Destiny Church level boss in Christchurch and leading organiser of their de facto ‘street wing’ the Freedom & Rights Coalition (FRC) Derek Tait took a trip down to Dunedin in early July. As far as I’m aware this is the first street protest held by the FRC this far south, though they may have held meetings that just flew under the radar here or elsewhere in Otago/Southland over the last year or two. This will be a quick recap with some notes on the events of the day and a repository of photos I took over the hour & a half I attended (I’m nowhere near a good enough photographer to call it a ‘photo essay’).

For a quick run through of the days goings on, about 20 people were milling around at the Exchange when I arrived around 10:30am. The mood was calm and upbeat, aided I’m sure by some stunning weather given our midwinter setting. By the time the organisers opened with a karakia at 11am sharp, the crowd numbered perhaps a shade over 100, overseen by a small group of cops parked in a No Parking zone (a taxi stand). Itinerary for the day, speeches from a representative of AntiFascist Ōtepoti Sina Brown-Davis and local composer/publican of Woof! bar Dudley Benson, and the crowd was off toward the Octagon well ahead of the FRC demonstration and numbering perhaps 150-200.

It’s a short walk and the march arrived perhaps 20 minutes in advance of Destiny & friends, so everyone was fairly energetic when they arrived to find a couple people anticipating the FRC march and seemingly a little annoyed by the rather prominent Pride themed regalia dotted throughout the crowd. At least, that’s what I caught from one woman yelling about genitalia between the laughter and chanting below her. After a minute or two, the crowd turned to ignore her and listen to a set from local musician Paul S. Allen, so far not much to write home about.

After a short time the dozen or so cops present formed a line along the intersection of Princes Street with four cars, which was the signal that the FRC march was coming up Princes Street. They numbered around 30 and sat nestled behind the cars while Derek negotiated with the cops and wandered through the line to take some videos of the counter-protest. The content mill is a voracious beast, I suppose. The FRC demonstrators agreed to line up across the road from the counter-protesters, and that’s how things remained for the rest of the time I was present. Both sides blasting music at each other and intermittently breaking out in chants or impromptu speeches, were I not otherwise engaged I likely would have given up somewhere between the ABBA and the dreary acoustic covers of the national anthem (on repeat!). I’ll let you guess which side was blasting which.

I do have a few notes on the day, but not much so I’ll get through them quick. For Destiny/the FRC it was a pretty average day out down south. They were clearly aiming for at least a respectable 100-200 to turn out, the 30 that did may not be much more than who came down to hold the march in the first place. My suspicion is that this was meant to be the splash needed to get a local FRC franchise off the ground and test the waters for agitation and recruitment in Otago/Southland, and if so the waters proved ice cold. Given the relatively decent turnout for previous rallies hosted by Voices for Freedom and for other anti-government causes from the right, the FRC/Destiny likely hoped the soil was fertile for their activities to expand southward. That factored in, Saturday’s rally will have been a disappointment by any measure.

For the opposition it was unsurprisingly a pretty good day. It achieved its basic objective of showing up and humiliating the FRC, was fairly well organised, and issued something of a challenge to other cities to follow suit in how to approach the cooker brigades. No aggro broke out, something I thought was unlikely and which neither side likely had much taste for. Perhaps the contingent of cops had something to do with that, but I don’t think by much. It remains the case that for most the prospect of squaring off against fellow citizens in regular clothes is a whole other ballgame to doing so against armoured riot cops. The Covid cooker movement in New Zealand is very different to something like the Reclaim Australia movement of the last decade. The difference in ones conspiracy entailing fighting against an ever shifting cabal of forces detached from ‘ordinary people’, and ones conspiracy having a direct & reachable target in ones own community.

Speaking of, if fascists were indeed present on Saturday they didn’t advertise it. Make no mistake that Destiny are stalwarts of the radical right, but the radical right in this country are a fractious bunch of competing personalities and factions, of which the fascists are but one (such as Action Zealandia and whatever’s left of the National Front). That’s a good thing, in my books, as it implies the neo-fascist fringe are still mostly too disorganised and quasi-underground to poke their head above the parapet. While they’re currently benefitting from a sympathetic social movement to which they can engage in a parasitic relationship, offline they’ve been unable to participate in an organised and coordinated fashion. At least openly. A decade ago while they did not have a convenient social movement to latch onto, they were able to act out in the open in an organised and coordinated fashion (primarily in Christchurch).

Generally the pressure cooker of the ‘alternative’ information ecosystem is more likely to spit out alienated lone actors than an overt movement of the extreme right. More likely than both is that the radical right’s rolling road show will carry on, finding new causes to attach itself to and fending off challenges from its right with ever escalating rhetoric against the left. This probably won’t be the last such demonstration, time will tell whether opposition will become a recurring feature of Dunedin political life in turn.