A Personal Message to the Media

Media and MPs (both of which receive all our statements) will be aware of the events that occurred last night.

Some of the protestors are now very agitated. Please see the internal message (below) that the combined groups representing the majority of the protestors have circulated this morning.

While we do not wish in any way to make media feel unwelcome, it is our strong recommendation that any media visiting site today take up our offer of having a media liaison person escort them. As those of you who have visited the site previously will know, 95%+ of people present on site are mainstream New Zealanders demonstrating in an entirely peaceful manner.

However, we cannot dictate the behaviour of everyone present. The vast majority of people here are highly aggrieved that they’ve lost their jobs, have vaccine-injured family members, and their children are very upset about what’s happening to them at school. While they keep their feelings in check on a day-to-day basis, it is not unnatural for them to react in ways that they might not normally do. Please give deep consideration to this.

We will therefore take a dim view TODAY IN PARTICULAR of any media who nevertheless come to site, unescorted, and then report publicly on any verbal abuse they receive.

In a very complex situation the combined groups representing the majority of protestors on site are doing their very best to demonstrate leadership, as evidenced in our messaging to protestors.

PRIORITY UPDATE – URGENT:

Early this morning the Police started to implement a traffic management plan to stop vehicles from entering the Protest Site – if you drive your vehicle out of the protest site you will not be able to get back in. 

Given our stated and demonstrated peaceful nature this is purely to control traffic in line with their removal of illegally parked cars.

The police ARE NOT coming onto the site, it is not a raid, rather they are creating a one way traffic flow. 

We have been advised that they WILL NOT restrict the movement of our food and support vehicles such as toilet cleaning, food trucks and emergency vehicles. 

We continue to peacefully protest as we have been for the past 14 days.

Police have for many days been talking about implementing a traffic management plan, but the way this action was carried out in the early hours was disappointing and counterproductive to maintaining positive relationships.