Protesters threaten 'gridlock' in all main cities if mandates not dropped

Tuesday, 9 November 2021

Freedoms and Rights Coalition protest at Parliament

They started planning the protests last week, sharing details through Facebook groups and the social media messaging app, Telegram. The Freedoms & Rights Coalition, founded by Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki, started the ball rolling, but various other groups – opposed to everything from vaccine mandates to Three Waters reform – soon joined the effort to take their anger to the streets of the capital.

The protesters hadn’t applied for a permit, but Wellington City Council and the police got wind of the preparations and started discussing how to keep the central city safe.

Well before dawn on Tuesday, the protesters started their journey. It was about 4am when the caravan of motorcycles – which would eventually exceed 70 bikers and include members of gangs including the Mongrel Mob, Nomads and Head Hunters – set out from New Plymouth.

Protesters led by motorcyclists make their way down Willis St in Wellington during Tuesday’s march against vaccination mandates.

They made stops and picked up more members in Hāwera, Whanganui, Levin and Paremata before arriving in Wellington, according to posts on social media.

Protesters led by motorcyclists in Willis St make their way through Wellington.

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As more people headed to the central city, Metlink warned commuters that bus services would be affected and to expect delays and detours.

By 8.30am, numbers in Te Ngākau Civic Square were starting to swell, hitting 100 then 200 then 300.

Thousands of protesters make their way to Parliament on Tuesday.

There were teachers, business owners, nurses, and people who described themselves as anti-vax and anti-mandate. Some carried Trump banners or Māori sovereignty flags, others compared Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to Hitler and the media to Nazis.

They railed against Government control – vaccine mandates, the traffic light system, the Auckland boundary – and asserted their right to freedom. They traded misinformation about vaccines. Almost no-one wore a mask.

“I'm here because I’m a primary school teacher and my right to live is being tampered with,” said Tiare, a 34-year-old teacher from Hawke's Bay who travelled to Wellington especially for the protest. He declined to give his surname. “I’m not anti-vax, I’m pro-choice,” he said, adding that he has had other immunisations but not the Covid vaccine.

By the time they started their procession along Willis Street and Lambton Quay towards Parliament, they numbered about 5000. That included the motorbikes, which filled the streets with white smoke, deafening roars, and palpable fear.

Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard boosted security ahead of the protests, with most access points to Parliament and the Beehive closed off. Mallard said it was the most heightened security he had seen since he was first elected in 1984.

When the protesters got to Parliament grounds, their voiced concerns were domestic: fear over Covid-19 vaccine mandates for about 40 per cent of the workforce, anguish over lockdowns, worry over a perceived curtailing of rights for those refusing vaccination.

But the means through which they articulated their concerns were imported, delivered through Australian and American political symbols and inflamed by conspiracy theories.

Thousands of protesters could be seen from the Beehive.

Some waved “Make America Great Again” flags featuring former US President Donald Trump’s name. There were signs saying “Let’s Go Brandon” – a recent meme in American politics meant to insult President Joe Biden – and a flag representing the far-right “Q” conspiracy theory.

The sprawling theory generally holds that there is a shadow war going on between a cabal of satanic leaders and Donald Trump, and that many world leaders had been secretly arrested as part of a “sting” organised by the former president.

Others were bearing the Eureka flag, which features a Southern Cross and was first flown by 19th century miners in Australia, furious at the colonial government’s administration of the goldfields.

Protesters carried signs and flags, some of which opposed vaccine mandates.

It later came to symbolise fairness, equality and a struggle against authority, but it has also been associated with white supremacy.

On the lawn outside Parliament buildings, Murray Atkins, who had travelled from Gisborne to protest, said he would soon lose his job as a driving instructor because he refused to be vaccinated.

“At the end of the day, I consider my job isn’t as important as my health,” said “I will look after my health. I’m no good to my family if I have an adverse reaction.”

Nearby, Rem Rensen sat with his dog Bugsy. The pair had travelled from near Te Kuiti with a wooden effigy of Ardern in a noose. Families with young children sat peacefully on the lawn. Pop music from Nesian Mystik and Rihanna boomed.

While they were there, officials would report 125 new community cases of the virus and 79 people in hospital. Another 21,000 people got a dose of the vaccine the previous day – about four times as many people as were protesting.

Firefighter Paris Winiata addressed the crowd while dressed in his uniform.

Winiata has been both a professional rugby league player and a drug dealer as well as the candidate for Destiny Church’s Vision New Zealand party in Hutt South.

“During this Delta lockdown my wife and I lost our 14-month-old baby. Those are the hardest days – not just for myself and my wife as parents, mourning the death of their child, but for my family and friends who were not able to attend his tangi,” he told the crowd.

“It’s not just me, there are hundreds of others who have suffered.”

Walking through the crowd, filming on her cellphone, was Hillary Kieft. She had travelled to Wellington from Stratford for the protest, and had also been part of the group that forced Ardern to cancel a visit to a Whanganui vaccination centre last week.

“I don't want the vaccine … I'm seeing too much damage from the vaccine,” Kieft said.

She had not been vaccinated and would be stood down without pay from her job at a girl’s school on November 15. But she planned to organise another protest at Parliament soon.

“We'll be doing lots of it in the coming days, in the coming weeks, in the coming months,” she said.

Protesters chanted for politicians to come out and meet them, but none did.

In lieu of any elected representatives, some diverted their attention to journalists reporting from the rally. “Get a real job” and “lying media” were yelled from the crowd. Some shoved a Dominion Post photographer on the scene.

More crowd members breached the barrier, and police moved back to defend the main entrance to Parliament. At one point, several protesters surrounded a reporter.

By early afternoon, the protesters were trailing off.

Police said no arrests were made.

But the Freedoms & Rights Coalition has given the Government a deadline – Friday – to revoke all workplace vaccination mandates, which are due to come into force from Monday. If the Government doesn’t comply, the group is threatening to block traffic in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch indefinitely from Saturday, an event they’re calling “The Great Gridlock”.

“If our demands have not been actioned, we will activate The Freedoms & Rights Coalition movement in cars, trucks and tractors to gridlock our major cities,” the group wrote in an online post.

Brian Tamaki has said he will negotiate with police and the Government.

Ardern said the protesters were not representative of the “vast bulk” of Kiwis.