Editorial: 'River of genuine fascism' an extraordinary warning

Protesters light up the steps outside Parliament in Wellington with the word 'freedom'. Photo / George Heard

EDITORIAL

Deputy Leader of the House Michael Wood issued a warning to colleagues offering support to protesters outside Parliament this week, declaring a "river of filth" flows beneath the party atmosphere outside.

Wood spoke in the House on day nine of the protest, after some opposition politicians described those occupying Parliament grounds as "good people" and called on the Government to engage with them.

"The words I say now I say with some precision and I say really carefully," Wood told the House on Wednesday.

"Because I think we need to take great care with this. Out the front of this place, there are people who I think we all feel for.

"There are some people who are confused, there are some people who are scared, there are some people who have been manipulated by an avalanche of misinformation. There are some people who have been hurt over the past couple of years and they're lashing out.

"We feel for those people. But underneath all of that, there is a river of filth. There is a river of violence and menace. There is a river of anti-Semitism. There is a river of Islamophobia. There is a river of threats to people who work in this place and our staff. Those are things that we should not in any way be condoning.

He said there was "a river of genuine fascism in parts of the event" and urged colleagues "to not give succour and comfort to an emergent and dangerous far-right movement".

Wood's statement followed a video emerging of a notorious white supremacist offering his support for the protest and the Police Association describing the protest as a "dog's breakfast" that could drag on for months.

The morning after Wood's speech, a national security crisis meeting was called in response to the ongoing protest and blockade. Government officials in ODESC (Officials' Committee for Domestic and External Security Coordination) met on Thursday to discuss the protest and Government response, in an effort to make sure "all risks and potential implications" of the protest were understood.

Wood's speech and the security meeting are insights into the intelligence being gathered - and should not be taken lightly - not the least by those inside the protest.