timeline to gives everybody a sense of where we are going. It is not hard. But the kids are in charge of the nursery school and adult supervision is sadly lacking. Notice how quiet Helen Clark is on all this?
Worse for the government is that next week a second wave of protestors are heading to Wellington. Not going to be comfortable.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is that a similar camp has not yet been set up in Auckland. But there are whispers. Logistics win wars and the government is going to be logistically challenged with protestor camps in various centres around New Zealand.
And as one living in South Auckland, I can tell you, all the pontificating from the government means diddly when we are the epicenter (40%) of the outbreak but very few resources are placed here. The resentment is building. 5 hour wait for a test and a six day wait for results means isolating in crowded houses or rough sleeping in cars in driveways. Kids missing school again and again as new infections occur. Labour is losing the great unwashed in South Auckland though inaction.
Gerrit. Bulldozing camp sites isn’t really realistic; I don’t know how many sites there are, but Turnbull House, a picturesque old brick building down the bottom of Bowen street has tents over it’s small sloping front lawn ; the large flat expanse in front of the historic colonial (oops) building which now houses Victoria University’s law school is dotted with tents, and then on the left where Parliament is, the green space is a cluttered mess, with Molesworth St appearing to be virtually blocked off. And I think it’d be fair to say that some of the protestors, just some, are opportunists enjoying a cheap summer holiday in the capital, with several days of lovely weather, clueless about what they’re tagging onto, and not caring about the wider social impact. Not Nazis or socialists, nor poor people or deprived people, more hedonists having a bit of fun, and certainly not all Maori or many-generation Kiwi.
Bulldozing is an option. Just a nuclear one. Right now we are in a MAD (mutually assured destruction) stand off. Any action will results in the destruction of the other.
Evict the protestors and Labour and the police are down the dunny.
If you are worried about the growth of the protest camp, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Next week it may well double in size. Too late for the police and army to gather their pitch forks. Suppose Ardern can fall back on the Canadian solution and call the protesters “terrorists” and bring in emergency powers to move the “terrorists” and lock up their bank accounts using automatic weapons toting armed constabulary to break the “siege”.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/final-showdown-canada-police-set-end-freedom-convoy-siege-capital
This is a right wing Natz, Act Maori party Dirty Politics led protest. Only a loser would surrender to that embarrassing mob. Look at all the participants, all national/act sympathizers. Luxon, Seymore and Waititi need to confront their people the protesters and get them to piss off. The protesters are also cowards with bringing babies and children into the front line and in to tent city. No cops, army or officials will move on a mob with kids among it. Even Trumps hill billys never had babies and children in front line. Cops and Army cant move vehicles with people inside and some stupid protesters will lay on road to stop removal. Leave them there until the mandate is remove in maybe a months time?.
Nikorima “… protestors are cowards bringing babies and children “. Indeed they are, and it is chilling. Police having children thrust at them is appalling, it doesn’t bode well for those little ones’ future.
“Labour needs to pull on the big boy pants, get rid of the frilly girls blouse, and actually come up with a workable timeline to gives everybody a sense of where we are going. It is not hard.”
The trouble is it’s the virus itself that is calling the shots, not the government. It’s rather difficult for the government to provide a “timeline” when they do not know what the virus will do next.
Timeline is dependent upon the spread of the virus. However you can put in some timeline KPI such as when case numbers trend down to January 2022 figures. Or when hospital capacity is down the January 2022 figures.
Simple stuff. Set a KPI and advertise that is when mandates will be lifted. Timeline is perhaps not the best word but lets call it a strategic plan than.
This hope and pray is not a satisfactory answer. One thing is for sure come election 2023 they will be no mandates nor a pandemic. Covid will still be here. just that the Labour white knights can ride in a say; “WE saved you now vote for us”.
Unfortunately it will be too late for Labour by then.
Funny how so many other countries have no problem ending their mandates.
Maybe New Zealanders are too smart after all.
Or it’s conveninet B.S for a power hungry state.
‘No people have ever complied their way out of totalitarianism’
Yes, sending in a juvenile little thug like Mallard is insane when he, probably more than anyone, singlehandly brought about the current impasse – and then stood up on the balcony observing what he had done in just the way that arsonists like watching the results of their handiwork. The PM’s silence about Mallard’s actions can only be seen as an endorsement of them, adding insult to injury.
Ardern is a product of the Forum of Young Global leaders whose philosophy/mission statement embraces concepts like respect, and transparency, and kindness, and those other very familiar buzz words which work well on a campaign trail, but which do not translate into real life after all.
None of this matters, for the media are now “angry” at the police, who once again are fall guys for the politicians who brought about this mess – initially insidiously, over decades, before loose cannon Mallard let fly with his grown-up water pistols and boom boxes, culminating in the current awfulness. Thanks, Trev. If I’d been a cop in Wellington last weekend with Mallard messing around with my law enforcement duties, I would have quit. Expecting protestors to seriously engage with a person who has physically and publicly and metaphorically trashed them is pushing things a bit too far, and is again provocative.
A big task lies ahead; I’ve only seen a small number of the protestors; some look regular sort of people, but one or two look the sort of deranged nutters which it is a complete waste of time to even try to talk with.
I doubt whether Mallard’s intervention, stupid though it was, did very much to “inflame” the situation. It was the government’s very reasonable decision not to meet with the protesters that did that. The point is that the government are already aware of, and probably in agreement with, the protesters’ so called “concerns”. However, while the protesters may wish to adopt a cavalier attitude to the virus, the adults in the room, and that includes the government, realise that we need to take a more cautious approach. The virus has only been with us for couple years and it is too early to tell what the longer term effects might be: long covid, organ damage, or other side effects. Or the possibility that further forms of the virus may evolve.
The government probably cannot give a date when the restrictions will be lifted as that seems to be very much in the hands of the virus.
“The virus has only been with us for couple years and it is too early to tell what the longer term effects might be: long covid, organ damage, or other side effects. Or the possibility that further forms of the virus may evolve.”
Although the longer term effects are probably well enough known and with a reasonable degree of certainty, the possibility of new variants or completely new viruses remains. If government was looking to the long term security of the nation it would have stuck with its second strategy (elimination- the so called “hermit kingdom”) rather revert to its original Five Eyes inspired strategy of “herd immunity” and “living with the virus”.
But the character of the regime (colonialist, politically subservient to foreign powers and foreign capital, depending on continuous flows of new immigrants and foreign investment) means that it cannot follow the strategies which would make Aotearoa and the world a safer place in the twenty-first century. So buckle in and get ready for a rough ride. Oh, and when you take your social, economic and diplomatic policies from the United States and Britain, expect to receive fries with that. In other words, you cannot adopt the policies of Joe Biden and Boris Johnson and all the rest without being treated to a complimentary helping of QAnon, Steve Bannon and Trumpism.
If you want to sort New Zealand out and restore it to a measure of sanity, you will have to ditch colonialism. End of story.
Interesting being worried about the long term effects of Covid. Is this worry also applied to the vaccine??
Mikesh Whether government should have met with the protestors is a moot point. I personally don’t think that they should have gone out and met with them. This doesn’t mean that they should not have considered inviting protestors’ reps to meet with them, on their own ground. It doesn’t look as if they did, but it would have shown respect for others’ concerns, been courteous, and shown willingness to listen and enter into dialogue, even if nothing fruitful was achieved. It would also have given government the opportunity to counteract the false narratives and mischief-making which has been occurring. I was letterboxed with professional-looking anti-child vaccination bumf which may have worried some parents. Add Brian Tamaki and now Turiana Turia and whatever others to the mix, and it gets confusing. Yes, the situation with demonstrators claiming that they had no identifiable leaders, didn’t make anything easy, nor does the unpredictability of Covid timelines, and nor does the fact that there are likely other issues other than mandates, perhaps like the long-term vax effects which you rightly also mention.
It’s clearly NOT true that the Govt can not put a date on when to remove the mandates.
Other countries are managing to do so, or never had them in the first place. And since Delta-onwards, they’ve had no problems, beyond the yearly-norm flu deaths-issues.
Maybe New Zealanders just aren’t as smart as the propaganda tries to con them into believing.
Or probably more accurately, the mandates are utter B.S and so no logical explaination to their continuation exists.
Yes, Mikesh, – basic commonsense (which is too often in short supply)
PC Plod and the Keystone Cops have caved, incapable of enforcing even basic parking infringements. I feel sorry for all the residents living around Molesworth St who cars are blocked, unable to go anywhere. As this is effectively a zone where the law no longer applies I would encourage them to find a large heavy object and go about dealing out some summary justice of their own.
And when they drive away they will be forced to wear seat belts. These freedom lovers won’t appreciate being forced to do that.
Vast difference between getting some drug put into your body and having to wear a seatbelt, can’t understand why you Mikesh and others cannot see this.
There are differences, but there are also similarities. Don’t tell me you are blind to those.
Here’s the game plan.
Now fully aware the police are toothless after Costers quite staggering capitulation, protesters will take over areas in other main centres.
The government will continue to loose its grip on power because they don’t have the police to back them.
And because Jacinda’s government never think ahead, this will only get worse for them.
Anything goes from now on!
Guy Fawkes showed the way. Or he would have done had it not b een for some stoolie.
MintPress News Livestream: Trudeau Cracks Down on Trucker Convoy, with Dan Cohen and Kelli Kieley
https://youtu.be/vGpkYRUyDC8
NZ government land – so NZ government could run a mock disbersement of unwanted incursers! Or declare the frontage Pseudo-Afghanistan and sent in the Army – for practice in handling the difficulties of a refugee camp. Or just demonstrated that they have an idea of how humans think and the modern and older cycology of human social anthopology.
Or show that being educated in NZs better secondary and tertiary premises actually encourage lively- minded people who can solve problems in a practically mediated way, or even how mediation is used by those working with ‘difficult’ people outside of Parliament.
The government appears to have been brought up to adopt classist approaches and punishing ones and those to whom it applies, should confess fs they were caned at school, or at home, or with an electric kettle cable, or locked in their bedroom, or allowed to get away with whatever they could bribe police about.
https://www.parliament.nz/en/visit-and-learn/how-parliament-works/office-of-the-speaker/protests-demonstrations/
From that page, 18/1/2016 (the last update):
If you are planning a protest or demonstration on Parliament grounds, you can help to make sure it is a success by contacting the Speaker’s Office.
Getting in touch allows the Speaker’s Office to make appropriate arrangements and to offer you advice and provide information about demonstrating or holding a protest at Parliament.
You can also make sure that your event does not clash with another planned event, and find out about any planned counter-protests.
Contacting the Speaker’s Office
When you contact the Speaker’s Office, it is helpful to provide the following details:
Organiser’s name, phone number and address
Anticipated number of participants
Reason for event
Date, start and finish time (a maximum of 3 hours per protest during daylight hours only).
You can contact the Speaker’s Office either by
Send an email to speakers.office@parliament.govt.nz
Send a letter to: Office of the Speaker, Parliament Buildings, Private Bag 18041, Wellington 6160, New Zealand
An intellect would know Jeremy, ask one.