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Andrew Dickens: You can't call yourselves freedom fighters as you take other people's freedom away

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Mon, 14 Feb 2022, 1:41PM
(Photo / NZ Herald)
(Photo / NZ Herald)

Andrew Dickens: You can't call yourselves freedom fighters as you take other people's freedom away

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Mon, 14 Feb 2022, 1:41PM

It's been a fortnight since I was on ZB and I have watched on in wonder as the world has slowly gone potty. Maybe it’s Covid fatigue, but everyone seems to have lost their minds. 

Let’s work backwards.   

Is everybody else as embarrassed and amazed at the behaviour of our Speaker over the weekend as I am? Trevor Mallard’s actions over this past weekend have frankly been childish. He took a ticklish situation and made it worse. Sprinklers and Barry Manilow are water off a duck’s back to these people and he just gave them a motivator to stay even longer. Mallard’s texts took his immaturity to the world. They’re laughing at you, Trevor. Not with you. 

That’s not all. Mallard’s call to keep press on the parliamentary balcony and not talking to the protestors was another clanger. Politicians don’t tell the press whom to talk to, Trevor. Who do you think you are? Well done to Barry Soper for getting down and dirty. 

The rush to evict the protestors from parliament’s grounds is bad call. If they are taxpayers, it’s their land. Protestors occupied parliament grounds for long periods of the Springbok tour without this argy bargy. Occupy protestors spent the best part of a year on public areas in our cities. When protestors are on public land, If they’re not causing trouble then let them be. 

However, outside parliament grounds is a different story. The Wellington City Council’s abdication of their responsibility to keep Molesworth Street and the adjacent transport hub open was a bad call. Allowing the protestors to curtail the free movement and business of your ratepayer’s reeked of your impotence. That road should have cleared on Day 1. 

And on Day1 someone should have gone out and met the protestors. The demonisation of their concerns and dismissal of them all as nutters and crazies by all the politicians was highly disrespectful. 

But the protestors have also not covered themselves in glory. There are some people with valid grievances there. But there’s a lot of people from out of the rabbit hole. So, the protests lack of organisation and clarity is appalling. Too many narratives and too many of them are there only to disrupt and wreck.   

You can’t call yourself freedom fighters or defenders of freedom as you take other people’s freedom away. And when you start talking about hangings and executions you are now the enemy of a free society and not the defender. 

This has been an embarrassing week for all those involved and the rest of us who are trying to keep this show on the road are looking on with bewilderment. 

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