Bruce Cotterill: The right to protest is vital even if you don’t agree with the cause

For most of the last 180 years, New Zealanders have led a relatively peaceful, andproductive existence. We’ve done our bit internationally, and, in particular, our young men and women have represented our country with great pride in the two world wars. Our innovators and our athletes have helped to shape the world.

But we’ve had our moments of upheaval, too. It hasn’t always been peace and quiet. The 1950s saw the waterfront strikes, and the 1970s gave witness to Dame Whina Cooper’s Māori Land March, and the occupation at Bastion Point.

Ele Ludemann: Inciting violence

Free speech has limits.

Inciting violence is one of them and that is what this looks like:

Alexander Gillespie: How should NZ law deal with disruptive climate protests?

The most recent protest by the Restore Passenger Rail climate protest group, in which a Wellington car dealership was defaced with red paint, is not just the latest in a local movement – it’s part of a global trend.

Airline bosses have been hit with cream pies, Just Stop Oil protesters have glued themselves to iconic pieces of art in famous galleries, school students are skipping school to march for climate justice, and airport runways have been invaded. Everywhere, including in New Zealand, roads and highways have been blocked.

Chris Trotter: Unequal To The Task?

Those who dismiss mass political protest as historically ephemeral, leaving nothing of significance behind it, are wrong. The Springbok Tour protests of 1981 made a huge impression on the NZ Police. So much so that, in the 40 years that have elapsed since the Tour, the policing of political protest in New Zealand has undergone a profound change. Just how vulnerable that change has left the New Zealand people was made frighteningly clear during the occupation and eventual clearing of Parliament Grounds in 2022. If the NZ Police are not now conducting a root-and-branch reform of their political protest policing methods, then they are failing in their duty as protectors of the state and its citizens.