Skinks, hiccups and assault: Steve Braunias at the Liz Gunn sentencing

“Ugly c***,” howled some old bag attached to the tiny remains of those who follow Liz Gunn. It was a lovely sunny Tuesday afternoon outside the Manukau District Court. Gunn, famous as the leader of the NZ Loyal Party, a merry band of conspiracy hobbyists who attracted 34,000 votes in the last election, had just been sentenced to a conviction without discharge by Judge Janey Forrester in courtroom 2.

She had sought discharge without conviction. The judge met her halfway but Gunn took it as an attack on her political freedoms and issued dark warnings to all New Zealanders that they, too, were at risk of losing their liberty that brave men and women fought to uphold in two world wars or whatever.

Anyway, the howl was directed at me, I think; it followed a brief stand-up Gunn gave to the fourth estate after she was sentenced. I was bored to sobs with Gunn claiming she was some kind of political martyr and asked her once, twice, three times whether or not she was still the leader of the NZ Party.

It was in response to a political announcement on November 4: “The New Zealand Loyal political party, founded by Liz Gunn only three months before the 2023 General Election, is under new management! Liz Gunn unilaterally attempted to shut down the New Zealand Loyal Political Party in July 2024, and de-registered the party with the Electoral Commission, but party members said ‘no’, so under the rules of the party’s constitution they formed a new board to keep the party alive.”

Gunn would not answer the question. A skink ran out of the grass lawn. In May, when she was found guilty of assault, dozens of her followers came to Manukau in support. There was a lot of love for her. It was quite a beautiful scene and it felt like some kind of ceremony, the way they stood shocked and chattering within the circle of 10 foundation stones laid outside the court. But on Tuesday there was only Gunn, a quiet, dignified man who held her hand, and three supporters. The skink headed for the shade.

The assault charge was a nonsense. Gunn had got in the face of a security officer at Auckland Airport in February 2023 and touched her arm. The touch was insignificant but the getting in the face was intolerable for the security officer, who asked two airport constables to have a word with Gunn and Jonathan Clark, a cameraman who was with her that day.

Within seconds the cops had thrown the pair on the floor. Pathetic, heavy-handed, moronic; and that was even before it got to the courts. Tuesday’s sentencing was the last act in a prolonged and fantastically meaningless ordeal – well, hopefully the last act. Gunn said she might appeal.

Liz Gunn leaving the Manukau District Court after being found guilty of assault and resisting arrest. Photo / George Block

Easy to feel sympathy for Gunn, until she opens her mouth. I interviewed her when she arrived at court. She refused to submit to the security X-ray and was allowed to walk around the machine. I thought her objection might be based on some bats*** crazy idea about government control of ultraviolet light or something but she explained that her skin is sensitive to X-rays, and comes out in an eczema tic rash.

When she appeared in the dock, she sat sideways, her face obscured by her blonde hair. I thought it was because she might be hard of hearing and had turned her good ear towards the judge but Clark, who came to support Gunn, explained it was a clever way to avoid being filmed by the media. He was right. They got nothing on tape.

“Do you have children?” Gunn asked.

Yes, a daughter, I said.

“Don’t you feel worried that if your child tapped someone on the arm, she might be arrested?”

No, not in the least, I said.

“Well,” she continued, “aren’t you at least worried that she won’t be allowed to question what the Government is doing?”

I said: “Right this second, a hīkoi of maybe 30,000 people or more are in Wellington, questioning what the government is doing.”

“That’s a whole different conversation,” she said.

She headed into court. Her lawyer Matthew Hague asked the judge if she could sit next to him. No, said the judge, and instructed Gunn to sit in the dock. It was a bad start and essentially it stayed that way for Hague, as he argued the reasons why his client should receive a discharge without conviction, and was countered pretty much every step of the way by Judge Forrester.

The writing was on the wall. “I don’t accept that,” scolded Her Honour, when Hague insisted the tap on the arm was only ever a tap on the arm. “You are attempting to sanitise the incident. It was not simply to seek the attention of the complainant.” She reminded Hague of her judgment in May, when she wrote that Gunn’s behaviour towards the security officer at the airport was “arrogant, rude, overbearing and offensive”.

An elderly lawyer waiting for his hearing sat at the same bench as Hague. He had the hiccups. A Chinese man walked in and sat down at the prosecution bench. His pants rode up to just below his knees; he was wearing thick white socks. It was a waterless court, not a single carafe anywhere. Judge Forrester brought her own drinking bottle. She took a long, thirsty swig, and said: “I agree it was a very low-level of assault. But Ms Gunn has shown a total lack of remorse and a total lack of insight into her offending.”

Clark came to court to support Gunn. He said after the sentencing: “The word has come down from above, from people at the top, to stop Liz in her tracks.”

I said: “What are their names?”

He said: “It’s people we don’t know who are in the government system.”

Clark and the supporters had the idea that court was in adjournment, and there was more to come in the case of Liz Gunn. But it was over. The old hiccupping lawyer was on his feet in courtroom 2, defending a client. Gunn and her lawyer held discussions in a room next to the court. They talked for about 30 minutes, and then Hague came out and was approached by the media. He said he could not comment and he very much doubted Gunn would have anything to say, either.

He was totally wrong about that. She chuntered on and on; the skink came back out of the shadows and headed for the grass lawn.