Protesters marched through New Zealand’s capital, Wellington
(Picture: Getty Images)Thousands of anti-mandate protesters have descended on New Zealand’s Parliament, upset at the government’s pandemic response.
Some claim that unvaccinated people are still discriminated against, depsite mandates around vaccines easing.
It comes six months after angry protesters camped outside parliament, a building known as the Beehive, in Wellington for three weeks before multiple fires erupted along with violence toward police.
This time, protesters insisted they were only there for the day.
Police ensured a repeat was unlikely by closing streets, putting up barricades and banning protesters from bringing structures onto Parliament’s grounds.
There was also a counter-protest, with several hundred people gathering in front of parliament as the main march entered the grounds. The two sides shouted insults but a line of police officers kept them separated.
New Zealand’s government has removed most mandates, including the requirement for essential workers such as teachers and nurses to be vaccinated and for the public to be vaccinated to visit stores and bars.
Residents are still required to wear a mask in stores.
Tuesday’s protest was as much about lingering discontentment over the government’s handling of the crisis as it was about current rules.
Protester Carmen Page told AP people who hadn’t been vaccinated face ongoing discrimination and people lost their jobs and homes as a result of the mandates, which she said amounted to government overreach.
“We’re not here to be controlled,” Ms Page said. “We just want to live our lives freely. We want to work where we want to work, without discrimination.”
At the counter-protest, Lynne Maugham said she and her husband had extended a stay in the capital to attend.“I’ve got nothing but respect for the mandates, for the vaccinations, for the way the health providers have handled the whole thing,” she said.
Ms Maugham said the government hadn’t done everything perfectly but had done a good job overall. “There’s no blueprint for handling a pandemic,” she said.
Like many of the protesters opposing mandates and other government’s actions, Mania Hungahunga was part of a group called The Freedom & Rights Coalition and a member of the Christian fundamentalist Destiny Church.
Mr Hungahunga said every New Zealander had been negatively impacted by the mandates.
“We’re just here for the day, a peaceful day, just to get our message through to the public and the people of Wellington,” he said.
Many of the protesters said they were hoping that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern would get voted out in next year’s election.
Ms Ardern was first elected prime minister in 2017 and her initial pandemic response proved enormously popular.
Her Labour Party won re-election in 2020 in a historic landslide.But as the pandemic dragged on and the country faced new problems, including inflation, Ms Ardern’s popularity has waned.
Recent opinion polls have put the conservative opposition National Party ahead of Labour.
Authorities said there were no initial reports of violence or other problems at the protests.
