Protesters outside the private residence in Havelock North that hosted Julian Batchelor's Stop Co-Governance meeting on Wednesday. Photo / Howard McGuire
Protesters outside the private residence in Havelock North that hosted Julian Batchelor's Stop Co-Governance meeting on Wednesday. Photo / Howard McGuire
Anti co-governance tour leader Julian Batchelor says because his meetings are legal his organisers shouldn’t need to tell venues who they are when they book.
The eventful Hawke’s Bay leg of his tour was due to wrap up after a second meeting at a private home in Havelock North onThursday night.
It is understood that bookings with Ellwood Function Centre in Hastings and with Taradale Sports Association were cancelled as well. Previous iterations of the tour have also been met with cancellations.
More protesters filled a Havelock North cul-de-sac on Wednesday night, where a private property hosted the event, performing haka and waiata.
The demonstration was “uneventful” and there were “no incidents of note”, police said.
Batchelor told Hawke’s Bay Today the presence of protesters at both the Monday and Wednesday events did not give him any concerns about safety for future meetings.
“It just made us more determined,” Batchelor said.
When asked about an allegedly misleading booking made at the Cheval Room on his behalf, Batchelor said venues shouldn’t need to know what a meeting was about as long as it was legal.
“No, they have all kinds of meetings at their venues so they don’t need to know everything about everyone’s meetings, just that it is a legal public meeting.”
Julian Batchelor says venues do not need to know what legal bookings are for after more than one Hawke’s Bay venue has cancelled bookings for his Stop Co-Governance tour. Photo / Julian Batchelor
He confirmed a meeting on Tuesday also went by without protests after organisers decided to stop informing police of the venue and switched to invitations by phone.
Batchelor also criticised police for not doing more to remove protesters from inside his meetings in a blog post on Thursday, suggesting that police were working with protesters.
His concerns are not shared by Ngāti Kahungunu iwi chairman Bayden Barber, who accused police of “picking sides” against protestors in a statement on Tuesday.
Activist Māhina Huata-Harawira said she attended the event on Monday and arrived outside Wednesday’s meeting sometime after it started, after not having any plans to.
“People were talking, interacting, there was music playing, conversations were being had, children were there, elderly people were there,” Huata-Harawira said.
She said attendees of the meeting stood outside on the driveway of the private property watching the protesters and shone a torch at them so they could not see or record their faces.
“They were talking among themselves and pointing at us, but the loudest thing we heard was them laughing.”
Huata-Harawira believes the police response had improved since Monday, but was concerned police were faced towards protesters rather than those at the meeting.
“No one was protecting us, no one was standing on our side facing Julian.”
James Pocock joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2021 and writes breaking news and features, with a focus on environment, local government and post-cyclone issues in the region. He has a keen interest in finding the bigger picture in research and making it more accessible to audiences. He lives in Napier. james.pocock@nzme.co.nz
