Police bosses in the firing line over parliament protest

Frontline officers acquitted themselves well, the IPCA says. The reviews are less glowing for those back at HQ.

Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Friday, April 21, by Catherine McGregor. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.

In today’s edition: Hundreds of Otago University staff face redundancy; economist says inflation has peaked and interest rates should follow; and how hiring people with autism benefits your workplace. But first, a report into the police response to the parliament occupation criticises decision-making by those at the top.

A parliament protestor sits in front of police, February 10, 2022. (Photo: Marty Melville/ Getty Images )

Praise for frontline police during a protest that ran and ran

The morning after the riot that ended the 2022 parliament occupation, The Spinoff’s Toby Manhire called it “one of the ugliest days in our history”. But, he added, “it could have been uglier”, noting that despite the violence, “no one had stormed the houses of parliament. No one had lost their life.” Yesterday’s Independent Police Complaints Authority report into the police response to the three-week protest says broadly the same thing. Overall, it states, “police served the public of New Zealand well in dealing with this difficult and complex set of events”. Of the March 2 riot, the authority found that all the tactics police used to defend themselves and others were justified in the circumstances, and while there were “some isolated incidents of potentially excessive reactive force by police, they generally acted professionally and with remarkable restraint”. The IPCA received more than 250 complaints about the police’s use of force when dealing with protesters during the riot, but the vast majority were from people who had seen the incidents on television or social media. 

Top brass took too long to grasp the scale of the challenge

Still, for all its praise for the actions of police, the IPCA found multiple deficiencies, particularly in the preparation and protection of on-the-ground officers on March 2. The day of the riot, those in charge had ruled out mandating hard body armour and many on the frontlines did not even have helmets. The reasoning? “[A] concern that hard body armour and long batons would provoke protesters and engender confrontation and violence,” the IPCA concluded. Writes the Herald’s Claire Trevett in a must-read analysis of the report’s findings (paywalled), “That decision was prompted by a puzzling naivety, given even shifting a bollard had resulted in confrontation and violence. It appears to have been based on the deluded hope that despite all evidence… the protest group could still be reasoned with.” Trevett is particularly scathing about the failures of Police Commissioner Andrew Coster and Wellington District Commander Corrie Parnell on February 10, a “ridiculous shambles of a day” when police made an aborted attempt to clear the site. But she says the problem with their response was clear from the very start of the occupation, when police decided to “[rely] on protest organisers to abide by the rules, expecting everybody to go home to a nice warm dinner after a day of shouting. By the time they realised that this was not the same as any other protest, it was too late.”

Coster faces questions over political pressure

The day before that first attempt to clear the occupation, Coster spoke with deputy prime minister Grant Robertson, attorney general David Parker and then speaker Trevor Mallard about next moves for police. Coster told the IPCA the conversation didn’t influence his decision to send officers in, but National’s police spokesperson Mark Mitchell says the report leaves some “serious questions unanswered” on potential political pressure put on police. Many frontline officers themselves believed that Coster had bowed to the will of the politicians, the report says: “We were repeatedly told [by officers interviewed] that the direction to proceed with the operation would not have been given unless police had succumbed to the political pressure.” The IPCA also found that a number of current laws, including those on trespass and arrest, were “not fit-for-purpose for the mass public disorder situation” that confronted officers on February 10 and March 2. Yesterday prime minister Chris Hipkins said the government has to “tread carefully” on changing the law, ensuring fundamental rights of assembly and protest continue to be protected.

Conspiracy theorists turn their attention to climate 

As New Zealanders return to pharmacies and vaccine centres to top up their Covid resistance with the new bivalent booster, it’s worth remembering what brought hundreds to the parliament occupation in the first place – and how widely misinformation about the proven effectiveness of vaccines and other protective measures continues to circulate. In his book Fear: New Zealand's hostile underworld of extremists, disinfo expert Byron Clark warns that as Covid worries wane, those radicalised by the pandemic are turning their attention to climate change, “searching for recruits to the conspiracy that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by self-serving scientists and sinister globalists”.

The initiative enabling rangatahi futures through tech

In low-income communities, many school children don’t have access to the internet at home, let alone the tech that would enable them to use it. An initiative by One NZ and Te Rourou One Aotearoa Foundation is helping to change that, providing refurbished end-of-life corporate laptops to schools in Invercargill.

The scheme has seen hundreds of laptops find new homes with high school students, whose learning has majorly benefitted from this technology.
Read more about One NZ’s plan to get tech into the hands of more rangatahi on The Spinoff now. (sponsored)

Hundreds of Otago University staff facing redundancy

Several hundred roles at the University of Otago are set to be disestablished due to falling student numbers leading to a $60 million budget shortfall. Both admin and academic staff will be affected by the job cuts. “The university's cost-cutting will also affect capital projects, and future paper and programme offerings. Asset sales are also on the cards,” Stuff reports. Tertiary Education Union organiser Phil Edwards says staff were left shocked and disheartened by yesterday’s announcement. “People are just completely destroyed by this continual chipping away of the university,” he says. Acting vice chancellor Helen Nicholson says Otago’s “domestic pipeline for students over the next three years will be worse than we projected, with associated effects on our bottom line”, adding that external forces including “years of below-inflation funding rate increases from government” are also to blame.

Leading economist says inflation is on the way down

Inflation has peaked, says Kiwibank economist Jarrod Kerr. "And this time next year, we're going to see prices rising at a much lower clip, and maybe even, you know, a lowering of interest rates.” Speaking to RNZ’s Checkpoint in response to yesterday’s much lower than expected inflation numbers, Kerr said he expects inflation to be at 3% by the end of the year. The Herald’s Liam Dann told the paper’s Front Page podcast the Reserve Bank risked overshooting on interest rates. Part of the problem, he said, is that NZ inflation data is reported quarterly, whereas in Australia and elsewhere it’s monthly. “We talk about monetary policy being a blunt tool, but we’re swinging that blunt tool in a less illuminated environment,” says Dann. “To use a cricketing analogy, you’ve only got a choice between not playing a shot or going for a six – and we are playing in worse light than the Australians.”

Our award nominations are a win for us and our supporters

Our editorial work is made possible by Spinoff members. Last Friday, The Spinoff was nominated in 14 categories at the Voyager Media Awards. These nominations represent a fraction of the work published on our reader-supported website. If you're a member already, thanks so much from all of us at The Spinoff — the award nominations are a genuine win for those nominated but also for everybody who contributes to making The Spinoff what it is and that includes you. If you appreciate the work we do and want support us become a member or donate to The Spinoff today.

How hiring people with autism benefits your workplace

As companies struggle to replace staff of all skill levels, is there a group of potential workers being overlooked by employers because they don't fit the traditional mold? In this week’s episode of When the Facts Change, Bernard Hickey talks with Autism NZ CEO Dane Dougan about the benefits that come with hiring people with autism and what employers can do to make their workplace safer for autistic staff members.

Click and collect

• The founders of Queenstown news service Crux and sports website RugbyPass plan to launch Regional News Network, a collection of news hubs across the country (BusinessDesk, paywalled)

• Former National candidate for Taieri Stephen Jack has accused the media of "woke stupidity" and "character assassination" in its coverage of his offensive social media posts, including one comparing Jacinda Ardern to Hitler which led to his resignation on Wednesday. 

• Auckland City Fire Station, located on Pitt Street, central Auckland, has been shut down for emergency asbestos decontamination. Work by contractors on Thursday released asbestos into the station, the country’s busiest, causing the entire building to be immediately closed.

• The government is adding $9 million to the fund established to help retailers fight ram raiders, the Herald reports, bringing the total set aside to $15 million.

• The seven-days-a-week White Cross clinics, which offer urgent care and general practice medicine, are having to cut opening hours and days at a number of sites due to staff shortages.

Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.

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Right now on The Spinoff

Tara Ward revisits New Zealand's weirdest and most wonderful town slogans, from ‘Touch, taste, feel Timaru’ to ‘Right up my Hutt Valley’. Does a very expensive blue light really transform your productivity? Chris Schulz finds out. Combining indigenous and Western science is crucial to confronting the climate crisis in the Pacific, reports Sela Jane Hopgood. And frozen veg aren’t just good for the wallet – they’re tasty too, says Charlotte Muru-Lanning, who shares heaps of recipe ideas.

Sporting snippets

• New Zealand is once again being floated as a Commonwealth Games host, but all that flashy infrastructure is a financial burden we can ill afford, argues Madeleine Chapman. 

• Roger Tuivasa-Sheck is returning to the Warriors in 2024 after playing rugby union for a number of years, with both the All Blacks and the Blues. 

• A late-night hailstorm in Rawalpindi forced the abandonment of the fourth Twenty20 international between the Black Caps and Pakistan.

It’s Friday, so…

Have you taken the gross food quiz yet? Don’t worry, you don’t have to look at anything disgusting. Instead, you’re presented with 32 potentially upsetting food scenarios, from a plate of blue cheese to an apple with a worm in it, and asked how personally repulsed you are by each prospect.

I didn’t need a quiz to tell me that my disgust triggers are almost all fruit-related – I absolutely 100% cannot eat a brown apple, but will happily munch on marmalade that I’ve scraped mould from the top of. You probably already know what grosses you out the most too, but the Food Disgust Test is still a fun, sciencey time-waster.