On 23 August 2004, a little-known pastor from the central North Island’s backblocks led a flock of black shirts to the steps of New Zealand’s parliament. The “Enough is Enough” rally saw thousands of uniformed Destiny Church members, almost entirely men, march through central Wellington protesting against civil unions, an arrangement granting same-sex couples the same rights as if they were married.
The protest left a scar on Wellington’s collective consciousness. LGBTQI+ people were abused on the street. Georgina Beyer, an MP in the governing Labour party and the world’s first transgender MP, made her way to parliament’s forecourt to confront the protesters and “stare them in the eye”. Kiri Allan, now a minister in the Labour government but at the time a law student at the neighbouring Victoria University, went out to confront the protesters too (with a righteous assist in the form of a haka from the now Green party MP Teanau Tuiono).
On 23 August 2022, as the now Bishop Brian Tamaki’s flock marched on the steps of parliament to hold mock trials, it’s striking to reflect on how comprehensively the Destiny Church leader lost.
In 2013 parliament made same-sex marriage legal, rendering civil unions a short-lived relic. As they did in 2004, women still occupy the three most senior positions of state – governor general (Dame Cindy Kiro), prime minister (Jacinda Ardern), and chief justice (Dame Helen Winkelmann). In 2000, when the bishop had a slot on Sunday morning television, he told his flock that women in power were part of the “devil’s strategy”. His slot was pulled. He lost. Today, as commentators struggled to pin down precisely what this protest was protesting, it seems reasonable to conclude that the prime minister’s gender animates a significant number of her haters. At least one protester was carrying a sign reading “ditch the bitch”.
It’s this incoherence that marks the protest out as, well, a little pathetic. But this is also its danger. In 2004 the Enough is Enough marchers had a specific, albeit regressive, cause – opposing the then civil unions bill. At that point Destiny Church was at the height of its powers. Tamaki could credibly call on at least 5,000 church members and point to social programmes contributing to a genuine community good. But in the 18 years since then, the church has lost at least 2,000 members. Branches closed in places like Porirua and Dunedin. The church’s political party, Vision New Zealand, did dreadfully at the last election. That leaves the bishop desperately seeking a cause.
To the country’s detriment, he found one in the regulations to contain Covid-19. As the country went into lockdown in March 2020, successfully eliminating the virus in a collective effort, Tamaki took an initial stand, refusing to comply with stay-at-home rules before eventually moving his services online. In March 2021 he refused to comply again, leaving Auckland for Rotorua during a level 3 lockdown (non-essential regional travel was banned).
The world’s conspiracists and fake news merchants have found Covid-19 regulations to be fertile ground for radicalising people with grievances. Tamaki found this as well, teaming up with the so-called Freedom and Rights Coalition and turning out thousands of people to protest against Auckland’s Delta lockdown in October 2021. That taste of minor public success is perhaps partly behind Tamaki’s decision to amalgamate Vision New Zealand with two of New Zealand’s other fringe, conspiracist parties.
Whether deliberately or not, Tamaki is placing his church at the centre of New Zealand’s disinformation networks. In his sermon to protesters in Wellington on Tuesday he suggested the government was responsible for cancelling ferry trips from Picton to prevent people attending the rally. This is obviously untrue. It’s also at the reserved end for his howlers.
Like evangelical churches in countries such as the US and Brazil, Tamaki is finding influence in proselytising the “end of days”. Not necessarily in the biblical sense, but in a political sense. If Tamaki and his followers oppose anything, it’s the pace of change. Marriage equality. Women in leadership positions. Regulations to eliminate and suppress a deadly virus. The world is, excuse the pun, going to hell.
And that narrative – the world as frighteningly progressive – drives Tamaki’s imitators, hangers-on and competition. Online grifters unrelated to him one-up the bishop with vast conspiracies alleging (among many, many other things) paedophile dungeons below parliament. This is deranged. And easily disproven. But the conspiracies function more as ciphers for general grievances rather than specific, provable claims. This incoherence is what makes the protest – and the wider disinformation network – worth understanding and opposing. Conspiracist outlets like Counterspin Media use these inventions to give form to grievances, and justifications to the aggrieved. If your enemy is a paedophile incarcerating children, surely anything goes.
This is where fascism begins. In the reaction against a supposedly corrupt elite, and in an alliance between fringe religious organisations, white nationalists, and eventually capital. In New Zealand, things are not yet so far gone. The scene of a fake judge conducting a fake trial outside parliament was, in the end, comical. The red velvet throne, the gavel, the bench, and Lady Justice’s scales only reinforced the absence of any majesty and justice in the day’s proceedings. It was akin to a child playing dress up.
What was notable, though, was the counter-protest. As in 2004, when counter-protesters met the Enough is Enough march, it reinforced that Destiny Church was already halfway on the road to defeat. When Tuesday’s counter-protesters met the marchers, it reinforced the same. The conspiracists, and the fascists, are already losing.
