Destiny Church founder Brian Tamaki and wife Hannah Tamaki take the stage at an anti-lockdown protest in Auckland Domain on Nov 20, 2021.
Brian Tamaki and others face trial for allegedly violating lockdown restrictions during protests in 2021.
Police Commissioner Andrew Coster expressed concerns about the protests but offered masks for participants.
Tamaki’s defence argues police were initially unconcerned, but pressure from Parliament and media led to charges.
In September 2021, as Auckland remained in Covid-19 lockdown, Brian Tamaki had a Zoom call with Police Commissioner Andrew Coster that the top cop asked they keep between themselves.
A transcript of the online meeting, in which Coster expressed his reservations about the protest but ultimately offered to provide masks for participants, was revealed in Auckland District Court today as Brian and Hannah Tamaki continue to face trial along with two other Destiny Church-affiliated protest participants for allegedly violating lockdown restrictions.
In the conversation, Brian Tamaki said he didn’t want the gathering to end up violent like lockdown protests in Australia. He saw his plan as the safest possible “outlet valve” of lockdown discontent, taking in less predictable groups and putting them under his umbrella for a more orderly event than otherwise might take place. Coster said he appreciated that but was also worried about the other risk.
“I don’t know whether you’ve got any messaging to your people involved in this about what a safe protest looks like in terms of ... the risk of transmission - distancing between groups,” Coster said.
Tamaki responded: “Well, we actually have, Andy. I’ve gone out of my way to talk to the team. That’s been most of the talk in the past couple of weeks - why the big open area of the public area of the domain. It gives us the ability to have distancing, and the mask and then the QR stations, the scanning and stuff for the hands. So we’re going out of our way to do everything...”
Destiny Church founders Brian and Hannah Tamaki arrive at court ahead of their trial over breaching Covid-19 public health laws. Photo / Mike Scott
Coster, although friendly throughout the conversation, did not seem persuaded.
“Do you think that’s achievable?” he asked. “I imagine that will be quite a large number.”
Tamaki responded with a reference to then Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern.
“Well probably,” he said. “As your boss says, let’s be the first in the world to show a great example of how to do it. Also ... we can have a positive outlet valve. This is gonna be a good catharsis for a lot of people. And it stops a lot of problems you might pick up on the other side in police, you know? ... We’ve got to control this. I believe I’ve got good influence with a lot of the leaders and they’re willing to follow this. ... I think it sends a good message not only to the public of New Zealand but globally.”
Brian Tamaki and Hannah Tamaki take the stage at an Auckland Domain lockdown protest on November 20, 2021. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Coster said he agreed the right to protest was important but warned that a gathering could backfire for the religious leader in terms of his public perception, especially if rules weren’t adhered to.
“If people look at it and go, ‘All of those people letting us all down, and we’ve had our businesses closed and we’ve not seen our families and we’ve not gone to our funerals and our weddings, but these people decide they can gather,’ that’s where you’ll get the great anger,” he said. “So, you know, I know you’ll be thoughtful of that because that’s then about the reputation of the church and all that stuff.”
Tamaki reassured him he had gone out of his way to make sure that wouldn’t be the case.
“I want to really do it as good as we can - proper,” he said. “And I really believe we can.”
Coster said it would help with public perception if protesters wore masks, since bubble breaches would be inevitable. At the time, no more than two household “bubbles” were allowed to merge consisting of no more than 10 people at a time when meeting outside.
“I’ll tell you what, Andy, I will make that happen,” Tamaki responded, jokingly asking if the Police Commissioner knew where he could find a million masks.
“We could probably help with masks,” Coster said, to which Tamaki replied: “That’d be cool if we could.”
As the conversation drew to a close, Coster encouraged Tamaki to get vaccinated after learning he and his wife were hesitant. Tamaki laughed, according to the transcript.
Neither Coster nor his deputy are expected to be called to testify during the trial, which is slated to last until next week.
Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield KC, representing all four defendants, suggested today that the online meeting showed that police were not initially concerned with the protests themselves as long as precautions such as distancing were adhered to. The couple’s arrest only came after a pressure campaign on police from Parliament and the media, he argued as he questioned a former adviser for the Police Commissioner.
“The New Zealand Police knew pressure was on to make an example of Brian Tamaki and [Destiny Church-affiliated protest group] the Freedom and Rights Committee,” Mansfield said, suggesting that if the arrests hadn’t been political then leaders of the prior Black Lives Matter and Groundswell protests would have also been charged.
Brian Tamaki at a Covid-19 lockdown and vaccination protest at Auckland Domain. Photo / Brett Phibbs
But prosecutor Matthew Nathan has insisted the case is much more straightforward.
He is expected to spend tomorrow playing footage from the repeated rallies. Brian and Hannah Tamaki were caught on video either violating distancing rules themselves or addressing a crowd when distancing was clearly not being strictly adhered to, he said.
Despite what Brian Tamaki might have promised, precautions were not adequately taken, Nathan told Judge June Jelas during his opening address.
As the September 2021 Zoom meeting ended, Coster and Brian Tamaki traded pleasantries.
“You’re doing a great job, Andy and Wally. We’re really grateful for a great police force ...” Tamaki said.
Coster responded: “Wally and I talked about the way you are reaching a group of people who no one else is reaching, and that influence on the lives of those who would otherwise be in bad situations is great.”
But by February the following year, as anti-vaccine mandate protesters began to gather at Parliament for what would be a three-week occupation, relations between the two appear to have considerably chilled. By that point, Tamaki had been charged with four lockdown breaches and had spent over a week in jail for breaching bail by attending a Christchurch rally.
A February 10 email to Coster signed “The Freedom & Rights Coalition Team” emphasised that the Parliament protest was not their doing.
“We have watched with dismay this week as all of the protest chaos unfolds at Parliament Grounds,” the email stated. “We can see from a distance things are turning very ugly ... There has been absolute chaos on the ground.”
The email referred back to Tamaki’s September 24 Zoom meeting with Coster in which he warned that if he didn’t organise a peaceful protest then “more agitated groups” would use the vacuum to cause disruption.
“Brian honoured that promise, yet at your hand you have sought to charge, arrest and vilify him,” the email stated.
“We are appalled at what we see unfolding in Wellington this week, and the crowd is becoming feral and out of control. These protests becoming violent is because of your actions, Mr Coster, where you have attempted to silence and remove peaceful leadership. In the absence of true leadership, anarchy arises. This is your fault, Mr Coster. You have mishandled and aggravated protest action in this country.”
The group offered to have Tamaki step in to “peacefully negotiate” with the Parliament protesters “to resolve this all from escalating further”. But Tamaki was currently confined to his home, under curfew, the note ended.
“We have still not had the dignity of a response,” the group added in a follow-up email three days later.
If convicted of violating the lockdown rules by attending or organising illegal gatherings, Brian and Hannah Tamaki, along with co-defendants Jennifer Marshall and Kaleb Cave could all face fines and sentences of up to six months’ imprisonment. But in reality, imprisonment is a very unlikely scenario.
Lawyers have repeatedly referred to the precedent-setting trial of fellow lockdown protester Billy Te Kahika, who was initially sentenced last year to four months’ imprisonment for organising a protest outside the TVNZ headquarters in Auckland Central on the first day of the nationwide Covid-19 Delta variant lockdown. A High Court justice later overturned the sentence, ordering him to instead be convicted and discharged.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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