Convoy protest aftermath 4/3/22

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, March 4th, 2022 - 83 comments
Categories: covid-19 - Tags: , , ,

Day 2

Front page photo from RNZ, In photos: Removing the debris of a protest that ended in chaos

Clashes a catalysing moment for NZ’s fringe (Marc Daalder, Newsroom)

Parliament protest aftermath: Police enter ‘significant investigation phase’ (RNZ)

PM Jacinda Ardern on violence outside Parliament: ‘We will restore these grounds’ (RNZ, Weds)

 

83 comments on “Convoy protest aftermath 4/3/22 ”

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  1. roblogic 1
    4 March 2022 at 6:36 am

    The "peace and love" Covid Convoy has decided to threaten a community Marae in Wainuiomata… what a classy bunch.

    https://twitter.com/SpeakerTrevor/status/1499318143130697728?s=20&t=S-ToOku12jiiX0wbgNhDKg

  2. roblogic 2
    4 March 2022 at 6:45 am

    NoRightTurn sharp as ever. "Like no protest I have ever seen". And, Trevor Mallard's clumsy comments about installing big fuckoff gates are not really hopeful for the future of our open democracy. But, I like the idea of pedestrianising the parliamentary precinct so that no future convoy of arsewipes can try and repeat this debacle.

    No Right Turn: Thoughts on a riot

    • Dennis Frank 2.1
      4 March 2022 at 7:17 am

      NRT has this titbit:

      Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard is already talking about turning it into a walled fortress

      Toss in a moat & drawbridge & everyone would be delighted. Why stop at the 19th century when you can retro back to the 14th?

      Just rename the Beehive the Citadel, and allocate the grounds to the Barbarians. The duck has the right idea, let's hope he isn't too minimalist about it…

      • Hongi Ika 2.1.1
        4 March 2022 at 7:27 am

        Hope the Duck is going to contribute to the resowing and reinstatement of the grass at Parliament after having turned the sprinklers on the Protestors and turning the place into a guagmire,

        • Nic the NZer 2.1.1.1
          4 March 2022 at 8:24 am

          The sprinklers did sweet FA compared to the torrential rain over that weekend.

          • Incognito 2.1.1.1.1
            4 March 2022 at 9:24 am

            Sprinklers were tormential rain cheeky

            • Robert Guyton 2.1.1.1.1.1
              4 March 2022 at 9:32 am

              It flies up your trouser legs and skirt, rather than falling upon your head.

              • Incognito …
                4 March 2022 at 9:40 am

                So, sprinklers are reverse tinklers, which is disturbing and confusing at the same time.

                Makes for good crowd control though.

          • Hongi Ika 2.1.1.1.2
            4 March 2022 at 9:51 am

            So why did the silly c*** turn the tinklerss on in the first place when he knew it was going to rain, maybe he wanted to turn it into a Duck Pond ?

            • Nic the NZer 2.1.1.1.2.1
              4 March 2022 at 10:40 am

              Its a media beat up. The sprinklers may have got a couple of people slightly wet for a few moments and were then covered and subsequently dug out (all within an hour).

              This is the sort of tid bit you throw into your article to keep it interesting for the reader. The key point at the time was Trevor Mallard has responsibility for parliament, not the government, and its up to him if/when tress-pass notices are delivered. But that's a bit boring unless you can identify hero's and villain's in your narrative.

              Objectively Parliament lawn would have been destroyed after that first weekend even if the sprinklers were never turned on.

              • Incognito …
                4 March 2022 at 11:22 am

                Hang on, Trev the Groundsman manually turned on the tinklers!? Surely, they’re set on an automatic timer.

        • ianmac 2.1.1.2
          4 March 2022 at 12:28 pm

          The sprinklers were not the "sprinkler in the air" sort. I believe they were the "Underground" sort.

      • Ed1 2.1.2
        4 March 2022 at 3:50 pm

        Someone had to suggest a firm reaction – by playing the Laura Norder card early, Mallard was being true to his job which is to keep all of our MPs (including the delicate Opposition MPs) safe – that it was so quickly responded to negatively merely reinforces the ''We will not be affected by the tin hat brigade" spirit so well picked up on behalf of the team of 5 million by our esteemed Prime Minister. What can any opposition MP do but agree?

    • Robert Guyton 2.2
      4 March 2022 at 7:38 am

      NRT addresses the issue of high-profile supporters of the occupation (but neglects to mention Winston Peters):

      "Finally, I hope the "celebrities", media figures, and politicians who enabled and excused this shitshow are taking a good, hard look at themselves at the moment. Today's events may not have been what people like David Seymour or rich white boat dude intended, but its how it ended up, and the public are fully entitled to judge them for their role in it, both politically and socially. If you were a friend to the occupiers, you should expect to have no friends now, because that stench sticks. And if they don't like that, well, maybe they should have shown a bit more care in their choice of friends."

    • Tony Veitch (not etc.) 2.3
      4 March 2022 at 8:24 am

      No, no, never pedestrianise parliament grounds.

      If that is done, how the hell will Luxon drive 200 metres to work?

  3. Hongi Ika 3
    4 March 2022 at 6:59 am

    Who are we going to invoice for the damage caused and reinstatement costs at the Parliament Grounds in Wellington, lets start a list ?

    Destiny Church

    Antifa

    Winston Peters & NZF

    David Seymour & ACT

    Various Alt Right Groups

    • DukeEll 3.1
      4 March 2022 at 8:10 am

      That's a dangerous precedent. Greenpeace won't want to foot the bill for the numerous illegal protests

      • Jenny how to get there 3.1.1
        4 March 2022 at 6:05 pm

        ‘
        “….Greenpeace won’t want to foot the bill for the numerous illegal protests” DukeEll

        That’s for sure.

        That bird has long flown the coop.

        With the [secret] disposal of the Taitu Greenpeace effectively ended their campaign of civil disobedience against deep sea oil drilling on the high seas.

        In fear of legal action targeting their funding Greenpeace have also distanced themselves from any other protesters engaged in civil disobedience against deep sea oil drilling.

        “….Greenpeace has distanced itself from activists who had to be helped off an oil rig in Taranaki, amid calls by business leaders for anyone who supported the move to be prosecuted.”

        Calls for prosecution after climate protesters helped from OMV oil rig

        5 Mar, 2020 05:41 PM

        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/calls-for-prosecution-after-climate-protesters-helped-from-omv-oil-rig/CU4KBT3PC53VXPLSPMGM5N45HI/

        What the government should do now, is to do to the Right what they have been doing to Left for a long time. And that is recover the costs from all the businesses and doners that were backing and prolonging and this protest with their funding.

        Hit the Right where it hurts them most, in their pocket book.

        They might think twice about financing Right Wing rioters next time.

  4. Robert Guyton 4
    4 March 2022 at 7:13 am

    Did Winston Peters really say this??

    "The fact of the matter is the terminal rioting we saw was as predictable as it was avoidable."

    Yet there he was, on-site, grinning from ear to ear, posing with all and sundry, all the while knowing, he claims, that there was a riot coming??

    The full statement is here:

    https://www.facebook.com/winstonpeters

    • observer 4.1
      4 March 2022 at 7:40 am

      It's been hilarious to see a bunch of grandstanding "lock 'em up and throw away the key" pollies suddenly join those of us in the PC wet-bus-ticket wimpy liberal club, by actually experiencing what happens in reality.

      Leighton Baker (New Conservatives) claims police actions were not justified.

      "I got smacked in the side of the head with something," Baker told Newstalk ZB's Andrew Dickens. "I just didn't think that would happen in New Zealand." (NZME)

      Here is their 2020 election policy:

      "Police have been disempowered and are now subjected to verbal and physical abuse, spitting, swearing, and hitting with little or no recourse available to them. We will investigate ways to re-empower police to deal with minor misdemeanors instantly and effectively."

      https://www.newconservative.org.nz/policy/justice-policy/enforcement-policy/

      But it was verbal and physical abuse, spitting, swearing, and hitting for freedom, right?

      • Robert Guyton 4.1.1
        4 March 2022 at 7:43 am

        Got some sense knocked into him?

        • Hongi Ika 4.1.1.1
          4 March 2022 at 7:48 am

          Hopefully Coster and the NZ Police will start sorting the Gangs out here in New Zealand now they have had some practice and have their confidence up ?

          • Nic the NZer 4.1.1.1.1
            4 March 2022 at 9:33 am

            As far as I heard the Police had to sit by for days while a gang member was clearly hawking his wares to the protesters. I think they acted with great discipline, but its really not in their nature to allow law breakers to carry on.

            • Hongi Ika 4.1.1.1.1.1
              4 March 2022 at 9:53 am

              So there were meth dealers on site, I must admit some of them looked pretty wide eyed ?

              • Nic the NZer …
                4 March 2022 at 10:45 am

                I expect any of the front line cops would answer yes to that. There were separate reports of some protestors being off their heads on P some days. And there were at least a couple of gang members walking about in the crowd.

        • Hongi Ika 4.1.1.2
          4 March 2022 at 7:49 am

          Not a lot of sense in Leighton's head in the first place.

    • weka 4.2
      4 March 2022 at 8:18 am

      Please provide a direct link

  5. Hongi Ika 5
    4 March 2022 at 7:24 am

    Don't think he did himself and NZF a lot of favours going to the Protest in Wellington, he is missing all the media opportunities he no longer gets, can't see NZF getting 5% in the next Election.

  6. Ad 6
    4 March 2022 at 8:26 am

    Good post from Bowalley Road today on the security implications of the siege+riot.

  7. Sanctuary 7
    4 March 2022 at 8:29 am

    How about we stop having entire posts dedicated to this pointless and ultimately meaningless event?

    It was giant petri dish made up of various combinations of the stupid, the narcissistic, anti-science crackpots and a shit ton of people with varying degrees of mental health issues all of whom in normal times exist in varying degrees of comfort on the margins of the rational world.

    A pandemic and the strong state action that has required has flushed these turgid masses of the superstitious, the indulged and the crazy into the light and into contact with wider society and has demanded a compliance they don't like. That's it. Well boo hoo. Tough shit. No one is firing cruise missiles at them.

    Stop looking for patterns and deeper meanings that don't exist. There are none. All the tedious pseudo intellectual attempts from the huffing and puffing pearl clutchers on the left will not make that any different. Once the pandemic is over in a few years this tiny minority of people will recede back to the margins of the alleys of our CDBs or their Reiki studios in the bush or their Golden Bay commune or being that strange uncle where we can all ignore each other again without consequence.

    Until the next pandemic.

    • Dennis Frank 7.1
      4 March 2022 at 9:41 am

      Although you appear to be circling around the point – that it was the state defining them as second-class citizens which achieved the miracle of disparate delusional folk uniting in political solidarity.

      Also Trump proved that mental illness is no impediment to ascending to the top of a mainstream political party. So all the folk once put in looney bins have learnt that the left and right were correct to pretend that they can function liberated as normal citizens.

      • Incognito 7.1.1
        4 March 2022 at 3:35 pm

        The State defined them (??) as “second-class citizens”!? Really? Or a stretch of your imagination?

        • Dennis Frank 7.1.1.1
          4 March 2022 at 5:02 pm

          Well I suggested as much when the legislation went into effect. I saw the parallel with apartheid immediately but didn't say so due to feeling it would over-stretch the point – and since their response to the legislation was via using their freedom to choose. They seemed to feel that their beliefs around freedom of choice were paramount, which was obviously unrealistic.

          So translating those feelings into mass political action in solidarity became their choice of expressing their revolt against being made to feel like second-class citizens. Turned out they weren't all that good about expressing them via intellect, so we end up having to interpret their political stand.

          • McFlock 7.1.1.1.1
            4 March 2022 at 5:23 pm

            Nah bollocks.

            There is no "parallel with apartheid".

            If I can easily afford a movie ticket but can't be bothered buying one, it's not a "parallel with apartheid" or segregation if the usher doesn't let me in.

            If I can't be bothered wearing the proper safety equipment at work, there's no "parallel with apartheid" when I get fired.

            If I can't be bothered filling in a timesheet at work, there's no "parallel with apartheid" when wages don't get paid.

            If I refuse to do any of those things because some internet shill told me the Ancient Celts had a law that makes all those trivial demands illegal, that's still on me. It's not society pushing me into an invented category in order to deny me access to entertainment or work, it's me being a stupid moron against my own best interests.

            The sad thing is the utter astonishment that some of these people express when the world doesn't revolve around their misapprehensions.

            • Dennis Frank 7.1.1.1.1.1
              4 March 2022 at 5:38 pm

              Well the parallel hinges on civil rights. You can tell from their political action that they believed their rights were being infringed by the govt. The right place to test such beliefs is in court but one can't expect mentally ill folk to even realise that let alone get a lawyer to do a class action for them.

              I mean that rw feller who stood unsuccessfully for parliament & went down to the protest to support them probably could organise court action for them. It would be a good test of his credibility. Likewise whoever gave them significant funding.

              It's all in the balance between the right of the state to legislate for the common good & any civil rights that get over-ridden in consequence. I've posted my opinion that Labour did the right thing often enough here in the past but one can't expect mentally ill folk to see it…

              • McFlock …
                4 March 2022 at 5:50 pm

                You can tell from their political action that they believed their rights were being infringed by the govt.

                Oh, please. Every wanker I ever kicked out of a gig believed their rights were being grievously infringed. That's why they were ejected, rather than leaving of their own volition. They all wanted various govt mandates rescinded: the prohibition on having pissed people on premises was always a big one. Even the businesses wanted to look the other way on that mandate for as long as they could.

                Fact is, even "not getting drunk" took more effort in a bar than the clownvoyers avoided by not getting the damned vaccination pass. The weren't discriminated against, they chose to take risks with the safety of themselves and, yes, others.

                I think better of most of the students I dragged out than I do of the recently-ejected mob.

                • Dennis Frank …
                  4 March 2022 at 5:57 pm

                  Yeah but you seem to be missing my point. They get it wrong because they are incapable of getting it right. They are mentally defective.

                  • McFlock …
                    4 March 2022 at 6:14 pm

                    Some, maybe.

                    Others, maybe it's more a case of dicks finding validation in a community of dicks, which reinforces their inherent dickishness and they turn into extremist dicks.

                    Sovereign citizens come to mind.

                    • Dennis Frank …
                      4 March 2022 at 6:36 pm

                      Yeah that's the other reason. Rightists with a twisted agenda promoting paranoia. I think that's what gives the other lot the view that the govt is wrong. Neither crowd admits that state sovereignty prevails over civil rights – the sovereign citizens promote their ideology as superior, others are impressed even if they don't really know if its true.

                      What was missing from the saga was an official response that addressed the cause of protestors' paranoid delusion that they were in the right. No point refraining from asserting state sovereign rights to those who either don't know they exist or are in denial – when the cost of disengagement is so high.

                    • McFlock …
                      4 March 2022 at 6:48 pm

                      What was missing from the saga was an official response that addressed the cause of protestors' paranoid delusion that they were in the right.

                      They were told. They were trespassed. They were warned. They were evicted.

                      The cause of the protestors being so far aligned from reality is pretty common, and has nothing to do with official responses. It's people being told stuff that aligned with their inflated ego or whatever problems they had, and once that process starts they can drift way down a rabbit hole.

                      Nothing the PM or Speaker could say was going to change that.

                      Could it have been handled better? Probably. But we seem to have come out of it without a death, let alone several.

          • Incognito 7.1.1.1.2
            4 March 2022 at 9:03 pm

            So, you go from the State defining them as second-class citizens to the State making them feel like second-class citizens. ‘kay

            The comparison with apartheid is flawed. People (i.e. employees) refusing to adhere to mandates made a choice and didn’t want to accept the consequences. They were not discriminated against because of the colour of their skin.

    • Peter 7.2
      4 March 2022 at 9:46 am

      The funny thing is those thinking there is no pandemic, it's a put up political job.

      Maybe you could be on the lookout and get in touch with the tiny minority of people who recede to the margins of the alleys, Reiki studios in the bush, their Golden Bay commune or being that strange uncle.

      When you think there' a pandemic get in touch with them to tell them there's not a pandemic to get excited about or a 'not pandemic' they can come out and protest about.

    • Shanreagh 7.3
      4 March 2022 at 10:05 am

      Once the pandemic is over in a few years this tiny minority of people will recede back to the margins of the alleys of our CDBs or their Reiki studios in the bush or their Golden Bay commune or being that strange uncle where we can all ignore each other again without consequence.

      I am really concerned that you have limited this to Golden Bay.

      As a nutty 'essential oils to save the world practitioner' in East Auckland, with relations in the the communities of Northland practising crystal healing I predict you won't get far with your geographic-isms. wink

    • mpledger 7.4
      4 March 2022 at 10:13 am

      I agree somewhat about the people. However, I am more concerned about the money behind it, be it overseas interests wanting to start a beachhead or local business interests who saw it as a way to pressure the govt into relaxing the rules for their personal profit.

    • Incognito 7.5
      4 March 2022 at 10:24 am

      So far, 19 dedicated Posts under NOTICES AND FEATURES that attracted 3,651 comments and counting. Wishful thinking to call this a “pointless and ultimately meaningless event”.

      • Sanctuary 7.5.1
        4 March 2022 at 10:53 am

        Proof positive of the ability of the internet to generate a lot of heat and very little light and not much else.

        • Incognito 7.5.1.1
          4 March 2022 at 11:10 am

          Proof positive of the ability of the internet to connect together a lot of people and allow them to have meaningful as well as pointless conversations about stuff that’s on their minds. One commenter made one of the most meaningful contributions under one of these dedicated posts:

          Who knew 2022 was a leap year?

          cheeky

          • Nic the NZer 7.5.1.1.1
            4 March 2022 at 11:19 am

            That one gave me complete cognitive dissonance. I couldn't even process the post title until hours later as programmers are systematically trained in Gregorian calendar rules from birth.

            • Incognito 7.5.1.1.1.1
              4 March 2022 at 11:24 am

              I thought it was mildly funny and memorable; I did toy with the idea of correcting the date of the Post but what would be the fun in that?

          • Sanctuary 7.5.1.1.2
            4 March 2022 at 3:07 pm

            Thing is I got married on February 29th so I am acutely aware of what years we can celebrate our wedding anniversary on the exact day it falls on.

            • Incognito 7.5.1.1.2.1
              4 March 2022 at 3:15 pm

              Sounds like there’s a nice wee story there. My rule of thumb is whether a year is dividable 4. I forget dates, names & faces, places, times, etcetera.

        • Bearded Git 7.5.1.2
          4 March 2022 at 3:01 pm

          Sanc-I know what you mean, but I happened to be at home in front of my PC when the police action started on Wednesday. It was an entirely compelling two and a half hours that will be replayed again and again in the future.

          PHD's will be written on this.

    • Barfly 7.6
      4 March 2022 at 12:44 pm

      "It was giant petri dish made up of various combinations of the stupid, the narcissistic, anti-science crackpots and a shit ton of people with varying degrees of mental health issues all of whom in normal times exist in varying degrees of comfort on the margins of the rational world."

      yes

  8. Adrian 8
    4 March 2022 at 9:54 am

    There is an irony in the tweet at the top purportedly coming from Craig Turner of Sleepyhead about Jacinda being a communist, ( maybe he is supplying the Kool-Aid ), but his family fortune was started by a Labour government underwriting the expansion of the family mattress business in the 1930s to supply the big housing build. I also wonder how much “ communist “ money Sleepyhead took in 2020.

    • Nic the NZer 8.1
      4 March 2022 at 11:47 am

      There is at least a little bit of evidence further down that twitter thread that Sleepyhead or Craig Turners involvement made up.

  9. Shanreagh 9
    4 March 2022 at 9:57 am

    How about we stop having entire posts dedicated to this pointless and ultimately meaningless event?

    Perhaps if we stop the daily threads on the Convoy after today.

    We could have specific threads such as those like Mickey's.

    • weka 9.1
      4 March 2022 at 10:02 am

      that puts an additional burden on authors to write a post ever day. I will keep putting up the daily posts until they stop being used (the system allows me to clone the post so it's a 5 minute job). If I don't, people will use OM.

      I think we need a space to work out our responses in the aftermath too, kind of what you were talking about under micky's post, people sorting through their response and feelings, having a political space to do that is useful imo.

      • weka 9.1.1
        4 March 2022 at 10:03 am

        besides Sanctuary is wrong. There are patterns and deeper understandings beyond their man up position.

      • Shanreagh 9.1.2
        4 March 2022 at 10:10 am

        Yes point taken……you are correct about the 'Convoy' posts being a daily clearing house. This is valuable to continue to it.

        Also I like to have OM 'clean'. That is mainly my daily learning area & springboard to look at links etc on other topics.

        • weka 9.1.2.1
          4 March 2022 at 10:12 am

          Same. Good for mental health too I think to have OM kept for other discussions, so people can step away from the convoy stuff if they want.

          • weka 9.1.2.1.1
            4 March 2022 at 10:13 am

            and looking just now at Te Taipo's twitter thread above, there's still a lot going on 🙁

          • Anne 9.1.2.1.2
            4 March 2022 at 5:06 pm

            It should also be remembered that TS provides all of us with an outlet for our reactions and concerns re – topical issues. That is important for our mental health even if no-one agrees with what we might choose to say. 😉

            I note Wagstaff isn't around anymore. Always enjoyed his short and invariably on the button pithy comments. Have I got his moniker correct?

            No I haven’t.

            • Incognito 9.1.2.1.2.1
              4 March 2022 at 5:20 pm

              Hah! Some days I do wonder if reading the comments here on TS is good for mental health wink

              bwaghorn copped a controversial ban earlier this year for 6 months until 17 July, but this has been overturned as far as I can see, so he’s been free to comment. Whether he knows this IDK.

  10. Adrian 10
    4 March 2022 at 9:58 am

    Dennis you could not be more wrong, they defined themselves by their actions as second class citizens even by demonstrably showing they had no idea what it means to be a citizen.

  11. weka 11
    4 March 2022 at 10:09 am

    and now for some light entertainment.

    https://twitter.com/wekatweets/status/1499323100244021250

    (apparently the rubbish bin is full of drug gear).

  12. Shanreagh 12
    4 March 2022 at 10:20 am

    Now all along my 'spidey' sense, intuition has been saying that there is something wrong with this idea of, 'the PM needs to talk then they will go home etc etc', 'if only the PM had spoken'….. Have not been able to put a finger on why this call is not what it seems.

    People have free will. People could have gone at anytime during the protest and even during the riot. They did not need a negative to stop them acting positively.

    https://twitter.com/minnieprickle/status/1499278234693046272

    • Coventrie 12.1
      4 March 2022 at 12:48 pm

      Toddler stuff. "Look what you made me do", etc. Which often does devolve into an abuser's line… It's a classic denial of responsibility.

    • Anne 12.2
      4 March 2022 at 3:38 pm

      Yep. That is how narcissistic sociopaths operate. Always load the blame on the victim for supposedly provoking them into violent and/or unlawful behaviour. Was on the receiving end many years ago.

  13. ianmac 13
    4 March 2022 at 12:33 pm

    Read somewhere this morning that the original fire starter was identified as a "security" guard from Destiny Church. He was named in the report but someone else might find a link to it. Sorry.

  14. Shanreagh 14
    4 March 2022 at 3:45 pm

    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/03/covid-19-omicron-outbreak-leading-surgeon-says-kiwis-blissfully-unaware-about-importance-of-vaccine-mandates.html

    Richard Stubbs says

    "I don't think New Zealanders quite appreciate the magnitude of the gains we've made here. New Zealand's ability to maintain a 'normal' healthcare service through the last two years of this pandemic is what government mandates have delivered, whereas most healthcare systems around the world will never be able to catch up."

    He also urged everyone not to become complacent as Omicron cases rise, saying the pandemic isn't over yet.

    "Omicron is going to be a real problem for the next six weeks or so. Maybe after then, we can think about relaxing. But we cannot let the brake off now."

  15. georgecom 15
    4 March 2022 at 9:31 pm

    The left has long had forces and causes to fight and fight against. If you line up alongside the working classes, the fair distribution of wealth and building the social wage there have always been causes, 'isms 'and group who oppose you. In times past working people in NZ battled Masseys Cossacks and overseas company police forces and hired goons. In the 1930s leftists fought on the streets and in Spain against the fascists. In more recent times we have fought against the greedy and self entitled who sought to capture an increased share of a nations wealth under the banner of neo-liberalism.

    We believe in collective action, we endorse getting organised, pickets and protests, strikes and civil disobedience. Occasionally even the need for physical confrontation. Protest and action, solidarity and collectivity is the the dna of the left wing. This has left me wondering about the protest in wellington.

    I support peoples right to protest, even sit ins or camp ins and occupations at times. I looked at the infrastructure the protestors fairly quickly built and have been impressed by parts of it – kitchens, ablutions, provision of communal facilities. Amongst the vicious, the manipulators, the political opportunists and the down right tin foil hat nuts, there were genuine normal people with (to them anyway) genuine normal complaints. So whilst I support such peoples right to protest, why do I not support their cause.

    First the science. Covid is a real virus and it does make people seriously ill and put them in coffins. Vaccinations are safe and effective, masks do reduce transmission and lockdowns do slow and halt it's distribution. MIQ did really well to buffer us from covids incursion. Vaccine mandates do work to push people toward being inoculated.

    People do have a choice in that regards, a choice that you might argue is not free from some coercion or negative implications of not being vaccinated, but a choice nonetheless. In negotiating or relationships is called compromise, do we continue the strike for a 10% wage increase or do we settle for the 7% we have been offered. At the last election many National Party supporters probably held their nose and voted Labour in an attempt to keep the Greens out of power. If I lived in the Epsom electorate I would vote for and maybe even campaign for Goldsmith if it meant Seymour and ACT were gone from parliament.

    Lockdowns are gone, at least whilst we remain under the traffic light system. MIQ looks like it will be a very selective entity in future times. Mask wearing will likely continue for some time yet as a simple and effective method of limiting individual transmission. If Omicron represents the zenith/nadir of the virus then likely vaccine mandates can go, for most anyway, fairly shortly. Vaccine mandates were strongest during the Delta outbreak as (1) 2 shots was very effective at limiting transmission and (2) it greatly limited hospitalisation and pressure on our health system. The former is not so with Omicron, although 3 shots has a useful effect on transmission, so the remaining benefit of 2 shots is limiting pressure on our hospital system.

    I would have had no problem had the protestors staged a long weekend or extended weekend love in, smoke in, bitch and moan in etc and then went home. A few days of disruption for the folk of central Wellington would have been annoying for them, I no doubt would have moaned had I been inconvenienced. twenty three days though, that's too long and the time to go home was long before day 23, the point had been made.

    I am no great fan of vaccine mandates. I have no issue being vaccinated, but the choice under the shadow of some compulsion does not automatically sit easily with me.

    However I will not be standing alongside those in Wellington. Covid 19 has hurt working people. It has reduced income, it has resulted in increased workloads, it has lost some jobs, it has caused grief and distress, it has separated families and has forced people to isolate. I do believe most health professionals do not want to pass covid onto the sick and convalescing in our hospitals, they would far rather use their skills and expertise helping those back to health than have wards full of covid cases. I am sure most teachers would feel bad if they were to pass on covid to students and would rather be in a classroom teaching kids than remotely via IT. I am sure most retail or hospitality workers would like to go to work and have minimised the risk of contracting covid from customers.

    So in essence I line up with those who have done the hard times and continue to do them and who, even if through gritted teeth, have stuck with the rules of the game to try and get us all through covid times.

    • georgecom 15.1
      6 March 2022 at 9:43 am

      and this is also pertinent:

      Peace Action Wellington spokesperson Valerie Morse​, who helped organise a gathering in Kilbirnie, stressed the need for social cohesion in the wake of the occupation.

      “The occupation itself was fuelled by ideology which comes out of the United States – this idea that freedom is an individualised thing.

      “If people don’t have houses, or food to eat at night, we can’t even begin to have a conversation about wider democratic participation and equality.”