NZTA has rejected the anti-immigration march Brian Tamaki has been promoting, saying a march across the Auckland Harbour Bridge could cause serious structural damage. David Fisher reports.
Brian Tamaki’s planned protest across the Auckland Harbour Bridge on January 31 has been refused permission by NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi, supported by police.
Police Superintendent Naila Hassan said any unlawful access to the motorway will be met with enforcement action.
“Police recognise the right to peaceful and lawful protest,” she said.
“[But] any attempts to deliberately walk across the bridge or disrupt access for other motorists will be considered unlawful activity.”
Tamaki has been promoting the march across social media, telling people it was their chance to protest about immigration.
It was being organised and was going to run under the banner of the umbrella group, The Freedom and Rights Coalition, which includes Destiny Church among other organisations.
In a joint statement, NZTA and police said the coalition’s application failed to meet criteria needed to access the bridge.
The statement said the police decision was aided by expert advice from NZTA that included the potential for marches to damage the bridge.
Hassan said police had “been advised recent marches on the ‘clip-on’ lanes posed a risk of damage to infrastructure and put participants at risk of serious injury. We are not willing to support any action which poses a risk to people’s health and safety”.
“This advice has changed police’s position on facilitating any future access for marching across the bridge.”
The Auckland Harbour Bridge was a vital piece of the region’s roading network, the statement said.
Hassan said there was also consideration that a protest through the centre lanes of the bridge would likely force closure of at least all lanes in one direction, significantly affecting the public.
“This could also potentially put lives at risk due to attendees’ proximity to live traffic and disruption to emergency services.
“Any access to the motorway network requires a permit, and as no such permit has been issued, any protest action on the Auckland Harbour Bridge would be unlawful,” she said.
The police were “very clear that we will not support or facilitate any access to the Auckland Harbour Bridge”.
“The right to protest must be balanced against the rights of the community and road users to go about their lawful activities.”
She said police had offered to work with organisers to find a suitable location for a “peaceful and lawful protest”.
NZTA’s national manager maintenance and operations, Andrew Clark, said it was the roading agency’s job to protect road users on and around the harbour bridge – and its structural integrity.
He said there was a high threshold for requests to access the bridge for special events, and the coalition’s proposed traffic management plan did not meet that.
Clark said the bridge was not designed for pedestrian use, and large groups of people walking across it caused “swaying of the structure” that led to “large movement between the clip-ons and the central truss bridge lanes”.
The position follows NZTA and police’s scrutiny of a march by the coalition planned for October 26, the Sunday of Labour Weekend.
Documents released through the Official Information Act show the coalition estimated more than 2000 people would turn up for the march, and it would develop a traffic management plan to make that possible.
NZTA had told the coalition it was “extremely unlikely” to approve a bridge closure given the safety risks and impact on the travelling public.
By September 30, NZTA confirmed this, telling the coalition its proposal was rejected and it could not access the bridge.
But a police intelligence summary provided to NZTA assessed Tamaki and people associated with Destiny Church would “almost certainly” attempt to march across the bridge even without permission.
It also said it was “unlikely” Tamaki would deter participants from marching even if warned about danger to followers from high winds or other bad weather.
The summary said supporters were expected to travel for the march both nationally and internationally, and pointed to a planned Destiny Church conference that weekend that would likely draw people who would join the protest.
The prospect of marchers causing damage to the harbour bridge was raised during preparations for the earlier, abandoned, march.
An Auckland Transport email said a “partial closure” placing pedestrians on the “clip-on” lanes exposed the structure to high risk and had been discounted.
The agencies involved were so sure that some sort of protest would take place across the bridge – despite it being refused permission – that a police operation would run from inside the transport control room, which provides real-time network control and vision across the motorway network.
It recorded the police objective as “to stop any Destiny Church members from accessing the Auckland Harbour Bridge and causing disruption to our transport network”.
The plan listed the Auckland Harbour Bridge, the state highway network, Auckland Airport, the central city and major routes as locations of interest to be monitored.
The plan developed to manage the expected rogue protest – which didn’t eventuate – rated several risks as “high”, including “structural damage to the [harbour bridge] clip-ons due to mass pedestrian movement”.
Under an “Event Intelligence” section, the operations plan said of the organisers: “Currently, they have not signalled any planned protest action during this weekend, but given their history of misleading NZ Police, we foresee a real risk of disruption to the transport network.”
The documents do not specify what incidents were relied on for that description.
By late October 2025, police had told planners the likelihood of a large organised march had dropped and was now “minimal”.
But police also warned of the risk that “a small breakaway group may try to do unannounced protest”.
The police intelligence summary also identified counter-protest activity and referred to a video in which Tamaki said that if the Prime Minister prohibited use of the bridge, he would do it regardless to “prove a point”.
The Herald has approached Tamaki for comment. He is understood to be overseas with his wife, Hannah Tamaki, but is expected back in New Zealand next week.
David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards, including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004.
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