KEY POINTS:
Police struggled with screaming demonstrators and arrested three of them outside the Labour Party's annual conference venue in Auckland today.
The protest against last months' police raids had been noisy but peaceful until one man apparently tried to break through the solid line of police who were stopping a crowd of about 150 surging onto the forecourt of the Bruce Mason Centre in Takapuna.
He was dragged away surrounded by other demonstrators, and a second man was pulled off the top of a police van and arrested. A third was taken out the crowd -- he said he had been trying to perform a haka.
The mood was ugly, with one protestor claiming he had been assaulted by a Labour Party member, but by noon the police had the crowd under control and most were drifting away.
The trouble began soon after delegate Jill Ovens, a union representative, went into the crowd and attempted to talk to them.
She took a megaphone from one demonstrator and later told reporters she had not hit anyone.
The demonstration began about 9am but it was over before the protesters main target had arrived -- Prime Minister Helen Clark was due to speak about 2pm and was not at the conference in the morning.
At the height of the protest there were about 150 people, mainly pakeha, yelling protests and waving banners at MPs and delegates as they arrived.
They screamed in the faces of police, blew whistles and played loud recordings of police sirens.
Police said they were a mixture of civil rights and peace activists and some had come from Wellington.
Their placards said "State terrorists kidnapped our friends" and "Free political prisoners".
Bellowing through megaphones into the faces of police, they chanted "Helen Clark terrorist" and shouted that Attorney-General Michael Cullen had the power to stop legal proceedings against those who were arrested in the raids.
A man wearing a black helmet and dressed in camouflage shouted "explosives for sale" and 10 men in orange overalls stood silently with black gags tied round their faces.
The National Party was also targeted.
"Labour and National support the Terrorism Suppression (Police State) Amendment Bill," the placards said. "State terrorists kidnapped our friends."
Two sections of the crowd identified themselves - the North Shore Poverty Action Group and Solidarity Union.
Inside the conference centre security personnel had been significantly increased since last night when Helen Clark and party president Mike Williams opened the three-day meeting which is attended by MPs, ministers and about delegates.
- NZPA
