An Auckland local body councillor was arrested, along with other protesters, and taken into custody last week.
They were charged with trespass for their protest against the felling of 200 large pine trees.
Frankly, I agree with the protesters, the incident having at its root, the typically small New Zealand mentality that native trees which are to be planted in their place are somehow superior to exotics. It’s infantile. New Zealand bush is plentiful and hardly under threat. More to the point, as with the Amazon, African and Australian bush, all evergreen, it’s boring by comparison with the wonderful colour and variety of Northern hemisphere trees, be they in Europe, North America or Central Asia.
But here’s my salient point. Notwithstanding my and the protesters views on this, the Police were right to arrest the protesters.
So here’s the question. Will the police behave in a similar manner when Wellington developer Ian Cassels starts work on his authorised Shelly Bay residential development and asks them to remove the maori protesters, and if not why not?
I think we can guess the answer to that.
6 Comments
The Police Commissioner will be closely following progress at Shelly Bay so he can take leave the week work’s due to start.
Your comment has given me a good laugh to go with my morning coffee!
The ghost of Sir Ralph Love may scare away the authorities, and put a wahi tapu on the site.
God (now only) knows what the Iwi got out of it, when selling it so cheaply to Cassels in the first place.
Looks and smells like another Fletcher buy out.
Cindy’s NZ Police …”defining pathetic, maintaining woke” ; no coincidence woke rhymes with joke.
No healthcare, no police, no justice, no economy, no monetary value, no common sense ….no fun.
Increasing kindness, increasing prices, increasing tax, increasing violence, increasing racial disharmony …..increasing confusion.
The trespassing councillor in question is wanting to enter national politics (for national ) I hear. Why she thinks the right leaning voter who is most likely to like law and order, would like a person who cannot abide by her own committee democratic vote, and think publicly ignoring it, is a good strategy, is surprising.
I can’t help but agree. Encouraging beggars is not “kindness”.