A fishy protest

Rent-a-mob will be out in small force in Auckland today, but only after they've visited the fish market; Scoop reports:

Anti-GCSB protesters will show their opposition to the GCSB Bill this Saturday at 2pm by staging a demonstration outside John Key’s Parnell mansion.
In response to John Key’s statement that New Zealanders care more about the Snapper quota than the GCSB Bill, protesters will be rallying at the Holy Trinity Church in Parnell before delivering a six foot Snapper shaped like the Prime Minister to the gates of Key’s home.
Protesters will be bringing scores of dead fish to leave on Key's driveway as a symbol of their opposition to the GCSB Bill.

This is a daft protest on so many fronts that it is difficult to know where to start in rebuttal. But firstly, we strongly oppose targeting MPs' homes; even the Prime Minister's. The families of MP's are not part of political arguments; nor are MPs' neighbours. Involving them in this kind of protest, or the one outside Peter Dunne's Kandallah home a couple of weeks ago crosses the boundary between legitimate protest and intimidation.

Secondly, there's the fish issue. Any protesters who throw rubbish (in this case dead fish) onto private or even public property should expect to be arrested, and we are sure that there will be plenty of police on hand to do just that.

But what about the waste? We reckon that most of today's protesters will have been in some way connected to the Occupy protests of 2011, where they claimed to be the "99%". They oppose poverty, and they oppose oppression, and yet they are going to wilfully waste quantities of perfectly edible food. Surely, rather than symbolically flinging fish at the PM's house (which of course they describe as a "Parnell mansion", it would be better if every protester brought fresh fish with them which was then donated to the Auckland City Mission, or some other organisation which feeds the hungry.

Lastly, stunts like this do nothing to advance the cause. The most likely result of a misguided protest such as this will be a shift in public opinion AWAY FROM the cause being protested. New Zealanders aren't stupid, and they can small a rotten fish protest from some distance away.

John Key took all the heat out of the GCSB debate on Wednesday night. That probably explains why the protesters are getting personal, and targeting his home. By all means let them protest, but they should rethink their strategy because quite frankly, it stinks.