Police spent $36k arresting four Waiheke protectors, breaking up marina occupation

Monday, 23 August 2021

Tensions have been rising at the Kennedy Point Marina site on Waiheke Island, as activists and crew tussle and occupiers take over the floating pontoon. (First published July 8, 2021)

A police operation to remove anti-marina protesters from their floating occupation at Pūtiki Bay on Auckland’s Waiheke Island cost more than $36,000.

Four protectors were arrested in Operation Kennedy Point on July 15, which saw about 80 officers, four police boats and a dive squad dispatched to the island.

Figures released under the Official Information Act showed just under $22,000 was spent on staffing costs for the day.

The protectors spent a week camping on the floating pontoon before police arrived.

The total cost of the operation, including transport, fuel and ferry costs, was estimated to be $36,316.

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A construction barge in the water at Pūtiki Bay. The planned Kennedy Point Marina will have 181 berths.

The Protect Pūtiki group had been camping out on the pontoon in the construction zone for a week when police arrived.

Three were arrested from the pontoon occupation and a further person was charged after coming down from the construction barge, where he had been camped out metres above the water.

The group’s members – who call themselves protectors because they see their role as kaitiaki, or guardians of the area – set up a camp near the Kennedy Point car park after being moved off the moana occupation.

Police descended on this campsite on Saturday. Four protectors had locked down there in a bubble, but left after facing arrest for breaking lockdown rules.

The protectors said the camp had been their home for months, but they were told they were breaching a ban on public outdoor gatherings.

After staffing, the highest cost for police in Operation Kennedy Point was dispatching the police dive squad boat along with general transport and accommodation costs – about $10,000 altogether.

The cost of sending the police Deodar boat, plus three rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIBS), was about $3000 in fuel and incidental costs.

Sending police vehicles on the ferry cost $1338.

Police noted in its OIA response that staffing costs are based on average salaries for the staff deployed.

These are a fixing cost that police had already committed, “it is only the deployment that changed”.