Today, stuff reported:
Protests over house removals in Glen Innes turned violent again last night when a man was knocked unconscious prompting accusations police used "quasi-military tactics".
Police and protesters have repeatedly clashed over the Tamaki Transformation Programme which involves Housing New Zealand moving 40 state houses from Glen Innes and Redeveloping 156 houses to create 260 new homes.
Unite Union campaign organiser Joe Carolan said about 100 protesters, trying to stop the removal of a house on Lyndhurst St, were last night moved 500m down Taniwha St, away from the site, by about 50 police.
He said four people were arrested, including veteran activist John Minto, who has previously been arrested during the protests.
"It was just this pitched battle. It was worse than a rugby scrum," Carolan said.
He said the clash lasted about two hours.
"It looked like a Springbok tour or some thing like that and they were just pushing the residents... It was very much more aggressive policing than we've seen before."
This is entirely unacceptable! The government should realize that this is going to eventuate in somebody being seriously hurt or even dying if it continues. They should therefore halt the forced evictions and house removals.
The fact that National is reducing the amount of state housing and removing perfectly good houses just so that desirable land becomes available for their developer mates is bad enough, but to use police brutality that endangers the safety of the public is far worse.
There's also the failure of the HNZ call centre. Clearly National are dead set on destroying our state housing sector altogether. How stupid!
