Like a relentless ocean, wave after wave of pro-Palestinian pro-human rights protesters disrupted New Zealand deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters’ state of the nation speech at Christchurch Town Hall on March 23.
A clarion call to Trumpism and Australia’s One Nation Party, the speech was accompanied by the background music of about 250 protesters outside the Town Hall, chanting: “Complicity in genocide is a crime.”
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) co-chair John Minto described Peters’ attitude to Palestinians as “sickening”.
Inside the James Hay Theatre, protester after protester stood and spoke loudly and clearly against Peters’ failure to support those still dying in Gaza, and his failure to denounce the ongoing genocide.
Ben Vorderegger was the first of nine protesters who appealed on behalf of people who have lost their voices in the dust of blood and bones, bombs and sniper guns.
Before he and others were hauled out, they spoke for the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza — women, men, doctors, aid workers, journalists and children.
Gazan health authorities have reported that the official death toll is now more than 50,000 — but that is the confirmed deaths, with thousands more buried under the rubble.
Real death toll
The real death toll from the genocide in Gaza has been estimated by a reputed medical journal, The Lancet, at more than 63,000. A third of those are children. Each day, more children are killed.
One by one, the protesters who challenged Peters were manhandled by security guards to a frenzied crowd screaming “out, out”.
Peters’ response was to deride and mock the conscientious objectors. He did not stop there. He lambasted the media.
At this point, several members of his audience turned on me as a journalist and demanded my removal.
This means that not only is the right to free speech at stake, the right or freedom to report is also being eroded. (I was later trespassed by security guards and police from the Town Hall, although no reason was supplied for the ban).
Inside the Christchurch Town Hall, the call by Peters, who is also foreign minister, to “Make New Zealand Great Again” continued in the vein of a speech written by a MAGA leader.
He whitewashed human rights, failed to address climate change and demonstrated loathing for a media that has rarely challenged him.
Condemned movement
Slamming the PSNA as “Marxist fascists” for calling out genocide, he condemned the movement for failing to talk with those who have a record of kowtowing to violent colonisation.
This tactic is Colonial Invasion 101. It sees the invader rewarding and only dealing with those who sell out. This strategy demands that the colonised people should bow to the oppressor — an oppressor who threatens them with losing everything if they do not accept the scraps.
Peters showed no support for the Treaty of Waitangi but rather, endorsed the government’s challenge to the founding document of the nation — Te Tiriti o Waitangi. In his dismissal of the founding and legally binding partnership, he repeated the “One Nation” catch-cry. Ad nauseum.
Besides slamming Palestinians, the Scots (he managed to squeeze in a racist joke against Scottish people) and the “woke”, Peters’ speech promoted continued mining, showing some amnesia over the Pike River disaster. He did not reference the environment or climate change.
After the speech, outside the Town Hall police donned black gloves — a sign they were prepared to use pepper-spray.
PSNA co-chair John Minto described Peters’ failure to stand against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians as “bloody disgraceful”.
The police arrested one protester, claiming he put his hand on a car transporting NZ First officials. A witness said this was not the case.
Protester released
The protester was later released without any charges being laid.
A defiant New Zealand First MP Shane Jones marched out of the Town Hall after the event. He raised his arms defensively at protesters crying, “What if it was your grandchildren being slaughtered?”
I was trespassed from the Christchurch Town Hall for re-entering the Town Hall for Winston Peters’ media conference. No reason was supplied by police or the Town Hall security personnel for that trespass order.
It is well known that Peters loathes the media — he said so enough times during his state of the nation speech.
He referenced former United States President Bill Clinton during his speech, an interesting reference given that Clinton did not receive the protection from the media that Peters has received.
From the over-zealous security personnel who manhandled and dragged out hecklers, to the banning of a journalist, to the arrest of someone for “touching a car” when witnesses report otherwise, the state of the nation speech held some uncomfortable echoes — the actions of a fascist dictatorship.
Populist threats
The atmosphere was reminiscent of a Jorg Haider press conference I attended many years ago in Vienna. That “rechtspopulist” Austrian politician had threatened journalists with defamation suits if they called him out on his support for Nazis.
Yet he was on record for doing so.
I was reminded of this yesterday when the audience called “out, out” at hecklers, and demanded the removal of this journalist. These New Zealand First supporters demand adoration for their leader or a media black-out.
Perhaps they cannot be blamed given that the state of the nation speech could well have been written by US President Donald Trump or one of his minions.
The protesters were courageous and conscientious in contrast to Peters, said PSNA’s John Minto.
He likened Peters to Neville Chamberlain — Britain’s prime minister from 1937–40. His name is synonymous with the policy of “appeasement”, because he conceded territorial concessions to Nazi Germany in the late 1930s, fruitlessly hoping to avoid war.
“He has refused to condemn any of Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians, including the total humanitarian aid blockade of Gaza.”
Refusal ‘unprecedented’
“It’s unprecedented in New Zealand history that a government would refuse to condemn Israel breaking its ceasefire agreement and resuming industrial-scale slaughter of civilians,” Minto said.
“That is what Israel is doing today in Gaza, with full backing from the White House.
“Chamberlain went to meet Hitler in Munich in 1938 to whitewash Nazi Germany’s takeovers of its neighbours’ lands.
“Peters has been in Washington to agree to US approval of the occupation of southern Syria, more attacks on Lebanon, resumption of the land grab genocide in Gaza and get a heads-up on US plans to ‘give’ the Occupied West Bank to Israel later this year.
“If Peters disagrees with any of this, he’s had plenty of chances to say so.
“New Zealanders are calling for sanctions on Israel but Mr Peters and the National-led government are looking the other way.”
Only staged questions
The conscientious objectors who rise against the oppression of human rights are people Winston Peters regards as his enemies. He will only answer questions in a press conference staged for him.
He warms to journalists who warm to him.
The state of the nation speech in the Town Hall was familiar.
Seeking to erase conscientiousness will not make New Zealand great, it will render this country very small, almost miniscule, like the people who are being destroyed for daring to demand their right to their own land.
[Reprinted from Asia-Pacific Report. Saige England is a journalist and author, and a member of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa. Edited for style.]