Mark Freeman
The day that anti-mandate protesters “held the line” against police at last year’s occupation of Parliament Ground was an emotionally very significant moment for the protesters, says an organiser of an event that has commemorated it.
More than 100 people gathered on the beautifully-restored lawn at Parliament on Friday for a picnic commemorating the anniversary of February 10, 2022; the day when protesters successfully resisted police attempts to evict them from the grounds.
Speakers at the picnic reflected on the significance of the 23-day protest and looked ahead to what still needs to be done.
Event co-organiser Fiona Buchet said that day last year was a positive event, when the protesters were victorious against police who hadn’t expected to be deployed against their own people.
“I think the police realised they were woefully unprepared, and I think we all sensed that their hearts were not in it, so they had to outsource a whole lot of other [police officers] who didn’t care.”
That day was more emotionally significant than the violent end to the protest on March 2, she says.
“To stand there for six hours, as my husband did, as far away from a police officer as you and I are, you can’t help but have some sort of connection that goes on. And there were many people just standing there telling their stories to the police officers, so it was a much more emotionally important moment for everyone.”
That was the only interaction that protesters had with the other side, she says. “None of the politicians came out. They just sent their henchmen out, and their henchmen didn’t want to be henchmen.”
As well as looking backwards, people also need to look forwards and push back against the globalist agenda, Ms Buchet says. “We don’t have to agree about everything. We just have to agree about this one thing. And let’s just for this one period of time agree on that one thing and get that job done, and then we can go back to being all different again.”
One of the speakers at the picnic, Dr Matt Shelton of NZDSOS, called for a wide-ranging inquiry into the government’s Covid-19 response.
“We have to have an independent, public-facing enquiry and public-led enquiry into everything that has led up to the last two years, with everything on the table, nothing written out, and a mandate to go back as far as we need into history to see where all this might have started.”
Turning to address the inhabitants of the Beehive, he said there are golden rules and black lines in medicine that should never be crossed.
“You guys in there, you never, ever, ever give an experimental genetic device to pregnant women or women of childbearing age and children…ever, ever, ever.” Birth rates around the world are plummeting, and death rates are rising, he said.
Also in reference to the Covid injection, Dr Shelton told the crowd our members of Parliament are supposed to represent us, “but our Government didn’t listen to us and apparently not to some of their own science advisers. And I suspect there are a number of New Zealanders not here today – not alive – who would be if the Government had actually listened to some of its own advice.”
He believes most MPs in this country are good people but were the wrong people at the wrong time. “It seems that good people can be led to do very bad things. And, in fact, history tells us that.”
Dr Shelton called for New Zealand’s bill of rights to be properly enshrined in law so it can’t be “trampled on the instructions of unelected private groups outside of New Zealand”.
“It’s really very simple. This is our country. We decide how we want it to be, from grassroots all the way to the top.”