Restore Passenger Rail Climate Protest Charges Dropped 6 May
In the Wellington District Court today the Crown prosecution withdrew all outstanding charges against twenty-five Restore Passenger Rail supporters who temporarily and repeatedly stopped traffic on Wellington roads and motorways in 2022-23.
The climate defender group demanded that the government restore a nationwide, affordable passenger rail service for New Zealanders.
Police originally charged the road-sitters with obstruction, later bumping it up to the criminal offence of endangering transport, carrying a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison. Three of the group each spent two weeks in prison and five, including a great-grandmother, a grandmother and a grandfather, wore electronic monitoring bracelets for up to 13 months.
Earlier this year the first of seven jury trials ended after three weeks with one not-guilty verdict (Andrew Sutherland) and a hung jury for three others (Michael Apáthy, Te Wehi Ratana and Tāmati Taptiklis). During the trial, jurors heard from climate experts Dr Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester, and James Renwick, Professor of Physical Geography at Te Herenga Waka. When asked what three degrees Celcius of warming above pre-industrial levels would be like, Professor Anderson replied, 'We haven't seen that for millions and millions of years. … Huge parts of the planet will be uninhabitable.'
Professor Renwick explained that in the worst-case scenarios, sea level rise could reach three to four metres. 'Most of downtown Wellington will be underwater, downtown Auckland – most of it will be underwater,' he said.
'Today's decision is an important moment for the climate movement,' said Climate Liberation Aotearoa (formerly Restore Passenger Rail) spokesperson Michael Apáthy. 'In March, the hung jury result showed that New Zealanders do understand the seriousness of the climate emergency. Today's decision backs that up. It is also not only a vindication of our democratic right to protest but a criticism of the police charge which was out of all proportion to our actions.'
The group said that their actions in 2022-23 were an attempt to match the urgency of the climate catastrophe, which was, and is still, being largely ignored by the government. They said that a nationwide passenger rail service would begin to bring down New Zealand's out-of-control transport emissions, while at the same time reducing road congestion, connecting communities and improving the quality of life for New Zealanders.
'We are living through the world's sixth mass extinction,' said Michael Apáthy. 'Climate breakdown is daily news. Floods, wildfires, and droughts are accelerating. Temperatures in Pakistan last week, pre-summer, reached 50 degrees Celsius. That is unsurvivable. Yet instead of working to help safeguard a liveable future this government has downgraded climate change in its 2025 Defence Capability Plan and is spending an extra $12 billion on making our military more 'modern and combat-capable'.'
'We hope today's decision will help steer police away from the international trend of increased repression of peaceful protest. When our government continues to fail us on its path of climate denial and erosion of the democratic process and environmental protections, it is left to ordinary people to stand up for our youth and all living creatures. This moment in history calls on all of us to fight for the transformative change needed for our survival. Climate Liberation Aotearoa will continue that fight. Climate action is needed now more than ever.'
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The Spinoff
29 minutes ago
- The Spinoff
The prime minister we almost had: Grant Robertson's memoir, reviewed
Henry Cooke reviews Anything Could Happen by former deputy prime minister Grant Robertson. He was almost elected Labour leader in 2014. He almost became the prime minister when Jacinda Ardern resigned in 2023. And he almost got a wealth tax over the line that same year. But not quite. In his new memoir Anything Could Happen, we naturally learn much about what Grant Robertson did do, from his days designing election-winning policy for Helen Clark's Labour government (interest-free student loans) to the frantic opening of the fiscal taps during the pandemic. But the book is haunted by all the stuff that Robertson didn't quite achieve. We hear about the achingly close Labour leadership loss to Andrew Little in 2014, and the genuine agonising over whether he should step up when Ardern resigned in 2023. Robertson openly expresses frustration about missed chances and lost arguments, even as he generally gives the other side a fair hearing. By 'the other side', I am talking about fights within the Labour Party – not politics itself. If you've come to this book believing that Robertson spent far too much while finance minister, and hoping for some kind of lightbulb moment of regret, you will be disappointed. Robertson does not argue that he and Labour got all the calls right. But he does make it clear that he still believes that a huge dose of spending was needed to combat the pandemic, and that while some level of cuts was needed by the time he left office, the state of the books was far from as dire as his critics now constantly claim. (Unsurprisingly for a committed sports minister, he calls in the international referee for this issue – noting that New Zealand's credit rating survived the pandemic intact, leaving it as one of 12 national economies with the top triple-A rating from two of the big global credit rating agencies by Budget 2022.) His argument is somewhat undercut by Treasury's long-term insights briefings, released just weeks before this book was published but long after it was written, which shows officials believed the stimulatory spending was too high after Budget 2022 and was contributing to inflation. Robertson was never the kind of finance minister the median Treasury staffer would adore. He might run a university now, but he will be a politician forever, and it shows in the passing strays he has for the National Party – he notes that one of the first things new leader Christopher Luxon did was call for Labour to spend more money. So no, this is not an apologia for the country's debt track, and if you came looking for that you will not find it. But if instead you are trying to understand more about the decisions of the sixth Labour government, you will have a far better time. Unlike Ardern's recent memoir, this is a book squarely aimed at New Zealanders, meaning Robertson can actually get into the meat of some issues rather than just briefly explain them for foreigners. Tax, monetary policy and the difficulty of hosting international sporting competitions are all dealt with at some length. Robertson embeds into this policy and political history a lot of personal detail. We learn about his somewhat troubled upbringing as a gay teenager in 1980s Dunedin, how he met his partner Alf, his brief career as a diplomat, and a lot about a back problem in recent years that contributed both to mental health issues and his decision not to take over from Ardern. Yet Robertson the policy strategist is never that far away – he explains his father's imprisonment for stealing company money in part by noting that the fraud put his family above the student allowance income cap. As a book the memoir is extremely readable and often funny, much like a Robertson general debate speech. I ate it up in about 48 hours and I think anyone interested in New Zealand politics could do similar with no real boredom. Sections on Labour's time in opposition contain juicy tidbits from the Cunliffe debacle that leave you wanting more, as well as Robertson's play-by-play of Andrew Little's resignation as leader, including Robertson's exasperation with him. We get what I believe to be the fullest accounting yet of the NZ First and Labour negotiations in 2017, including Ardern staring down Winston Peters over his desire for a numbers-based immigration cap. This was a red line for Labour and one that Ardern worried had cost them government – and according to Robertson ended up making Peters so bitter he ruined much of the government's work programme in both immigration and workplace relations, given they shared a minister. Indeed, the enmity between Robertson and Peters emerges as one of the clearest throughlines in the book. The relationship between Labour and NZ First in government sounds like it was far worse offstage than on it. Where Robertson does admit fault with the Covid cash infusion is with the so-called 'shovel ready' programme of spending announced in Budget 2020, which deeply involved NZ First's Shane Jones and therefore became 'politicised', in Robertson's viewing. The base-level bitterness Robertson feels for a man and party who stymied so much of his programme has likely been increased by Peters' embrace of the Covid fringe. After all it is hard to imagine Ardern stepping down without that Covid backlash spilling onto parliament's lawn – and Robertson is clear that he thought Ardern stepping down would greatly harm the party's chance of re-election. If Ardern hadn't stepped down, Robertson might still be in the Beehive, or at least able to properly run on a wealth tax in 2023 as he had long planned. He might not have time to write a book, busy instead with the cut and thrust of politics he was addicted to for so long, trying to get the books back in order himself. In fairness, all political memoirs are tales of chances not taken and battles not won. They are almost always written once the protagonist has lost an election or somehow been turfed from office. Robertson just has a few more sliding doors moments than most. Anything Could Happen by Grant Robertson ($40, Allen & Unwin) is available from Unity Books.
Newsroom
2 hours ago
- Newsroom
Robertson trashes Cunliffe
Things were not looking good for David Shearer in 2013. He was a conviction politician, and not a fan of political games. His media and public performances were not improving and arguably getting worse. I was there to help manage the party, and I was not succeeding either. There was even more chatter among the media that his days might be numbered. This came to a head on August 20 when he and his office decided that a good way to highlight changes to fisheries regulations that would harm recreational fishers would be to bring two dead snapper into the House. David was an experienced fisherman and he felt he could connect with voters on this issue. The opposite effect occurred — a dead man walking held up dead fish in Parliament. It was not instant, but that was the turning point. There were further rumbles, and eventually a story broke that a coup was about to be mounted. As deputy, I dug in and tried to identify who had spoken to the media; I even went as far as getting Caucus members to sign a pledge that it was not them, which they all signed! Eventually some of David's frontbench came forward to say that they had lost confidence. It was in some ways unfair: Labour's polling was higher than it had been in 2011. But this group could no longer see how David could lead us to victory and felt he would struggle in a campaign. By this stage my own relationship with David wasn't great either. I felt he wasn't listening to my advice, and he in turn felt that I was not fully supportive of him. Looking back, I think both of these things were partly true. I was never disloyal to David, but I probably was not as full throated as I could have been in my endorsement of him. As Whip, Chippy [Chris Hipkins] let David know that there was the possibility of a no-confidence motion coming forward. He told David he thought it could be defeated and it was still possible to stare down those who were seeking to have him removed. I recall a conversation one evening when I told David I backed him but that he needed to show that he really wanted the role. The next day, David called a media conference to announce his resignation. I don't have many regrets in politics, but one I do have is that I did not attend that press conference. I wanted to go, but I knew that the media would immediately ask if I was in the running to replace him and I did not want to be a distraction. But not showing up made me look disloyal. Once again we were in the spiral of a leadership contest. This time the choice to run was easier. I felt more prepared and, crucially, I knew that David Cunliffe was going to push hard to win. Just three days after David Shearer's resignation, I announced my run with concurrent interviews on the two 6pm news channels. TV3 led with the story. Their headline would become one of the features of the contest: 'Is New Zealand ready for its first gay Prime Minister?' In the interview I expressed the view that I did not think New Zealanders cared too much about my private life and were much more interested in the policies I would promote. In reality, I knew it was likely to be an issue and one that might be too tough to get past. David Cunliffe and I were joined by Shane Jones in the contest. I was pretty convinced that I would have the majority support among the Caucus: they were the people who knew us best, and there was a strong feeling that David was not the one to lead Labour to a win in the 2014 election. I got organised, gathered some of those closest to me — Jacinda, Phil Twyford, Megan Woods and Kris Faafoi, among others — and formed a campaign team. This was the first leadership contest to be run under the new rules. Twelve meetings were organised across the country, and we candidates hit the road to convince party members to vote for us. This proved a double-edged sword for the party. It meant we got a lot of media coverage, but it also meant most of that coverage was about our divisions, not about why we would be a better government. Over the course of the roadshows, we got used to each other's style and stump speech. Shane's was colourful, full of anecdote and florid phrasing, often harking back to the First and Fourth Labour Governments for inspiration. David's was a life story that highlighted his left-wing credentials and ended every night with the same phrase: 'My name is David Cunliffe and I am ready to lead.' My speech was an attempt to take the work of the Fifth Labour Government to the next stage. I harked back to the values of the Labour Party around work, opportunity and equality, and put them into modern contexts with issues like climate change and the digital economy. I found that it landed pretty well most nights. But the cloud of my sexuality loomed large. After the meeting in Christchurch, which I felt I had 'won', a gay couple I knew a little came up to congratulate me on my performance. Then they stunned me by saying, 'But we are not going to vote for you.' I was speechless as they went on to say, 'We just don't think New Zealanders will vote for a gay Prime Minister.' Hearing this from a gay couple was hard to take. Meanwhile, I got wind of a Labour stalwart from the West Coast who was openly going to branch meetings to push the line that the party could not have a gay leader. I called him up to ask what was going on. He was a bit remorseful and then said that he had been asked by someone in David's campaign to do this. I was incensed. I called David, who denied all knowledge of it. From my perspective, this did not ring true, especially after a former Labour Party staffer went on TV and said pretty much the same thing. In fairness to David, he did stand her down from his campaign. The same problem existed in the union movement. I had strong support from the Service Workers Union, thanks to my close links with them in Wellington. But I did not have the same connections with others. One leader of an affiliated union went to his members and explicitly ruled me out as a candidate because I was gay. It was an uphill battle, and in fairness David's line about his experience and readiness to lead was a factor as well. He had been an MP for nine years longer than me, and this mattered to members. I was hoping against hope when the results came in. In the end, David scored a decisive victory. I had won the Caucus vote, but he had prevailed among the members and the unions. I was upset — for myself, of course, but also for the party. I had an inkling of the chaos and calamity that was about to occur, but even I did not realise just how bad it would get. * The 2014 campaign proved one of my theories of politics — about the commodity of political oxygen. Political junkies have an endless interest in the machinations of politics. The general public do not. They can take on only so many issues or stories before switching off. In 2014 the Internet Mana Party gained only 1.42 percent of the vote. The presence of Kim Dotcom and his outrageous claims, however, gathered a huge amount of attention. They sucked up the available political oxygen for the Opposition, and we struggled to register with voters. When we did it was for the wrong reasons. David Cunliffe had a habit of putting his foot in his mouth. Most famously in this campaign it was his comment that he was 'sorry for being a man'. He also found numerous ways to lose focus on his message. A major misstep came at the Press debate in Christchurch where John Key confronted him with detailed questions on Labour's capital gains tax policy and whether it would impact the family home. David had been one of the architects of the policy during Labour's first term, and knew that it would not, but for some reason he was unable to answer. His behaviour was erratic as well. The next day I was undertaking visits with him in Christchurch. He and I were doing a lunch event with the local business community. It was classic David. He spoke well and cogently to a less-than-friendly audience. When we got to question time, he seemed distracted. At one point a question was put to me as the Economic Development spokesperson. David excused himself, saying he needed to take a phone call. And he never came back. I answered a couple more questions before the host called the whole thing off. I went outside to find David in his car. His press secretary was standing outside and gave me a pained look. I'd had enough and left him to it. On election night, Labour slumped to its worst result since 1922, with 24 percent of the vote. You would not have known it from David's speech that night. It was as if he had grabbed the wrong speech on the way out the door and was doing his victory one, not his concession. It was embarrassing. A mildly abbreviated chapter taken from Anything Could Happen: A memoir by Grant Robertson (Allen & Unwin, $39.99) available in bookstores nationwide. ReadingRoom is devoting the rest of the week to coverage of the former finance minister's book. Tomorrow: parliamentarians answer the question, 'Was David Cunliffe really as bad as Ardern and Robertson make him out to be? What did you make of him?'
NZ Herald
2 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Letters: Ministers' comments on teachers unfair and misleading
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