Police and protestors clash on State Highway 1 in Wellington recently. Photo: RNZ/ Bill Hickman
Protest in New Zealand has moved well beyond a march up main street. Overseas we've seen climate activists throw paint and soup at famous artworks. Closer to home, we've seen recent Restore Passenger Rail protesters cement their hands to State Highway 1, and seriously deface a car dealership in Wellington.
Yet when the public shock wears off, protesters will go bigger to get their message heard.
Professor of Law at the University of Waikato Al Gillespie tells Nights that the right to protest is made up of two traditional rights: freedom of assembly and freedom to petition.
Listen
Gillespie says protesting in New Zealand goes back to the 1840s, when workers were walked off the job in a labour dispute.
“This has followed a pattern of other Western liberal countries, whereby people go to the streets to get change,” he says.
“Every generation protests about something… there's no shortage of reasons that citizens get upset. And so the challenge is trying to facilitate protests in a safe and orderly way. Because having dissent is one of the most critical things we have that distinguishes us from other countries which are not liberal and free.”
All rights under the Bill of Rights must have “demonstrably justifiable” limits, Gillespie says.
“The whole time it's about trying to get that balance between letting people say what they want to say, often in a provocative way, but on the other hand, [making sure] the citizens go about their business without being unduly inconvenienced.”
Climate protestors are trying increasingly disruptive methods to get their messages heard around the globe, adopting previously unseen tactics like blocking roads or attacking artworks. Gillespie says authorities in many countries are responding by creating new laws, or extending existing ones, to give harsher penalties.
In Britain, for example, protestors are trying to tunnel under roads to weaken them, so legislation has been developed to target that particular method.
Gillespie says that while there is no new legislation here, people are advocating for strengthening existing laws.
“The traditional penalty in New Zealand was $1,000 fine for blocking a road, but now the police are talking about up to 14 years in jail for endangering transport under the Crimes Act, which is pretty severe.”
He says this kind of penalty, which is harsher than those faced by people who commit violent crimes such as ram-raiding, risks being disproportionate to the crime.
“But the challenge for the authorities is that they want to have a strong deterrent, and that they don't want to allow these problems to keep repeating. And so they're threatening very severe reactions.”
While protestors have rights, so does the rest of the community, Gillespie says.
“In a liberal democracy, a bit of inconvenience is what you can be expected to live with, but it can't be too much inconvenience. So you can't block the roads permanently. You can't block the roads so that there's no alternative way that people can get to school or pick up their kids. You've got to strike a compromise which is whereby the consent of the authorities is important. Having said all that, there's still a lot to be said for trying to facilitate protests in places where it is visible, highly visible, and a little bit noisy.”
Gillespie says he expects protests, especially connected to climate action, to grow, meaning authorities need to think carefully about what lies ahead.
“Whichever government is in power after October, they should think about making laws which are purpose-built for this type of issue. Because the one certainty we have is that there will be more climate protests. And as this situation gets hotter, I expect that the protests will get more vocal and loud.
“We need to make sure that our law set is fit for purpose, because it doesn't make sense trying to argue for 14 years in jail for endangering transport when a protest on the roads may not actually be endangering transport.
“We need to be thinking of other reasons that you may want to have a deterrent, but at the same time, that deterrent must be proportionate and it must be reasonable. It's not about trying to crush or stop or dissent. It's just about trying to put it into the right context.”
He’s concerned that public anger at protests may boil over into violent counter-action.
“It’s necessary for the authorities to get in between, to not only make sure that people are able to go about their daily business, but also to ensure that the protesters don't end up themselves being the victims of unjustified acts on part of the public. Because the public is just so angry with what's happening.”
He says that it’s only a matter of time before New Zealand protestors adopt the tactics of their European counterparts, who have tried or threatened to destroy artworks.
“That’s an additional type of protest, not just against a object, but a culturally important object. And they will do it because of the reaction that they get."