Yesterday, completely out of the blue, I got an email from a mum I know complaining about the impact it will l have on kids trying to get to their NCEA exams on time.
Today, I bumped into someone this morning furious about the timing because it was rush hour. And someone in my family is raging about it as well.
To be fair to these people, it's understandable anger and I can see why they're so cross.
Basically, it's because this protest feels like it was designed to create disruption. Either that or the organisers didn't think it through - which I doubt very much because they have proven to be quite deliberate in a bunch of the things they do.
What happened to facilitate the hīkoi today was that authorities had to close two lanes on the Harbour Bridge in our biggest city from 8 in the morning - at peak morning traffic time. That will have messed up the day for thousands of people coming in from the North Shore.
If these guys were decent to the people of Auckland just trying to do their jobs and get their kids to school, they would've shifted their walk time back by a couple of hours, when most people are in the office and won't be messed around.
It's not as if the hīkoi would lose attention because it caused less disruption.
They are all over the online news feeds, they’re being covered by radio shows like ours, they'll be all over the TV news later because the protest is big. And it's about a very contentious issue, that being the Treaty Principles Bill. These guys did not have to muck Aucklanders around to get the coverage they wanted.
Ultimately, I don't think it's a smart move from them. Just like I don't think it's too smart to have gang members join the hīkoi with their patches on display.
All it’s going to do is frustrate middle New Zealand and make middle New Zealand more sympathetic to the other side, because that’s how politics works nowadays - we pick sides. We don't like that side, we go to the other, that's how this works.
And that’s ultimately an own goal, because the only hope David Seymour has for this bill is that it becomes very popular and that it gets rescued because enough people want it.
And this hīkoi, I reckon, won’t have hurt his chances at all.
A lesson to people planning future protests - try not cause disruption on purpose, because that way we’re more likely to be sympathetic to your cause, not less.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.
14 comments:
Totally intentional. They'll be on their busses going to the next town I can assure you. It's like the caravans from Mexico.
It's all about making war isn't it? Because they have very hurty feelings. Oh well, then gloves are off.
I also read on a comment posted on facehook that members of the protest were catching public transpirt buses back across the bridge without paying. All this march has done is annoy people. Luxon, please stand up for yourself and stand up for the everyday nz people.
Agree completely
I also heard that the bridge was wabbling under the disruptive weight from them doing the Haka. Things like that could cause a monumental disaster.
And how long before the gangs annouce their role is to protect the marchers and defend its mana. Suddenly all pretence of peaceful protest is dropped and the Brown Shirts emerge as the enforcers of Te Pati Maori. Far fetched some might say. Let's see how they react to gang patches being banned.
One wonders why the Police and NZTA allowed the bridge lanes to be shut down from 8 am. The response from them should have been “ No, you are allocated a time outside peak trafffic flows and we will accomodate you after 1030 am only “. This pandering comes from the top. PM Luxon is not standing up the majority of New Zealanders as is clear from his recent dishing of the Draft Treaty Principle's Bill.
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If this march is about inequality then the highest priority is for schools to recognize this is best achieved by educating children so they can become strong independent individuals through their own efforts.
Our present education system does mot do this since it produces an unacceptable level of illiteracy and numeracy.
Our education system should own up to what it is doing in becoming centers of indoctrination into Marxism , by radicalizing small children into protest for which they have little understanding.
Get them back into the classroom and focusing on the 3RS..
It is very clear that NZers - the very people whose opinion should be asked about this Bill and about a referendum on whether NZ should be a democracy or ethnocracy - will never be asked.
Why do numerous groups of "woke" experts propose endless plans for the future of the country - yet never ask the people themselves?
Why are the key people involved - NZers - not insisting on the right to express their opinion in a referendum? Time is running out for this step. Otherwise, He Puapua will happen by 2040.
The victim pushes state themselves “what’s a few hours of disruption compared to generations of oppression”
The chips on their shoulders are so large it’s blinding them. Any objective assessment would note that many things improved after contact with the colonisers
But that would disrupt the victim narrative that sustains these perpetually aggrieved pro activists
Sadly, these social misfits are poisoning their own well.
in response to TJS wouldn't be a monumental disaster if they were on it at the time.
Always surprises me how Maori always seem to have the time and inclination to protest on such causes, but never can get their aggrieved backsides out of bed to get their kids to school, yet alone with a lunch; get to a doctor or dentist; demand justice when their children are injured or murdered by close acquaintances; provide role models so their offspring don't end up in gangs; or to even occasionally fill out an obligatory census form. And then we get this demand to "honor the Treaty" and I haven't even mentioned those challenging who has the right to govern. If ever there was a broken culture...
All The Maori today are part -European and would not have been born, therefore, had there been no colonisation. They hate their white side. I have relatives who are part-Maori and the past seven years since Ardern's malevolent campaigning have sown rifts needlessly. in the wider family. Like kids at a Porirua school being taught to draw pictures of British ''killing Maori''. I am not joking. My cousin saw his grandkid's work and asked him about what was behind it. Colonisation is not just a ''white'' thing. Invasions and colonisations by nations and tribes (of same race) has been going on for millenia ...in Europe, Africa and Asia and the Americas. And probably most of us have very mixed ancestry if we could trace it. None of us are pure anything. The Maori Party is a vile version of the UK's old National Front and the English Defence League. MSM coverage makes it clear what side the vast majority of its ''journalists'' are on . And, yes, sovereignty was ceded to Britain. In fairness it could be said that Maori in 1840 were not necessarily expecting ships bringing wave after wave or migrants expecting to buy land as of right. In 1840 Maori still owned almost all the country. And that from my viewpoint is the sticking point. Ownership of land , like 95pc of the country, still gave some ''tribal control'' or ''local sovereignty'' . The land confiscations of the 1860s changed all that. I'd like to give my name but it is dangerous
All NZ citizens to be considered as equals under the Law? Isn't that pretty basic? Didn't our recent ancestors risk/lose their lives in two world wars to preserve that fundamental right? If so, are we going to continue to allow them to be disrespected? I hope not. Bellowing, eye bulging, stamping and tongues extended is all part of one culture's intimidation, but I suggest that it has just about run its course - this may come as a shock to some, but it is 2024, not the 1800's.
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