Covid 19 convoy Parliament protests: National leader Christopher Luxon gets extra security, backs PM's call to ignore protesters

National Party leader Christopher Luxon has moved into different accommodation in Wellington while the protests are under way at Parliament and now has extra security.

Luxon, whose Wellington apartment is near the protesters' encampment at Parliament, said he had made "different arrangements for now" to stay somewhere else.

He also confirmed he now had extra security because of the protests. Most of the entrance points to Parliament are now closed to staff and MPs because of the protests.

"But the bottom line is it's not really about me, it's about the people of Wellington who are doing it quite tough trying to navigate all this going on," Luxon said today.

He completely agreed with the decision of the Prime Minister to ignore the protesters and refuse to meet with them or engage with any of their spokespeople.

"That's a group that are being abusive and anti-social. There are a wide range of interests and that makes it very difficult [to engage with them].

"We respect people's right to protest, but what is happening out there is something quite different. When you come here to talk about freedoms and then you impinge the freedoms of others, and you haven't moved your cars and you can't get people to work, and you can't get kids going to school with masks, all those issues.

"That's not on. Not on."

Luxon said there did not appear to be any clear protest leadership and that made it difficult to engage with them.

"What I would say though, is that it is representative of a lot of frustration in the country around where we are going with our Omicron plan and why we don't have clarity going forward. It's up to the Government to front up with that."

He repeated his offer to work with the Government on a bipartisan strategy to start to wind back the mandates.

"We've seen around the world that when Omicron becomes endemic, the relevancy of the mandates diminishes. What you have to be clear on is the triggers and the criteria that will ultimately determine the timeframe for that."

Luxon said it was "unhelpful" of the Speaker to take it upon himself to drive the protesters out with bad music and sprinklers. Asked whether he thought the police should be doing more, given nothing the police had tried so far had succeeded, he said that was up to the police.

"They are the ones who are closest to it. They see a lot more information than we see."

However, he said it was time for the roads outside Parliament to be cleared.

"That's the next logical step, isn't it? We've got to see some movement on that."

The attempt to free up the roads by offering protesters parking at Sky Stadium last night did little. That parking opened at 6.30pm last night, but this morning the roads remained blocked and the stadium car parks empty.

Despite police assurances that people would be able to freely enter and exit the car parking area, on social media, some believed it was a trap to either impound the cars or make it easier for police to surround the protest areas and warned other protesters not to take up the offer.

Asked if he was concerned the involvement of former National MP Matt King in the protest would hurt National's brand, Luxon said: "not at all".

He said the party had been very clear that it was strongly supportive of vaccines and boosters.