Waatea News column: A demonstration in Parliament without mana

Threats of violence and abuse made by protesters in Parliament are not acceptable.

While everyone has the right to protest in a liberal progressive democracy, threatening and abusing people is illegal and does not advance your case in a democracy.

Protesters attempting to break through police lines on Wednesday last week to disrupt Parliament are unacceptable to all citizens of this democracy.

That said, these angry and frightened protesters have a right to protest, the yoke of mandates has hit this group the hardest and they have every right in a democracy to express their pain directly to the politicians who passed these rules.

I disagree with these protesters that the government’s response to Covid has been the big threat to civil rights they claim. We had to embark on these restrictions to protect everyone, and we collectively want this pandemic to be over so these sanctions can be lifted because none of us want to see our fellow Kiwis suffer unnecessarily.

What was most alarming were the childish pranks by the Speaker of the House whose decision to clean up the lawn on Thursday caused a huge backlash that saw the protest grow to 5 times its original size.

Spraying water and playing loud music are a spoiled brat’s tactic, not that of the Speaker of the House.

Mallard’s antics made a serious situation worse.

We urgently need MPs with mana to come down and hear protesters’ concerns about the deal that protesters go home.

We urgently need to defuse this anger so that there is no longer any recourse to the police.

We need the adults to come back and take care of this.

First published on Waatea News.