Gloves off in dolphin battle

KATE NEWTON AND REON SUDDABY
The gloves are off in the battle over the future of dolphins at Marineland, with two protesters turned away from a Hastings meeting to discuss the subject, and an anti-dolphin capture website being set up.
About 100 people turned out at yesterday's Hastings Racing Centre meeting, set up by Napier City Councillor Harry Lawson, but two people who weren't allowed admission were protesters David Head and Odile Balas.
Mr Head arrived at the meeting holding a sign protesting the capture of dolphins and was told by a security guard he could not enter.
Mr Head said he had the right to be on the public property and told the guard he wasn't leaving. The guard told him the meeting was only for supporters of capturing more dolphins for Marineland.
"I told him I knew he was only doing his job and asked to speak with an organiser. He went away and told me 'there is no-one who wants to talk to you'," Mr Head said.
Mr Head is now considering taking a complaint to the Human Rights Commission on the basis of being denied his civil rights and freedom of speech.
"We are no0t learning from the past. Our thinking is not the way it was in the 1950s. We have to be more clever as a society," Mr Head said.
Ms Balas had a similar experience and was asked to leave. "A public meeting should be a place to discuss and consider both alternatives. The place of dolphins is in the wild, not in jail in the pool," she said.
Mr Lawson defended the decision to bar the protesters, saying the meeting was only for supporters of the dolphins, and was "not to debate the pros and cons".
"We made that very clear in our advertising," he said. Mr Head is also believed to have set up an internet website to counter www.moredolphins.org, designed to promote the retention of the mammals at the Napier tourist facility.
Mr Lawson said Mr Head was within his rights to set up a website and express his opinion.
"He's entitled to do that, it's still a free country." Yesterday's meeting followed a similar gathering in Napier on May 6, but despite the public support, Mr Lawson was warning people not to get their hopes up.
He said the chances of getting replacements for Shona and Kelly were less than 20 percent, but he was boosted by yesterday's meeting.
"To get 100 people to come out on a nice Sunday afternoon to support the retention of the dolphins isn't too bad, I think."
Mr Lawson said a petition supporting the replacement of Shona and Kelly was already a quarter of the way towards its aim of 10,000 signatures. He had indications Tukituki MP Craig Foss, Napier MP Chris Tremain and list MP Rick Barker were all in support of retaining dolphins at Marineland.
Mr Foss said he urged people at the meeting to write to MPs, including Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen, also a Napier resident.