A National Party candidate received a very cold welcome from climate strikers in Wellington, with booing and abuse hurled during the entirety of her speech on her party’s climate policies.
Emma Chatterton already had a tough challenge ahead of her – contesting the Remutaka electorate for National against the prime minister. The former music teacher and senior leader at Wellington-based social investment company ImpactLab was a fill-in for MP Gerry Brownlee to speak at Wellington’s School Strike 4 Climate protest on Friday.
On her introduction, Chatterton received a few claps, before booing erupted as she thanked the crowd “for caring enough about the environment to be here yourselves”.
The heckling grew louder as she said, “a National government is committed to getting New Zealand on track to reach the greenhouse gas emission targets”.
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The crowd was mixed with hundreds of students and adults gathered on Parliament’s lawn.
There was a person with a loudspeaker continually calling out abusive names to Chatterton, people up the front yelling at her and a loud alarm going off while she spoke.
Juan Zarama Perini/Stuff
Climate action in Wellington as protesters make their way to Parliament.
“This Government has to make it easier to build wind, geothermal, hydro, solar power plants. National is committed to environmental protection and is committed to action,” she said, before finishing her speech and thanking the crowd.
Chatterton continued her entire speech throughout the booing, yelling and alarm, while her hand holding her notes could be seen shaking.
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Emma Chatterton will be contesting the Remutaka electorate for National.
An organiser reminded the crowd that it was a peaceful protest. The person on the loudspeaker was still yelling abuse, as the organiser said it was important to respect people when they were speaking.
A National Party spokesperson said neither of the party’s Wellington-based MPs were available to speak at the strike, “so rather than fly someone in, National’s Remutaka candidate spoke on National’s behalf”.
“This is an area she is passionate about and she was happy to address the protest.
”It’s disappointing that some members of the protest decided to abuse her but this is a really important issue and National will continue to show up and engage on it.”
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Emma Chatterton will be contesting the Remutaka electorate for National.
The strikers also continued to yell for the majority of Labour’s Small Business Minister Ginny Andersen’s speech.
“No matter what those voices say to shout us down we will keep talking loud because we know that this is a pathway that we need to keep walking on,” Andersen said.
“I’ve turned up to every single one of these events because I’m proud of the work that you do out there every day to keep us honest, and I commit to keep doing what I do and here to stand with you.”
Climate Change Minister James Shaw used part of his speech to encourage the students’ parents to vote Green.
He said the recent cyclones and the floods “are a taste of what is to come, it is a wake-up call for Aotearoa”.
“This is the moment when we (had)… our first really severe lived experience about the kinds of storms and floods and fires and droughts if we allow pollution to continue going into the atmosphere and to allow the atmosphere to continue warming.”
ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff
One of the founders of School Strike 4 Climate NZ Sophie Handford, and Climate Change Minister James Shaw talk about the protest action for later today.
Shaw continued to say there were “some of us who are working our butts off” trying to make sure the demands of climate strikers were met.
“But we’re outnumbered and we need more Green MPs and we need more Green ministers sitting around the Cabinet table after this election.”
ACT did not have a representative at the protest, but its climate change spokesperson Simon Court said, “sadly, School Strike 4 Climate has unthinkingly adopted the hard left’s hatred of capitalism and is using climate change to try to permanently shift New Zealand politics to the left”.
Among the demands from climate strikers was the voting age to be lowered to 16 as the “future is being trashed by politicians and adults who will not be here to deal with the worst effects”, support regenerative farming and bring in Ebike rebates for low income households.
