Pundit

Piffle.

However ill-advised, Norman was standing where he had a right to be, doing what he had a right to do, when the assault commenced. Where are the police and security? Probably busy investigating him.

That ACT members routinely countenance the erosion of civil liberties is no surprise, but it would be a disgrace to them - if they understood any of the values humanity have striven to achieve over the last few centuries.

The evidence is that they do not.

By the way, I'm not an Act member. Resigned in 2005. You may well be right in your opinion, that Act members erode civil liberties. I wouldn't know since I'm not familiar with their policies, and don't know any members. 

An act altogether consistent with their lack of principles - the consummate Act supporter is as averse to paying their party subscription as they are to paying taxes.

Norman's stance on Tibet is not especially defensible - Sir Ed had a fairish counterargument - but it is the counterargument he should have faced, not the combined thuggery of Chinese security and yellow journalists.

"Norman involved in argy bargy with Chinese security, then complaining to police is the same as McCroskie staying up late to watch naked men then complaining to the Broadcasting Standards Authority."

It's also like stuart munro reading an opinion piece written by a right-winger then going off on an angry tangent about the ACT party (for the hundredth time)...

Thankfully Stuart your comments are a lot easier to ignore than a loud protest from a metre away.

Anyway great to see a new batch of writers joining the Pundit crew!

"Russel Norman's behaved like a child since he roughed up (yes, if you watch the television footage closely, it's his hands shoving people aside to retrieve the Tibetan flag) security personnel outside Parliament"

I note, Deborah, that you use the word "retrieve"...  So you admit it was in his possession at the start?

Are you suggesting the police need to investigate little old ladies for potentially assaulting bag snatchers?

If it was in his possession, and then he needed to "rough up" someone to retrieve it, what perchance, do you suppose might have happened in-between?  Maybe he just dropped it and the Chinese security picked it up for him?

Get a grip. Norman may well be technically guilty of assault...  but only because it happened to him first...

Holding a Tibetian flag in front of Chinese officials is...

confrontational?- certainly.

childish? - possibly.

illegal?- no.

I notice Falcon,that you can not ignore them.

Go back to America, where your views are mere right wing nut jobbery, as opposed to barking insanity.

Coddrington's hatchet job on Norman is the issue of the day - I notice that as usual you have nothing to contribute to the discussion.

For the record, I don't merely attack rightwingers, but ringwingers who lie.

Whatever gems of domestic insight Coddrington has culled from raising her offspring, they scarcely entitle her to overturn the definition of common assault.

Or are we returning to the debate on the defense of provocation? I seem to remember that most people didn't like it.

Fletcher that's a good point you make and I would agree Russel was within his rights to reclaim his own property after it was snatched away. And I don't think I was arguing it was illegal to hold out the flag, just confrontational and Russel would have known that otherwise what would have been his point in going there?

But the point I was trying to make was that, in my opinion, he defeated his purpose when he complained to the police he'd been assaulted. That's when the story became about him, not his protest. I don't think I'd go so far as to equate "rough up" with assault, even if technical assault. Doubt the cops would either, eg, push your way through a crowded bar for a drink and you might 'rough up' some people on the way? At a crowded rock concert you rough up people to get to the stage, just like Russel did to get his flag, but it's not technical assault. Even after the cops viewed the footage they said there was no evidence to charge anyone with assault. I don't think Russel would ever assault anyone, I'm not suggesting that at all, not even if he was provoked.

But those things are within the exceptions for everyday life or implied consent. But roughing up a protestor is not; it is an intentional infringment of rights to bodily integrity & freedom of speech.

And having had his rights infringed, surely he should seek to enforce them. From his perspective it would allow him to keep his protest in the public arena that much longer. I think that Tibet is enough of a celebrity issue that it is unlikely to get subsumed into the protestor in the way  calls for public morality, which are boring & prudish, do.

I'm a little concerned that, if an important MP can't make a protest without being silenced and apologised for, less important people have no hope of protesting.

He only defeated his purpose because the police are partisanly protecting the rights of the Chinese security forces over those of Norman and his constituents. If I lay a hand upon you, I have committed an assault - Chinese security went a little further than that.

Dr Norman should in fact receive an apology from parliamentary security - however dubious his protest might be he should have enjoyed complete protection from physical intervention.

I guess it can be no surprise that NZ diplomatic protection officers are inferior to their Chinese colleagues.

"I'm a little concerned that, if an important MP can't make a protest without being silenced and apologised for, less important people have no hope of protesting."

To say that someone cannot (or should not) make a protest in a particular way is not to say that protest is not allowed. Everyone has a boundary between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" forms of protest. Consider this spectrum:

(1) Marching in the street and chanting;

(2) Standing outside someone's house and singing protest songs whilst they are trying to sleep;

(3) Blowing a horn and burning a flag at an ANZAC day ceremony;

(4) Picketing the funeral service of an AIDS victim with signs reading "God hates Fags";

(5) Burning a cross outside the entrance to a Marae.

All of these are forms of "protest". So if the law prevents someone from engaging on one/some of them (but not others), does that mean we have "no hope" of protesting at all?

Why not talk about the instant case Andrew?

Russel Norman made his protest in an area where only an MP is permitted to protest, because he has Parliamentary Privilege. "Less important people" have "no hope" of protesting there in any event.

I think today's DomPost editorial stated the case very well and slapped down McCully perfectly. Freedom of speech certainly does include the right to offend and the Speaker should not rush in with a knee-jerk reaction to this.

I'm not convinced that it was the way he was protesting that caused offense, but what he was protesting about. I can't see how he could have protested the issue in a less offensive manner. I would have thought that waving a Tibetan flag would have fallen into that first category and that anything less would hardly even be a protest.

So then it would seem that any protest about Tibet, while Chinese officials are around, is unacceptable.

That's like your categories 4 & 5. But I would have thought that those examples would be just as completely unacceptable anywhere- because they are so incredibly hateful in nature. I'm not convinced that the Tibet issue is hateful or offensive enough to belong with them.

Chris,

"I'm not convinced that it was the way he was protesting that caused offense, but what he was protesting about."

That is proven false by the example of Rod Donald back in 2005.

As for whether my example 4 is "completely unacceptable anywhere- because they are so incredibly hateful in nature" ... regrettably not.

According to that article the Chinese security guards tried to seize Rob Donald's flag as well, but were prevented by police & parliamentary security.

So, that protest was considered unacceptable to the Chinese security as well and I don't see why it wouldn't have played out in much the same way the present has, if the police hadn't stepped in.

I raised Rod Donald as a proof that parliamentarians have been allowed to engage in protest action deemed offensive by visiting dignitaries in the past - so it isn't a question of whether the message is offensive here (we've shown in the past that we require dignitaries to accept such sights) but rather how close the protest action is physically to the visitor. It simply is impossible for the police/DPS/parliamentary security to safeguard an MPs right to express his or her views when he or she is involved in a melee surrounding the visiting dignitary. I mean, what should they have done - tried to physically restrain Chinese security when they were buffeting Russel Norman/grabbing his flag? That then leads to all sorts of potentially pretty ugly potential outcomes, no?

Which is why we'll see some sort of protocol/rules around how close protesting MPs can get to such dignitaries (i.e. rules around the manner in which they may protest) - which NZ's authorities will then enforce in the face of any foreign security that might get upset (as they did with Rod Donald).

That actually seems quite win-win to me.

And it would be win-win, but that you must allow Norman to be assaulted to get to it. Assaulting an MP exceeds the rights of foreign security.

But because some people believe they can gain from smarming up to the perpetrators,you are satisfied that Dr Norman should be assaulted.

Lawyers - have no morality whatsoever.

"And it would be win-win, but that you must allow Norman to be assaulted to get to it. Assaulting an MP exceeds the rights of foreign security."

Oh, yawn. Get a new song, Stuart. This one is just a drone.

Elite cynicism again - for shame.

The report on the Rod Donald protest makes the matter clear to me.

This time the parliamentary security did not do their job of permitting lawful protest with adequate precautions to prevent breaches of the peace.

it is unfortunate that Russell Norman has a high pitched voice and therefore not very suited to a speaking part in street theatre, but that does not give the Chinese the right by provocation to grab his flag.

But on the whole both Norman and the Chinese "officials" did what people do at protests, push the rules in minor ways.

It seemed inappropriate that the government leadership chose to apologise to the Chinese delegation .

I am surprised that this thread has not mentioned much on the free trade arrangment with China, which afterall is the root of the issue.

Deborah the directive 'man up' could be issued to JKey also for his apologist stance. Both Key and Norman represent the poles of the current economic ideologies 'free' and 'protected' markets.

There is a notion that China is 'our number 2 trading partner' and has sheltered us from the storms of recession. Is this true? Do we not repeatedly fall into trade deficit with China?

Our local malls are stuffed with chineese goods produced at impossible cost by sweat labour which we all seem to purchase on the credit card (talk about ministerial misuse of the plastic, what about the wholesale public misuse).

The annexation of Tibet by the Peeps Republic o' China is merely another idealogical manifestation of an expanding market led economy. Perhaps Tibetan flags should be flying at the local Westfield in protest as well.

As a wierd aside; we met an exec from Fonterra when we were last in China and he was quite despondant about selling dairy products there as the Chinese genetic constitution is not suited to it, as a rule Chinese people are lactose intolerant. It begs the question as to why they are taking our dairy at all; is it just a trading discount for the mountain of shite that is sent here?

A little bit of protectionism might go a long way.

when he exploited his position as an MP

When he did his job as a representative of strongly held public opinion.

what did you do to cause your sister's wrath?

So, what did you expect walking around in that short skirt?

he's calling the Prime Minister's apology "craven and gutless".

Good on him, it is.

Standing on his parliament's steps holding a forbidden flag, daring to confront our foriegn overlords with their own dirty past. Speaking truth to power.

The story is that a New Zealand MP was accosted by foriegn security men while doing his job, in representing his constituent's veiws to a visiting dignitary. Trying to disguise that with a personal attack on the victim will not work.