Counter-protesters - including one armed with a bottle of tomato juice - have seen British anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull aborting her central Auckland rally. Video / NZ Herald
Controversial British anti-transgender activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull plans to come back to New Zealand.
In a Twitter broadcast, Keen-Minshull - who is also known as Posie Parker - told her Kiwi supporters she “will come back”.
The message comes a week on from her aborted two-event New Zealand tour, canned after her planned speech about women’s rights in Auckland’s Albert Park was cancelled amid scuffles.
Keen-Minshull was doused in a bottle of tomato juice and had to be rushed from the park by security and her supporters. She was later escorted by police.
“We are going to win this war, women,” she said on Twitter.
“And then I will come back and I will come back at the invitation of the Prime Minister who wants to make an all-out apology to everyone,” she claimed.
“I mean he will apologise and if it’s not him it will be the next Prime Minister because he is not going to last...”
Keen-Minshull - who describes herself as a women’s rights supporter - said it was “difficult to understand” exactly what happened at the Auckland event.
British activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull aka Posie Parker is drowned out by trans-rights supporters at Albert Park. Photo / Dean Purcell
She thanked the police officers who escorted her to safety last Saturday.
“I want to just say again thank you to the two officers that got me away, to the four officers that kept me safe, to the two more officers who transferred me to the airport. And for the three officers that kept me safe at the airport until my flight took off.”
Speaking about her time in the country, Keen-Minshull said in a last-minute change of plans the hotel she was set to stay in, cancelled the booking claiming safety concerns.
“The hotel ... decided that they don’t want me to stay there.
“What they say is that the police have been around and now they don’t feel safe... their staff don’t feel safe.”
When she arrived at the airport she was subjected to a two-hour interrogation, Keen-Minshull claimed.
“Hotel cancels then I get to New Zealand and this woman says ‘hey I can help you queue’s shorter this way come with me’.
“So I go with her and we get into a room. She puts my cases up and then starts going through my cases and asking me questions about myself, my family, my husband, my children, my business, his business, and what sort of house we live in.”
She claimed she was spoken to for about two hours before being let through.
Anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull - aka Posie Parker - arrives at Auckland Airport. March 24, 2023. Photo / Dean Purcell
Keen-Minshull said her troubles did not end there, and claims she woke up the next morning to a “threatening note” slid under her hotel room door.
“When I woke up in my hotel after being searched, I woke up to a threatening note posted under my hotel room door telling me what I was wearing, telling me how much they hated me and how I should leave.
“Then we went to the event. And I knew before I went, I just didn’t feel safe. There was something about it. It just didn’t feel safe.”
As she was standing on the rotunda stage at Albert Park preparing to speak, one counter-protester rushed towards her and poured a bottle of juice over her head.
The protester then sprayed more on one of Keen-Minshull’s security guards.
Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull aka Posie Parker's security team fends off angry protestors at Albert Park, Auckland. Keen-Minshull was forced to abandon her planned speech due to safety concerns. Photo / Dean Purcell
Prior to her arrival, an online petition was launched calling for her to be kept out of the country.
Rainbow community groups Gender Minorities Aotearoa, InsideOUT Koāra and Auckland Pride jointly filed a judicial review application last week seeking an interim order to prevent Keen-Minshull’s arrival.
After a two-hour hearing in the High Court at Wellington, which heard from the coalition of rainbow groups, Crown Law and intervenors the New Zealand Free Speech Union, High Court Justice David Gendall declined the application.
Prior to her arrival, in a video posted to YouTube, Keen-Minshull, addressing the PM, said: “Let me just tell you this. Revoke my visa at your peril. Let’s see what happens when you stop a woman who is a women’s rights campaigner when you stop her from being able to come and facilitate the speech of women in your country.
“It’s totally unfathomable that people will be so afraid of us talking,” she added.
“You’re going to make women angry, you’re gonna make people that care about women angry - and eventually that tsunami is gonna rain down upon you,” she warned.
“So Chris Hipkins, roll the dice, my friend. I don’t think you’ll dare to keep me from coming into New Zealand.”
Hipkins told the AM Show at the time he would not intervene or get involved in the matter of granting entry to Keen-Minshull.
“It’s a matter for the officials,” he said. “Whether someone is of good character to enter NZ or not, is not up to me.”
Hipkins said he believed in responsible free speech.
“People are allowed to express their views and oppose those they don’t agree with.” However, he did not agree with “inciting violence.
“Law has a clear line on what you can’t do and I respect that.”
Immigration New Zealand (INZ) announced earlier in the week before her arrival that after a review of whether Keen-Minshull should be allowed in, she did not meet the high threshold to be considered an excluded person under Section 16 of the Immigration Act 2009.
The INZ assessment took into account prior events in Melbourne, where her speaking event drew a crowd, including people who were seen giving Nazi salutes and shouting slurs, Minister for Immigration Michael Wood said earlier.
“Like many New Zealanders, I would prefer it if Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull never set foot in New Zealand. I find many of her views repugnant, and am concerned by the way in which she courts some of the most vile people and groups around, including white supremacists,” Wood has said.
“As we look towards her events for this coming weekend, the welfare and safety of our transgender community is front of mind. Event organisers maintain the primary responsibility to ensure they run a safe and secure event and police have advised they will also be in attendance to ensure public safety.
“I condemn her inflammatory, vile and incorrect worldviews, and will always stand alongside those New Zealanders who use their own right to free speech against those who wish to take society backwards.”
In dismissing the application, Justice Gendall said he had sympathy for the applicants.
“My sympathy for the applicants’ position is grounded largely in the information provided by the applicants and the Crown, which to my eye, appears to clearly raise issues of public order.
“This is a finely balanced decision. I accept the applicants have indeed raised a possible case upon which it might be said to be arguable that no reasonable minister could have concluded that Section 16 of the Immigration Act is not to be invoked.”
