Activists strip to bras in Parliament

By HELEN TUNNAH

Protesting women who startled MPs yesterday by stripping off their shirts, baring pink bras and anti-GM banners, have been banned from Parliament for two years.

Speaker Jonathan Hunt said the nine women, from Mothers Against Genetic Engineering (Madge), were being treated as anyone else who disrupted Parliament, and his actions were not political.

The women, led by Madge founder and former pop singer Alannah Currie, had co-ordinated child care for the day so they could slip past security guards and through metal detection units with signs which had been attached by velcro to their pink and black bras.

They stripped their shirts off and stood in Parliament's public gallery chanting against GM as MP Gordon Copeland, a member of the Christian-linked United Future party, was talking about the economy.

They left as soon as they were asked by police, but Mr Hunt said the women were being identified and would be served with trespass notices.

Ms Currie said Madge had decided to protest in Parliament because the women felt MPs were not listening to those who wanted the moratorium on the release of GM organisms extended.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures. We want them to listen, we've done every single thing possible. We had to get in their face and show our knickers."

Madge vice-president Hilary Ord said the women had no desire to be arrested, but they had taken their protests to official inquiries and the High Court without success.

Mr Hunt said the trespass orders meant the women could not return to Parliament, or its grounds, for two years.

"Anyone that does so will be arrested. This is disrupting the actual ... running of the House of Parliament during session and I will not tolerate that."

Mr Hunt said the two-year ban was consistent with trespass orders issued against other people who disrupted Parliament.

Although it was Government policy to lift the GM moratorium next month, his decision was "absolutely not" linked to that.

Mr Hunt would not compare the protest with National MP Shane Ardern's stunt in driving a tractor up the steps of Parliament last week.

Ms Ord said the women had planned their protest four weeks ago, and had not been influenced by Mr Ardern's antics.

The women's protest is not unique in Parliament. In the past there have been leaflet drops into the chamber from the upstairs gallery, and one woman called out a marriage proposal to New Zealand First leader Winston Peters.

Mr Hunt said security would be reviewed and tightened.