Auckland Mayor Phil Goff says council has trespass orders “ready to go” as Auckland Domain remains closed to vehicles due to a small number of anti-covid public health measures protesters refusing to leave.

The small group of protesters set up camp at Auckland Domain after walking over the Harbour Bridge for another protest organised by Freedoms and Rights Coalition at the weekend.

They had promised to move that night, but did not.

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Goff told Morning Report everyone had a right to protest, but he hoped this was not a repeat of Wellington’s protest.

“What I absolutely oppose is a sense of entitlement and self-given right to disrupt others’ lives when people want to make their point. We’ve seen that at Parliament, we don’t want to see it in Auckland,” he said.

“People say, ‘Why don’t you talk to the protesters? Why don’t you negotiate with them?’ How do you negotiate with people in bad faith, who agree one thing and then immediately dishonour their promise?

‘They’re not entitled to disrupt lives’
“These are people that we know from a range of other protests around the city … they are not entitled to camp on the domain, they are not entitled to disrupt the lives of others as they are doing.”

Goff said he was in regular discussion with police, right up to the commissioner’s level, and had made his views clear.

“I’ve indicated that the council has trespass orders and its compliance team ready to go, as soon as police indicate they’re ready to enforce those trespass orders and remove the people, and I hope that that will happen,” he said.

“Nobody is above the law, nobody is entitled to believe they can break the law and there are no consequences and that’s what we’re seeing at the moment and I think that’s got to stop.”

Goff said he respected the independence of police on operational issues, but he did not “want to see the same sort of disruption of people’s lives and the tolerance of appalling behaviour that we’ve seen in Wellington”.

Convoy protesters install their own toilets in Wellington
Meanwhile, Wellington City Council engineers have confirmed that the protesters at Parliament have plumbed toilets into the Capital’s sewer system.

A plywood structure next to the portaloos at the intersection of Molesworth and Hill streets has pipes that connect to the sewer.

Wellington Mayor Andy Foster, who has been at the site to take a look, told Morning Report he would be discussing with police as to how the protesters managed to get all the required material onto the site.

He said he had been advised by Wellington Water and people at the site that it was connected to the wastewater system.

“If they were going into the stormwater, that would be completely unacceptable. As I said, it’s unlawful to have put them into the wastewater. [If it was going into] the stormwater, [that] will be a real environmental problem, whereas the wastewater is simply an unlawful connection.”

Discussions with protesters were still ongoing to end the occupation which started earlier this month, he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Auckland Domain remained closed today to vehicles until further notice, because a small number of anti-covid protesters have set up tents there and stayed overnight.

They moved there after thousands of people crossed the harbour bridge on foot yesterday, in a march organised protest against New Zealand’s covid-19 public health measures.

The Ministry of Health reported a record 14,941 new community cases of covid-19 in New Zealand today, with 305 people now in hospital — five of them in intensive care.

Camping is not permitted in the Domain, which lies between the suburbs of Parnell and Grafton.

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Auckland Council director of customer and community services Claudia Wyss said it was working with event organisers on a safety-first approach.

She said there was no timeline for reopening at this stage and the council apologised for any inconvenience.

The campers include people who took part in the march over the Harbour Bridge, shutting down southbound traffic for an hour and a half.

The march was organised by Destiny Church’s Freedoms and Rights Coalition. Leaders had been in talks with the Auckland Council and police about their presence late on Saturday, and promised to leave the site by 9pm that night.

A protester in a video has claimed to have mana whenua status, and said they were occupying a pa site at the domain.

Auckland Council said it was continuing to work with police and to engage constructively with the group.

However, it has raised concerns the marchers and protesters risked spreading covid-19 by gathering.

In New Plymouth, about seven tents and about 30 people were at an anti-covid protest beside the Coastal Walkway on Sunday morning.

Fewer people at Wellington anti-covid protest
About 300 vehicles remain in the protest area inside cordons at Parliament grounds, however an RNZ reporter said some protesters appeared to be packing up this morning ready to leave.

Police are maintaining a perimeter at access routes to the area amid the sounds of reggae music and the occasional car horn. The protesters are waving flags and shouting the word “freedom”, to passing cars.

Protesters have been camping in tents and in vehicles parked in and around the protest area, which covers grounds belonging to Victoria University as well as parts of Molesworth and Hill streets.

Businesses, schools, the university and residents in the area have reported major disruption since it began on February 7.

About 200 new protesters turned up at the campsite on Saturday, but police said that was far fewer than on previous weekends.

RNZ estimates that by Sunday the number of protesters had halved from last weekend, when more than 1000 people took part.

A group called Farmers for Freedom told followers this morning via social media that a convoy it had organised would reach the protest today with a trailer of food.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.