What was said on the March
IMAGE: John Chapman
As with the last march, it was what was said on it that interested me.
Let's deal with first things first, the turn out was incredible, we are talking 10 000, Queen street was full from Aotea Square down, Aotea Square was full...
...the NZ Herald at the Maritime protest last month originally claimed the size of the protest was 1500. TVNZ then put it at 5000 and the bloody Herald edited their number up the next day to 3000. The rule is, whatever the number of protesters the Herald claims, triple it and round up.
Discussions were the possibility of an Epsom by-election and what candidate would be stood. I was suggesting an independent candidate backed by Labour, Greens, NZ First and MANA. Got some bites.
Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson turned up either side of my elbow for a poke in the ribs. Grant and I reminisced about the size of marches in the 1990's when he was President of NZUSA and I was President of ASPA. They were both good value and with all the rumors circulating I pressed them on the speculation. They both denied anything and everything.
Others weren't so coy. One suggestion was if the Labour Party rules change in November to take into account the wider membership in terms of the leader, Cunliffe would win hands down meaning any possible 'fresh blood' challenge would happen sooner rather than later.
Speaker of the day was Hone who fired the crowd in a way the 3 other speakers didn't. Russell was okay, and relishing his number two political party zeitgeist, the NZ First speaker bordered on comprehension and Shearer dangerously faded into the back ground.
At the moment, the machinations within the left are reminiscent of SOHO's 'Game of Thrones', except that it has far more gratuitous incest.
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posted by Bomber @ 11:03 am
3 comments
3 Comments:
"I was suggesting an independent candidate backed by Labour, Greens, NZ First and MANA."
Does such a beast actually exist?
Bomber, mate, stop exaggerating!
I was standing on the steps of the Aotea Centre as the marchers came into the square.
They "filled" no more than a quarter of the space.
A full Aotea Square would, indeed, hold upwards of 20,000 people, which puts the crowd on Saturday at no more than 5,000.
Now, I'm perfectly willing to concede that many marchers may have peeled off before the rally, but not 5,000.
I asked as many people as I could for an estimate of the march's size, and used my own experience of participating in 20,000+ marches (Iraq War, GE-Free) and the average estimate was 6,000 marchers.
An excellent effort - but nowhere near 10,000.
Essentially, the march was of the Auckland Left (much like the MUNZ march a few weeks ago). And that's Bill Bradford's comment - not mine.
I do, however, agree with Bill. To get more than 20,000 people on the street you have to have support from the suburbs. Greenpeace had suburban Auckland's support on the mining-in-national-parks issue.
Saturday's march did not.
why bother with magic beans? A coupla beers and he's anybody's.
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