ANGRY VOICES THAT REMAIN UNHEARD

The Labour Government has learned nothing from the Wellington protest. Instead, its determined to dismiss it as the work of far right extremists.

DAYS AFTER the Wellington occupation ended the Speaker of the House, Trevor Mallard, still couldn't resist firing another cheap shot at the protesters who had all gone home. In another tweet that lacked any kind of gravitas that might be expected to be associated with the office of Speaker, Mallard described protesters as 'feral campers'. 

But, in the aftermath of the occupation, the ludicrous Mallard hasn't been the only one to put the boot into protesters. In Parliament Green co-leader James Shaw tubthumped:

'Yesterday, the grifters and the charlatans; the political opportunists and the white supremacists who were behind the protests melted away like cowards and abandoned the fields to the desperate people that they had led astray,”

He was later backed by his fellow co-leader Marama Davidson who said there needed to be 'repercussions' for the protest influencers, organisations and politicians, who inspired and legitimised the occupation. Since over a quarter of the protesters were Maori, presumably Davidson thinks the authorities should be pursuing some members of her own community, especially since she has already smeared them as 'Nazis'.  

Although we're still some eighteen months from the general election, Davidson is hoping the Green's, struggling in the polls, might extract some political advantage from the protest. She said she hoped that voters would take note of the politicians who legitimised the 'far-right' occupation.

Both the Labour Party and the Green's have chosen not to recognise any of the real grievances that drove the protest, preferring Jacinda Ardern's 'one size fits all' explanation that the protest was the result of 'foreign conspiracy theories and misinformation'.

A few independent observers, not influenced by the short term calculations of parliamentary politics, have said that the protest was also driven by those who have been left behind by neoliberalism and who have long been ignored the political establishment. This pandemic has only deepened the economic hurt that many are feeling and they have watched as the Labour Government has bailed out the top end of town to the tune of some $20 billion while they have been left to line up at the food banks.

With Parliament absent anything resembling an organised left wing presence, this Labour Government, with the Green's safely in tow, has been able to focus on bolstering its influence within the institutions of the state. Class politics has been buried under a corporate-friendly 'woke' identity politics. This might appeal to the professional classes that both Labour and the Green's represent but it holds little appeal to a working class who are more concerned abut pressing economic matters, like paying the rent and putting food on the table.

This protest should have been a wake-up call for the Labour Government but the continuing caricature of the Wellington occupation as far right extremism in action has demonstrated it has learned nothing and will remember even less.   

Indeed the protesters will be looking hard at just how unresponsive the political system is to their concerns. While Jacinda Ardern might have described the tumultuous events of March 2 as an 'attack on our Parliament', away from the arena of parliamentary politics, many will see a Parliament still dominated by the concerns of the one percent. Parliament will continue to be increasingly regarded as 'their Parliament'.

This Labour Government will do nothing to transform an economy that continues to work for the benefit of those at the top and continues to undermine the working class. Its convenient for the political establishment to shift attention from the country's growing level of inequality and poverty and on to the activities of a 'far right' whose influence and numbers have been greatly exaggerated.