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Speaker 1: Now the Auckland Harbor Bridge situation. It's going to be

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Speaker 1: closed tomorrow in Auckland, obviously tomorrow morning for a march

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Speaker 1: and support of Palestine. NZTA and the police are shutting

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Speaker 1: down the southbound lanes of the bridge so that protesters

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Speaker 1: can safely cross from the north shore onto the city

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Speaker 1: side and then gather at Victoria Park. Morris Williamson is

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Speaker 1: an Auckland City councilor for Howick Warden is with us.

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Speaker 2: Hey Morris, good afternoon, Heather.

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Speaker 1: It'smart idea or not.

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Speaker 2: No. Look, my concern is why does it have to

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Speaker 2: close one of the major transport arterial routes in Auckland.

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Speaker 2: And when you've some of the arguments been while there's

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Speaker 2: not much traffic on a Saturday, that's so wrong in Auckland.

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Speaker 2: You can find parts of Auckland where there are more

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Speaker 2: cars on a Saturday than there are during the weekdays.

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Speaker 2: I'm not against them having a protest. I was a

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Speaker 2: protester against the Vietnam War. I think it's good that

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Speaker 2: you protest, but there are plenty of locations you can

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Speaker 2: hold it to get your point away, to show the

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Speaker 2: volumes of people, to have your placards up, but to

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Speaker 2: not cause inconvenience to a huge number of people, and

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Speaker 2: there are going to be a massive number of both

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Speaker 2: motorists and AUGN Transport put out a big notification about

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Speaker 2: the disruption to the public transport network and just for

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Speaker 2: why it doesn't need to be on the bridge. It

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Speaker 2: can be well, Victoria Park is a good one, but

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Speaker 2: there's plenty of others and I was very disappointed.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the fact that it's the fact that it's on

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Speaker 1: the bridge and will cause maximum disruption is the reason

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Speaker 1: that they're doing it right to get maximum publicity, isn't it.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's not what should be the case. They've got

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Speaker 2: a very big argument about the case they're protesting for.

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Speaker 2: Make their case for it. It'll get the news no

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Speaker 2: matter what. But the idea that you cause disruption to

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Speaker 2: a huge cohort of Auckland is wanting to move about

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Speaker 2: the city on their day and do business. I think

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Speaker 2: it'll actually cost them support. There'll be people who would

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Speaker 2: have been in support of their cause, whatever that may be.

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Speaker 2: I'm not taking a position on the cause. I'm just

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Speaker 2: saying don't do it that does massive disruption. So I actually,

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Speaker 2: first of all, asked, at is this you guys, and

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Speaker 2: they said no, we don't do anything the State Highways,

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Speaker 2: which I knew. So went talking to New Zealand Transport

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Speaker 2: Agency and said did you make this decision? And I

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Speaker 2: was told we said no. We said no, you can't

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Speaker 2: close the bridge. The bridge is for traffic and has

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Speaker 2: to be kept like that. And then we got an

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Speaker 2: intervention from the police who said, in order for maintaining

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Speaker 2: civil obedience and so on, we are giving you a

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Speaker 2: direction that you do have to close the bridge.

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Speaker 1: So the police have overridden NZTA here.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and I made it very clear. I checked that

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Speaker 2: twice and NCTA's response to me was no, we said

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Speaker 2: no to the closing of the bridge, and it was

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Speaker 2: the police who told us we needed to close it.

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Speaker 1: Do you think the police have made the wrong decision?

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Speaker 2: Well, yes I do. And again, not to do with

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Speaker 2: the cause, because there'll be some people that say, oh,

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Speaker 2: because you're not supporting our cause. It would be any

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Speaker 2: protest if it was the teachers or was whatever, or

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Speaker 2: go back to the nineteen seventies in my Vietnam protest.

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Speaker 2: I am okay with protesting, and I'm okay with making

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Speaker 2: a big stre but these people who glue themselves to

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Speaker 2: main thoroughfare of roads and stock everybody going but their business.

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Speaker 2: I object to that, and I most certainly object to

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Speaker 2: closing down the Harbor Bridge, just so that you can

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Speaker 2: get your view about a particular issue and inconvenience a

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Speaker 2: huge number of other people.

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Speaker 1: Morris listen, Thanks very much for your view. Appreciated. That's

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Speaker 1: Morris Williamson, Auckland City Counselor.

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