A-Infos (en) Aotearoa (New Zealand), Auckland, A Space Inside #1 - A Peoples' History of Auckland

IWW, 1912 ---- In April 1912 Tom Barker, George Hardy and J.B. King formed a 
branch of  he anarcho-syndicalist union the Industrial Workers of the World 
(IWW) in Auckland. According to historian Fran Shor, "Auckland's inner city 
ambience engendered forms of class conflict and solidarity in the public sphere 
that resounded with the IWW message." The IWW was famous for ts antimilitarism, 
atheism and revolutionary socialism around the world. Tom Barker a leading 
agitator and organiser for the IWW in New Zealand wrote of the situation in 
Auckland in 1912, "the class war is on, the fight is raging, so brothers 
organise closer into one fighting organisation." The IWW wanted to use the 
working-class weapon of the general strike in class war against the bosses. It 
got its chance in 1913 when a sympathy strike on Auckland's wharves with a 
dispute on the wharves in Wellington was near broken up by armed militia called 
Specials. There were claims that one-fifth of all Auckland specials were King's 
College Old Boys.

This provoked the workers into calling a general strike in the city to protest
"he armed invasion of the workplace by police. From 8 November 1913 a
general strike took place in Auckland and the city was momentarily
suspended by the working-class. A strike committee was formed and Barker
was asked to take charge.
 "He began organising night raids on the specials, panicking them into
barbed wire traps or into ambushes where they could be pelted with fistfuls
of nuts and bolts taken from local railway workshops. A wood yard turning
out batons for the specials was successfully razed. Farmers were threatened
with similar arson should they come strike-breaking into town."


The atmosphere in the city was jubilant,
"There were parades and mass meetings. Strikers assembling at Victoria
Park gave a huge cheer to marching waitresses, the cheering, though, as
nothing compared to that for the striking newspaper delivery boys. A strike
committee handed out groceries from the basement at the Trades Hall and
erected a huge marquee out the back where meals were cooked and served."
However eight days later, the strike ended without a revolution and the
workers returned to work.
      "The working class and the employing class have nothing in
common. There can be no peace as long as hunger and want are found
among millions of the working people and the few who make up the
employing class, have all the good things in life."
Preamble to the IWW constitution.

From: "Bringing the Storm: Syndicalist Counterpublics and the Industrial
Workers of the World in New Zealand, 1908­14," by Fran Shor, in On the
Left: Essays on Socialism in New Zealand. and,
http://unite.org.nz/tom_barker_of_auckland_and_the_world

Auckland Docks, 1951
In 1951 the New Zealand wharf workers union was locked out of ports
across the nation for 151 days after what started as a strike for a pay rise.
The government used the armed forces to load and unload cargo while
police held picket lines of miners at bay. Waikato miners and hydro workers
went out in sympathy strikes. During the lockout police closed union halls
and harassed the speakers at public meetings. Cops raided union members
houses and the union printing machine was hidden in a van that drove up
and down Queen Street, distributing leaflets hot off the press.
To feed the locked out workers the entire community pitched in to supply
food to families. Boot repairers and barbers offered their services for free to
the wharfies. There were violent clashes along Auckland's waterfront and
on Hobson Street as scabbing workers defended by police broke through
picket lines with batons and bayonets. On Friday, June 1 1951, police
attacked a 1200 strong march resulting in a riot along Queen Street with
bottles and fists thrown at cops. After 151 days the strike was called off and
workers returned to the wharves having been defeated by government
support for the shipping companies.

Bastion Point, 1977-1978 The Orakei headland which stands above Okahu
Bay on Auckland's now gentrified Eastern Suburbs was in 1978 the site
of a massive showdown between the Tangata Whenua, Ngati
Whatua and the colonial state in annexation mode. In 1977 the National
government began to start subdividing land they had confiscated from Ngati
Whatua over the last hundred and fifty years. The current subdivision was
part of a long process of marginalising and alienating Ngati Whatua from
their traditional homeland at Okahu Bay. The state had in 1951 evicted the
tribe from their pa and burnt down their houses. However resistance was
strong to the subdivision and in 1977 the Orakei Maori Action Group led by
Joe Hawke, a Ngati Whatua rangatahi, occupied the land that was to be
subdivided. Over 150 protesters set up a sustained occupation with caravans,
electricity and a meeting house. Trade unions voted to abstain from working
on the subdivision and Pakeha groups added their support financially and
logistically. The camp culture that sprung up during the occupation spread
the message of Maori autonomy and cultivated cultural rediscovery among
the occupiers. After 506 days of occupation 600 cops attacked the point and
ended the occupation. In 1984 a march on Waitangi to protest land
grievances temporarily reoccupied Bastion Point. The subdivisions never
occurred and in later years the Waitangi Tribunal later returned the land to
Ngati Whatua, but it took considerable struggle to achieve this.
From: Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Ake Ake Ake by Ranginui Walker

Auckland University Engineering School, 1979
On May 1 1979, 14 activists attacked a posse of white engineering students
who were practicing a mock haka that they were going to perform at the
engineering graduation festivities. This tradition of white students painting
caricatures of Ta Moko on their bodies with lipstick and dressing in grass
skirts was over twenty years old and for the last ten years Maori students
had tried to stop the performance with no success. The Maori activists
attacked a practice session of the denigrating haka; tore the skirts from the
students and as Ranginui Walker says, "in less than five minutes of direct
action, the gross insult of the haka party was stopped." After a media frenzy
concerning the hiding the students got, eight of the activists were found
guilty in the courts and sentenced to periodic detention for their role in
challenging a culture of white supremacy on campus.
From: Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Ake Ake Ake by Ranginui Walker
Eden Park, 1981
in 1981, Auckland's inner-city suburbs were the scene of the huge
confrontations between thousands of anti-Apartheid protestors and
thousands of militarised police. During the 1981 Springbok Tour of New
Zealand, two Rugby test matches were planned for Auckland and the Eden
Park where the matches were to be played were to be guarded from Tour
protestors by 2200 police and army personnel. Eden Park was fortified with jumbo
bins, roadblocks, barbed wire and chicken wire fences. Police imposed a curfew
on the local area and conducted house-to-house searches looking for hidden
Tour protestors within the fortified area surrounding the stadium. On the day
of the first match hundreds of plywood shields, chest protectors, helmets,
buoyancy vests and padding were distributed to the over 7000 protestors
who turned up to the protest. Marching from Fowlds Park the protestors
practiced their quasi-military maneuvers (running, charging, holding
positions, splitting into columns) in the streets on the way to the park. The
7000 split into smaller sections that probed the police lines, scuffling
regularly with Riot Police and attempting to break through the barricades. In
Kowhai School, Patu Squad comprised of the hardest core of militants,
Maori and Pacific Islanders attacked the police line and engaged in hand to
hand combat with the heavily armed police. The protests did not end the test
but definitely tested the defences of the state.
The second test on September 12 was the site of even more spectacular
confrontations. Groups of activists blockaded roads to the park, and locked
down the Harbour Bridge and international airport. Approximately 6000
joined the attack on Eden Park launching multiple raids. One used a
protestor safe house within the police perimeter as a base to attack the park
with flares, fireworks and smoke bombs. An aero plane made 58 passes over
the rugby ground strafing it with flour bombs, one of which hit an All Black
prop in the head. Another group of protestors attacked the rugby ground
with fireworks and smoke bombs after they had infiltrated the grandstand
disguised as rugby fans. These 31 stopped the game for 2 minutes. On the
outside street fighting on Sandringham Road between police and protestors
escalated suddenly. The police "Red Squad" went out of control, batoning
and kicking anyone they could get their hands on. Protestors led by Patu
Squad militants rallied and fought back along Marlborough Street with
scoria boulders, fences and milk bottles. The melee carried over onto
Onslow Road and protestors armed themselves with more rocks and bits of
wood and engaged Red Squad again and again, fighting in self-defence and
against the state. Hundreds more cops were called in to charge and scatter
protestors, who fled smashing a cop car on their retreat.
 "A squadman stood in front of a helmeted Polynesian, whirling his baton in
 a fancy figure of eight pattern, and the kid stood in front of him with a stick
  of his own. Again and again he went through the policeman's defence and
                                  jabbed him."

 From: Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Ake Ake Ake by Ranginui Walker
Auckland University Engineering School, 1979
On May 1 1979, 14 activists attacked a posse of white engineering students
who were practicing a mock haka that they were going to perform at the
ingineering graduation festivities. This tradition of white students painting
caricatures of Ta Moko on their bodies with lipstick and dressing in grass
skirts was over twenty years old and for the last ten years Maori students
had tried to stop the performance with no success. The Maori activists
attacked a practice session of the denigrating haka; tore the skirts from the
students and as Ranginui Walker says, "in less than five minutes of direct
action, the gross insult of the haka party was stopped." After a media frenzy
concerning the hiding the students got, eight of the activists were found
guilty in the courts and sentenced to periodic detention for their role in
challenging a culture of white supremacy on campus.
From: Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Ake Ake Ake by Ranginui Walker

Eden Park, 1981
In 1981, Auckland's inner-city suburbs were the scene of the huge
confrontations between thousands of anti-Apartheid protestors and
thousands of militarised police. During the 1981 Springbok Tour of New
Zealand, two Rugby test matches were planned for Auckland and the Eden
Park where the matches were to be played were to be guarded from Tour protestors
by 2200 police and army personnel. Eden Park was fortified with jumbo bins,
roadblocks, barbed wire and chicken wire fences. Police imposed a curfew on the
local area and conducted house-to-house searches looking for hidden Tour
protestors within the fortified area surrounding the stadium. On the day

of the first match hundreds of plywood shields, chest protectors, helmets,
buoyancy vests and padding were distributed to the over 7000 protestors
who turned up to the protest. Marching from Fowlds Park the protestors
practiced their quasi-military maneuvers (running, charging, holding
positions, splitting into columns) in the streets on the way to the park. The
7000 split into smaller sections that probed the police lines, scuffling
regularly with Riot Police and attempting to break through the barricades. In
Kowhai School, Patu Squad comprised of the hardest core of militants,
Maori and Pacific Islanders attacked the police line and engaged in hand to
hand combat with the heavily armed police. The protests did not end the test
but definitely tested the defences of the state.
The second test on September 12 was the site of even more spectacular
confrontations. Groups of activists blockaded roads to the park, and locked
down the Harbour Bridge and international airport. Approximately 6000
joined the attack on Eden Park launching multiple raids. One used a
protestor safe house within the police perimeter as a base to attack the park
with flares, fireworks and smoke bombs. An aero plane made 58 passes over
the rugby ground strafing it with flour bombs, one of which hit an All Black
prop in the head. Another group of protestors attacked the rugby ground
with fireworks and smoke bombs after they had infiltrated the grandstand
disguised as rugby fans. These 31 stopped the game for 2 minutes. On the
outside street fighting on Sandringham Road between police and protestors
escalated suddenly. The police "Red Squad" went out of control, batoning
and kicking anyone they could get their hands on. Protestors led by Patu
Squad militants rallied and fought back along Marlborough Street with
scoria boulders, fences and milk bottles. The melee carried over onto
Onslow Road and protestors armed themselves with more rocks and bits of
wood and engaged Red Squad again and again, fighting in self-defence and
against the state. Hundreds more cops were called in to charge and scatter
protestors, who fled smashing a cop car on their retreat.
 "A squadman stood in front of a helmeted Polynesian, whirling his baton in
 a fancy figure of eight pattern, and the kid stood in front of him with a stick
  of his own. Again and again he went through the policeman's defence and
                                  jabbed him."


From: By Batons and Barbed Wire by Tom Newnham
Aotea Square, May 1995
"More than 2,000 bankers, business leaders, politicians, lobbyists and
journalists crowd into the city for the 28th annual meeting of the Asian
Development Bank. For the New Zealand government, it is a chance to show
off what they are calling "The Turnaround Economy". For other New
Zealanders the ADB symbolises the selling-off of their homeland, the final
betrayal of Aotearoa. A volatile coalition of trade unionists, Maori
nationalists, student activists and the unemployed meet together in they city
to challenge the power of international capital."
On Wednesday May 3rd 1995 2000 students protesting neo-liberalism broke
through police lines in Aotea Square outside of where the ADB summit was
being held. They were only prevented from reaching the summit by a police
baton charge.

On Thursday 300 anti-ADB protestors protesting the destruction of social
welfare in Aotearoa fight police down the alley between the Post Office and
the cinemas. Cops attack protestors mercilessly.
Over the two-days of the summit Maori, NGOs, students, environmentalists,
anarchists and unionists conspired to break up the party for neo-liberalism
and to protest the world wide imposition of neo-liberal capitalism.
From: "The Search for Political Power in New Zealand", New Zealand
Political Review by Chris Trotter


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