KEY POINTS:
A tumble drier was centrestage in an emotional protest against child abuse in Rotorua yesterday.
About 500 people gathered outside the courthouse as four of the five accused of abusing 3-year-old Nia Glassie prepared to seek bail inside.
At 12.12pm, a time chosen to remember the 12 children a year who die from child abuse in New Zealand, they joined a nationwide silent protest which drew thousands of people on to the streets around the country.
Two cars stopped side-by-side in the city-bound clip-on lanes on the Auckland Harbour Bridge and caused a traffic snarl-up during the three-minute silence, each minute marking one year of Nia's life. Police spokesman Kev Loughlin said the motorists would face no penalties.
Students on a building course brought a tumble drier to the Rotorua protest, with a sign on top saying "3 Years Old. Dead".
The drier's owner, 31-year-old father of two Robert Te Mara, had clothes pegs clipped to his T-shirt. He said the drier and pegs were intended to be as disturbing as images of abused children.
"Hopefully it compels people's hearts to take a stand against child abuse," he said.
Three-year-old Nia was allegedly hung from a clothesline and spun in a tumble drier before her death.
People stood with their heads bowed, some struggling to hold back tears. Among them was Auckland grandfather John Foote, whose son Brian is a lawyer and is defending one of the five accused of abusing Nia.
Mr Foote snr said he was horrified by the abuse inflicted on Nia and had come to support his son and see his 3-year-old granddaughter in Rotorua.
Margaret Makiha, a mother of four girls, attended the protest with 5-month-old Samantha. She urged struggling parents to seek help. "Pick up the phone book. Don't raise your hands and lash out at the children."
In Auckland, about 70 film stars, sports people, mayoral aspirants and ordinary New Zealanders observed the three-minute silence outside Starship Hospital, where Nia died last Friday.
Whale Rider star Keisha Castle-Hughes, who had a baby 3 1/2 months ago, said the protest was "for New Zealanders to stand up and say, 'Yes we do care".'
Actress Greer Robson, carrying 2-year-old daughter Sienna, called for "a shift from viewing the child as a parent's possession to saying it's the community's responsibility".
Soccer star Wynton Rufer, married for 21 years and the father of two children aged 15 and 11, said he wanted to "show that we live in families".
Laura Burns, a 22-year-old office administrator from Hillsborough, carried a placard declaring, "Child abusers are scum".
"That's what I believe," she said. "I think they need tougher sentences and more awareness of who they are, where they are, and once that [abuse] has happened to a child, the child should be placed in a safer home."
But the executive manager of Christine Rankin's For the Sake of Our Children Trust, Ngapuhi descendant Bev Adair, called on all New Zealanders to "stop blaming other people and look in the mirror".
"You are the person that is going to change this," she said. "If every one of us took responsibility for what we choose to do, that's when change will happen."
Another 70 people stood silently and reflected in a large circle in Aotea Square.
Children at Rongomai Primary School in Otara, including some of Nia's relatives, listened to Destiny's Child's song Stand Up for Love and then stood in silence under their classroom verandas.
In Grey Lynn, about 430 children, staff and parents held hands, sang and recited a karakia (prayer) after observing the three-minute silence at Richmond Rd Primary School.
In Wellington, protesters stood silently at Midland Park.
Mother Izzy Gray shed a tear. "I have a 3-year-old son," she said. "I go through a lot of emotions thinking about how someone could do something to an innocent, defenceless child."
