Yet another “FREEDOM” protest

On Tuesday, Freedoms and Rights Coalition members converged on Wellington for another protest about our “freedoms”, and of course I was there to see what was going on.

The prelude to the protest was interesting. Conspiracy “independent journalist” Chantelle Baker had her Facebook page removed for spreading misinformation, just in time to make sure she wasn't able to live stream the event to thousands of people (although sadly she has a backup page called Operation People she's started using). And the Interislander ferry was unable to sail the day before due to “repairs”, meaning the protestors who had driven up through the South Island weren't able to make it across the strait to Wellington in time.

Back in February, when the first protest convoy drove to Wellington, I headed into Wellington in the morning and saw maybe 100 people on the various bridges on State Highway 1 waving flags and placards. This time was a little more subdued, with just one lonely man holding a couple of flags - I wondered if this was a portent of how the day would go.

When I walked to parliament from my office just before midday, it was obvious things were going to be different to the February protest. There was a police presence in a wide area around the Beehive - not a huge number of police, but it was obvious they were more prepared than last time. There were also concrete bollards that had been added in advance on Sunday, both restricting cars from getting close to parliament and constricting most of the gated entrances to parliament.

Before I walked up the steps to parliament I first passed maybe a hundred or more counter-protestors - it was nice to see them there, representing many of the communities that people like Brian Tamaki have historically tried to deny rights to. Speaking of which, it turns out that the protest was exactly 18 years to the day after Brian Tamaki led his Enough is Enough march to parliament in 2004, where he argued against gay civil unions.

I headed up the main steps to parliament, and the crowd was small and sparse enough that I had no problems getting near the front to hear the proceedings - maybe 1,500 people were there. The first speaker was Heker Robertson, who I saw earlier this year speaking at the Counterspin conspiracy roadshow. He spent 10 minutes introducing Brian Tamaki, talking about Brian's “sacrifice” by being arrested for breaking lockdown rules and spending time both in prison and under house arrest - and trying to make out that he was not only the creator of the Freedoms and Rights Coalition, but also the head of the “freedom” movement. Honestly, the way this was worded it almost sounded like Brian was Jesus - a man who has suffered this punishment on our behalf so that we might be free.

After this, Brian came up to speak. His speech was a lot of fluff and nonsense, the kind of riffing that he does a lot in his Sunday sermons. He talked about the good old days, and said that the attendees are people, not conspiracy theorists (I'm pretty sure they're both!).

"Apostle" Brian Tamaki talking to the crowd.

Brian eventually reached the point where he announced his new political party - and this is something I've been a little worried about. For a party that is unlikely to win a seat in any electorate, which will be the case for fringe parties like conspiracy groups, their target is to gain 5% of the overall vote nationwide, as this is the threshold to be allowed to have list MPs in parliament. At the last election, Advance NZ (jointly run by conspiracy theorist Billy TK) received 1% of the vote, as the largest of the conspiracy parties. With the recent increase in anti-government sentiment, I am concerned that 5% is not out of the question if these groups can work together.

It turns out that Brian's feat is a lot less impressive than he'd been suggesting it was. He announced that the party will consist of a merger of three existing parties - New Nation, Vision NZ and The Outdoors and Freedom Party, which Brian said was pretty much a done deal, and just needed a signature from co-leader Sue Grey who is currently in Europe - at a 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg Code in Nuremberg, Germany (this is an anti-vaccine event run by an organisation called the “World Council for Health”, who like to pretend that they're a legitimate health group).

Now the first of these parties, Vision NZ, is Brian's own Destiny church political party, so it's a no-brainer that they will be a part of the merger.

The second party, New Nation, is a very minor player - in the recent Tauranga by-election, for example, their candidate (Andrew Hollis) received just 260 votes, a lot fewer than the winner, Sam Uffindell, with 11,000 votes. Their policies mainly seem to revolve around returning New Zealand to those elusive “good old days” that Brian had been telling the crowd about, and other parties like the New Conservatives and others promise.

The third one, the Outdoors Party, I was surprised about. From what I can gather, co-leader Sue Grey has a small but loyal following, and her party managed about the same number of votes as Destiny Church's at the last general election (about 0.1% of the vote each). I can't imagine Sue wanting to give up her position in order to come under Brian Tamaki.

It turns out that Brian may have exaggerated the likelihood of this merger, and this combined with some mis-reporting in the media Brian had said the party had already agreed to the deal meant that the Outdoors party ended up strenuously denying that they had made an agreement. Apparently some of their members are so aghast at aligning with Destiny Church that they've quit the party in disgust.

Dr Sharma, a Labour MP who's recently been involved in a scuffle with his party that has ended with his expulsion, received a shout out. He was invited to give Brian a call to discuss working with them - and by that point it started to feel like Brian was clutching at straws.

Then, finally, Brian had finished talking and we reached the reason for the protest - they had organised a mock “trial”, complete with a desk containing scales and a gavel, and an older gentleman dressed in a black robe and wig. I have to admit that this part of the event was a cleverly done piece of theatre. (for those who want to see the event in all its glory, there's a video on Facebook)

Heker Robertson on the steps of parliament talking to the "judge", while Brian and his wife Hannah look on in the background.

What followed the opening of this "trial" was a set of personal stories from people who were affected by lockdowns, travel restrictions and mandates. These stories were sad, but the government's part in them seems to have been nothing more than that they had followed expert advice on how to handle a pandemic - and of course these restrictions are going to have an effect on people's lives. The audience were then asked to deliver a verdict and prompted to shout “guilty”, which obviously resulted in a rousing finale to the events. Once the verdict was announced, the people were told to “reach an appropriate sentence when the opportunity is presented to you”. Presumably this was a reference to voting in the next election, but it also felt a little like it could be seen as an invite for people to seek mob justice.

It would have been a relief to the Police that, as soon as the proceedings had finished, everyone started to leave parliament grounds - and there was no sign that people were preparing to dig in and try to start another occupation.

Early on in the day Bronwyn spotted Chantelle Baker filming the counter-protestors. And then at one point, during Brian's bloviating, I spotted Kelvyn Alp from conspiracy media outlet Counterspin standing close to me in the crowd. For some reason he seemed to be keeping a low profile, wearing a dark hoodie and filming the crowd on his phone. Interestingly, he and Hannah Spierer from Counterspin have since been arrested (on Thursday) and charged for publishing material from the Christchurch attack.

I'm somewhat heartened to see that people in power seem to finally be taking these conspiracy theorists seriously, and I wonder if the Stuff documentary Fire and Fury is at least partially to thank for this. It's also great to see that the threat of the conspiracy parties coming together for the next election is pretty low, given that every attempt so far, including this one by Brian Tamaki of Destiny church, has very quickly devolved into infighting and drama.

(Thanks to Bronwyn for most of the photos in this article - the professional looking black and white ones are hers, and the potato quality colour ones are mine)