The Wellington Occupation

Martin Crick considers the politics represented in the lockdown protests at parliament. First published alongside Paul Hopkinson's in April 2022, though neither was a response to the other.

For 23 days the lawns outside parliament were occupied by a collection of unlikely bedfellows / tent dwellers: Maori, New Agers, Flat Earthers, Presbyterian fundamentalists, the alt-right and the far right, ‘united’ by an opposition to vaccine mandates and/or the vaccine itself. Elsewhere in NZ smaller occupations took place, with Christchurch seeing sizeable demonstrations led by Brian Tamaki’s Freedom and Rights Coalition, a front for his Destiny Church. The Wellington Occupation did not achieve its stated aim of bringing about the end of the mandates, and no elected politician met with the protestors, although Winston Peters used it to try to revive his fading political career. However, it attracted enormous media coverage, and  its violent ending provoked widespread comment. It revealed deep cracks in Jacinda Ardern’s ‘team of five million’. The response from the left was as varied as it was from the mainstream, seeking to explain, condone, condemn, and even cheering on the police action on the final day.

One of the first to comment was Chris Trotter, who openly called for the protestors to be evicted, on the grounds that they ignored the rights and freedoms of their fellow citizens. No state, he said, ‘can afford to allow its citizens to gain the impression that it lacks either the means, or the will, to deploy violence against those who defy it.’  The International Socialist Organisation saw New Zealand’s response to the pandemic as a sign of social solidarity, a collective response in an emergency, and a real attempt to save workers’ lives. Thus the anti-mandate cause is an ‘anti-working class demand’. According to the ISO the occupation  was a ‘reactionary convergence’. ‘The gathering is reactionary through and through; in its demands; in the gaggle of reactionary and far-right slogans and images…in the intimidation of workers and students…as a mass gathering at a time when gatherings endangered our collective health…the freedom the rally advocates is the mirror opposite of real freedom: it is the freedom from consequences, from caring about others, from having to participate in a collective.’ The ISO disagreed with those on the left who saw this as an uprising of the dispossessed, seeing the social base of the occupation as ‘the classic set-up for right-wing populist and fascist organisation’, seen by the right internationally as a recruiting ground. In similar vein the World Socialist Website talked of a ‘reactionary mob’, and suggested that the police response was muted to begin with because the central demand of the occupation, for an end to the mandates, aligned with the needs of the NZ business elite. It was only brought to an end after it had fulfilled its purpose of shifting official politics further to the right. The latest opinion polls that show National overtaking Labour suggest there is some truth in that.

Don Franks in Redline however, in a counter-blast to what he called the ‘woke left’, argued that they made no attempt to understand protestors’motives, had zero recognition of the social and economic deprivation which had driven many to protest, and that they  did not respect the civil liberties of the protestors. Furthermore he dismissed reports of harassment and threats against mask wearers as ‘ a few unpleasant scenes’, the death threats to politicians and journalists as ‘hyperbole’, and argued that when the police withdrew a carnival atmosphere prevailed. The presence of supposed far-right supremacists was given far too much weight says Franks. This was a largely working-class crowd,  in the main campaigning to end the mandates. However a recent analysis of the 250 people arrested at the occupation suggests that a third were small-business owners and tradies, exactly the sort of petit-bourgeois base that sustained Fascist movements throughout Europe in the 1930s, and the Poujadists in France in the 1950s.

In a powerful riposte to Franks Canterbury Socialist Society member Al Dietschin, an NZNO delegate and member of the Health Service Workers’ Network, points out that the anti-mandate movement had as one of its demands the removal of all public health measures. ‘If that had happened’, he says, ‘many more in this country would have died from Covid-19, including health workers’, and the health system would have been overwhelmed. ‘Essentially their stance is a direct affront to healthcare workers/unions’, and their ‘protests, abuse and harassment of healthcare workers at hospitals and vaccination clinics…should be condemned.’ Al asks Franks, ‘given that we don’t live in some socialist or communist utopia, what would you have done in government when this pandemic arose?’

So who is right? None of us on the left can deny the right to protest, the right to freedom of speech, the civil liberties that Franks refers to. Any demonstration or protest will cause disruption, for that is what is intended. Politicians accept being harangued, and even abused, as part of the day job. And yes there is often violent rhetoric at demonstrations. But there is no absolute freedom as a right. And elements of the occupation went far beyond what is acceptable – Franks downplays and ignores the harassment and abuse of school children, of mask wearers, of people on their way to work, of health workers. He forgets that the very people the protestors claimed to be acting on behalf of were seeing their businesses and livelihoods destroyed by their supposed defenders.  He pays no attention whatsoever to the fact that the protestors were themselves causing a public health hazard. Yes, there was a carnival atmosphere at times, and some of the camp clearly had come for the party rather than the protest, but there is also much evidence of other motives. It is impossible to estimate how many actual members of the far-right were in attendance, although there were certainly some. Here in Christchurch Phil Arps,  Kyle Chapman and others were prominent. What is more significant is the growing influence of alternative media, Telegram, Counterspin and the like, offering a counter-narrative which sucked many into conspiracy theories of secret cabals of paedophile politicians, government radio waves affecting people’s brains etc. To dismiss this, as Franks does, is to ignore the growing influence of accelerationist theory on the Far Right. Brenton Tarrant, the perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque massacres, subscribed to this theory. 

Accelerationism is a term used by white supremacists to hasten the collapse of society as we know it. On the one hand they identify ‘acceleration’ as the escalation of ‘degenerate’ values such as multiculturalism, liberalism and diversity., and they see Jews as playing a pivotal role in this. The ‘Protocols of Zion’ writ large again!!On the other hand, convinced that the future of the white race is bleak, they see ‘accelerationism as ‘the last resort of the white man of the modern age’, their aim is to bring down the system by whatever means. And that means they will ally themselves with any disruptive force, such as the anti-mandate movement, which they  feel will provoke a series of reactions, whether from the state or sections of the population, which in turn will lead to societal chaos. Thus we had the disturbing sight of Maori side by side with the Far Right in Wellington. 

The actions of the government before and during the occupation can and should be criticised from the left. As John Minto points out the government didn’t heed the advice of the WHO when it argued that ‘If vaccine mandates are used “individual liberties” should not be challenged for longer than necessary.’ He also says that Jacinda Ardern should apologise for breaking her promise that there would be no consequences of any kind for anyone who chose not to be vaccinated. But of course the government was faced with unprecedented challenges during the course of this fast-moving and ever-changing pandemic, and she couldn’t have predicted the scale of the threat when she made that promise. Where Minto is undoubtedly correct is to echo the same WHO statement where it says that high priority should be given to threats ‘to public health and confidence amongst historically disadvantaged populations, ensuring that cultural considerations are taken into account…such populations may regard mandatory vaccination as another form of inequity or oppression, making it more difficult for them to access jobs and essential services.’ 

This point is emphasised by Tina Ngata a Ngati Porou activist on the East Coast, in an excellent piece by Toby Morris in ‘Side Eye’. She points out that the poorer you are the less likely you are to be vaccinated. Your level of wealth plays a massive part in your level of engagement with the health system; in some parts of the country your nearest vaccination centre is three hours away. Poverty doesn’t just mean a lack of money it means a lack of options, Tina noting a vicious circle of poverty, poor education, low-paying or no jobs, poor health. Where  there is already widespread distrust of the government, and Maori have plenty of historically legitimate reasons to distrust governments, are they now going to be swayed by the government asking to be trusted? Did the government recognise this? No! Did it adjust the vaccine roll out to help those who needed it most? No! Businesses were given $18.8 billion, the poorest sections of the community got $48 million. By the time Marae were engaged, and partnerships established misinformation had been given time to spread. As Tina Ngata says, the system ‘expects you to receive every policy as if you are Pakeha. It expects you to erase all of your experience and receive this treatment as if you are a Paurua 40 year old with 2.4 children and a dryer.’

A left response to this should have been to argue that those opposed to vaccinations for health, cultural, religious or whatever reasons should have been offered redeployment into other jobs, or been guaranteed their jobs back and paid until the mandates were rescinded. The argument that mandates infringe our civil liberties I have no time for- preventing us from eating out or socialising – wider communal health and safety, the good of the collective,  override individual choice during an emergency. What should worry the left is the arrogation of ‘freedom’ by the right. Isaiah Berlin pointed out that there are two types of freedom, negative and positive, and this right-wing freedom is wholly negative. Its conflation with national identity is even more worrying – the sight of all those NZ flags is reminiscent of Trumpism. And we have a very similar evocation of the enemy – big government, the media, the socially liberal values of an educated urban elite. The working -class, who were undoubtedly present in Wellington and elsewhere, have nothing to gain from the alt-right who, as Ian Hyslop has pointed out, are engaged in a self-interested game of power, and who wish for nothing more than a society made up of ‘individualised, marketized and commodified personas.’ What we saw on the lawns at Wellington was the ultimate consequence of neo-liberalism. The puzzle for the left is how to combat this. In New Zealand the left could not have turned out a fraction of those numbers, and it has no vision to offer the dispossessed.  Hyslop urges us not to ‘disparage the feral mob and order another latte’ but address the social and political divisions that enabled the parliament protest. That is the true failure of the Ardern government, presented with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to effect radical change it failed long before the arrival of Covid, and the gap between the wealthy and the poor continues to widen. In the face of a far -right emboldened by the events of the past few weeks, the radical left has to organise its scattered ranks and present a vision of society based on the redistribution of wealth and true community values.