Glitch means 5am start to protest

ROSE HARDING
A timetable error by Toll Holdings means Gloria the steam train won't be coming to Hawke's Bay.
The 110-tonne engine was supposed to be pulling 10 carriages of irate Hawke's Bay fruitgrowers to a protest rally at Parliament tomorrow.
The growers will still be going by train, but it will be a diesel engine pulling them at least as far as Palmerston North, where Gloria is expected to be waiting for them.
It will mean an earlier start too. Protest organisers want everyone at the Hastings rail station by 5am rather than 5.30am.
Organisers were expecting up to 400 people to travel by train and bus to Wellington for the march on Parliament and the Australian High Commission.
More growers from Nelson and Wairarapa were expected to bring numbers up to 700.
The march is to pressure the Government to get tougher with the Australians over their refusal to accept New Zealand apples.
New Zealand apples have been banned from the Australian market for more than 80 years because they fear the introduction of fireblight.
Despite scientific evidence and World Trade Organisation rulings the Australians are stalling with risk analysis assessments by Biosecurity Australia.
The results of the assessments have not been released because the whole process was restarted after the Federal election.
Growers were busy today loading tractors on to trucks to be taken to Wellington for the rally. Organiser Rupert Ryan said politicians were lining up to greet the rally at Parliament.
However, Agriculture and Trade Negotiations Minister Jim Sutton was not expected to be there because of a prior engagement.
"I won't be surprised if he changes his mind." The fruitgrowers' protest tomorrow will precede one on Thursday when the Federated Farmers Action Orange petition against a plan to change the law on land access is presented at Parliament after being carried around New Zealand to gather signatures.