"They are using the Cenotaph as an open air toilet!," tweeted one person this morning.
"I am actually speechless!"
But a man who was occupying the area where the structure was said told a Herald reporter he'd been constructing a shower next to the monument.
After the online speculation about it being a toilet, he had decided to move the shower out into the open to avoid offending anyone, he said.
The structure wasn't the only protest action affecting the cenotaph.
Photos posted to social media showed parts of the memorial covered in chalked messages and drawings.
"In NZ, anti-mandate protestors demand respect by ... scribbling on the war memorial cenotaph commemorating the lives of those lost fighting nazis. cool job", one person tweeted.
Another tweeted that they "cannot imagine how much anger veterans must feel when they see what that lot have done to the cenotaph, a place people congregate to remember our fallen".
Some protesters have previously referenced New Zealand's war dead and veterans in challenging the mandates, and other Government responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The RSA couldn't immediately be contacted for comment.
A Herald reporter at the site this morning didn't see any graffiti on the cenotaph, but a man addressing the hundreds of protesters referenced claims of graffiti on the war memorial.
Veterans had expressed their displeasure at the graffiti, the man said, urging people to not add more and help remove what had already been done.
