The Day Police Failed To Let Women Speak: Posie Parker On Albert Park 3 Years Later

We talk with Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (Posie Parker) about the Albert Park Let Women Speak event and the moments that turned a public talk into a violent crush-risk situation. We dig into what censorship looks like on the ground, why policing choices matter, and how fear makes ordinary people self-censor. 

• why Kelly targets New Zealand as a case study for compliance and gender ideology 
• efforts to stop the visit through visa pressure, hotel cancellations and security pull-outs 
• the Albert Park layout, crowd size and the missing police plan 
• the tomato soup incident and the surge that triggers violence 
• the escape, the fear of being crushed and the delayed police response 
• name suppression, justice system incentives and victim-blaming online 
• institutional culture battles, including unisex changing spaces and workplace silencing 
• rejecting guilt by association and making space for hard conversations 

If you enjoy the show, subscribe for uncensored conversations and free speech news from New Zealand and beyond. 

If you want to find out more about the New Zealand Free Speech Union visit fsu.nz 

Transcript

Welcome And Why It Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Free to Speak, the New Zealand Free Speech Union podcast. If you enjoy the show, subscribe for uncensored conversations and free speech news from New Zealand and beyond.

SPEAKER_04 0:16

I'm your host today, Councilmember Dane Giroud, and with us, we uh it was it's quite an honor to have Kelly J. Keane Minchel to talk about a not not a pleasant anniversary. We're going to be talking about the Albert Park counter protest that turned violent when Kelly J and some women were putting on an event there. Kelly J. Keane, great to have you with us.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Thank you very much. Nice to be here.

SPEAKER_04 0:42

Let's go back to the event. You know, what brought you over here in terms of the censorship side of things? There was a push to deny you a visa and everything by by the usual suspects. And so we sort of got involved quite early in that um as a union trying to push back there. So maybe we'll just set the scene and go right through the day because I wasn't in Auckland when this happened. Um, but it was all no, it really went around the world. It was quite an incredible moment. And um I mean you were right in the middle of it. So yeah, maybe we'll just set the scene and go through it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

So I decided to come to your beautiful country. Um, because when I first got involved in this fight, so when I say this fight, I mean the realization that there were some people that were actively pushing the idea that men could be women and it was right to um medically abuse children with this idea of changing sex. And one of the very early stories was a school in New Zealand where um a boy who claimed to be a girl was in the girls' changing rooms, um, in the locker rooms, and one of the girls decided, you know, she didn't really want to make too much of a fuss, but she'd she'd then chosen to use a single stool, and then she got mercilessly bullied and then suspended because she was making this boy feel like um he wasn't a girl, and she didn't accept him. So that was one of the really early stories. So I knew that New Zealand was particularly bad, and I think you you showed your true colours as a rather compliant nation um during the lockdown. And I know that um, you know, throughout the whole pandemic, um, New Zealanders were incredibly compliant, and there really is a relationship between how countries

Why New Zealand Came On Radar

SPEAKER_01 2:30

responded during the lockdown and how much they are willing to believe this nonsense that men can be women. So that's that's why New Zealand was really on my radar. And over the years, I sort of built up online um relationships with women in New Zealand. Um, and so when I was uh I did a tour of the United States in 2022, and um then I decided to come to New Zealand uh and Australia. Um in fact, I think initially it was going to be Australia, and I thought New Zealand was like a very it's very, very close to Australia, and I guess in comparison to here it is. Um and so we decided to do that, and I did um a few dates in Australia, which caused some mayhem, one might say. And I I saw, I think what I saw over overall is A, very desperate women, B, a huge level of silencing everywhere, and C some really, really terrible policing, um, and none better um uh illustrated than in New Zealand. And your police were horrendous. Not individual officers, maybe, who were eventually at the end of the park, and I think they were a bit shell-shocked, and the end than the officers who guarded me. But anyway, so the day, the day we're talking about is the event in Auckland called Let Women Speak, um, that I organised along with some brilliant um local women, and there was supposed to be another one in Wellington.

SPEAKER_04 4:01

And so uh this was your first event, wasn't it? You'd only been in the country like a day or so.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Just two. Um, and I I woke up, so I did on my way over. It there's certain it's a very long story.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

I'll try and keep it quite oh no, no, let's hear it.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Um so prior to coming to New Zealand, there'd been quite a few people to trying to stop me. I think there was an urgent high court injunction or something trying to stop me come over, which the Free Speech Union were very generous and um and supported uh my case. So there was that. Um there was uh a big storm in Australia when in Melbourne some um neo-Nazis had turned up to fight against the TRAs who had turned up to stop women speaking. Um and the neo-Nazis weren't on our side, they were just there because they because they knew it was gonna be a big event, and you know, it's great for their exposure, I guess. Flying over to New Zealand, I get a call from my PA that they've cancelled my hotel. So the sofotel that I was gonna stay at in Melbourne, they had cancelled my hotel. The police had gone and told them something. It was a bit weird. Like the police had asked us our whereabouts, and then they'd gone and told people, and then they'd cancelled my reservation. So I made a reservation under a different name. I arrived in New Zealand, um, and uh I stayed in this hotel, and then overnight someone had left uh an abusive message under my door. So um really? Yeah. Oh yeah. Um, I can see we know where you are, we saw you, would describe what I was wearing, and then it was some sort of sexual violence sort of stuff. Um and so I was quite nervous. Uh oh, and also prior to me coming, the uh the security company that we'd booked and paid for had had backed out. So then maybe a few days before I'd come to Australia uh to New Zealand, um I'd paid about 10,000 for another security company that came, and I think they brought about 10 people with them. And I've now I think without them, I don't think I would have got alive, to be quite honest.

SPEAKER_04 6:22

No, I mean that those those images are seared into the mind of the sheltering you as they're yeah. So so did so was there any reason given from the first security uh um company? Because the thing is that's the job.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

I don't think they can manage. I I I can't remember I can't say I can remember too much because it was all quite urgently getting someone else. But yeah, I don't they f felt they could manage. It might have been political, maybe it was because of the topic. Um, but or or it might gen, you know, look what happened. Maybe they were right.

SPEAKER_04 6:57

Maybe they were short-staffed and just thought they got got it, you know, it came through on the wind that it was going to be a bigger event.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

And so that already kind of made me nervous, and I I fortunately some most of this is on video, and I I get in the car with a couple of the security, and I'm in the car and I say, I've for the first time I feel really unsafe. Like I I I just felt it felt very ominous, and I'd been to many places where that it turned quite on, but I hadn't I hadn't known beforehand, but I did, but there was something that I just knew. And then when I got to the edge of the park, I don't think I quite realized that it was all TRAs. And what so Albert Park has got a rotunda in the middle, and we were

Visa Pushback And Rising Threats

SPEAKER_01 7:50

speaking there, and the women had already set up. And what I had assumed is that the police were kind of around the perimeter of the rotunda because we'd worked with them, like local women had worked with the police, and we'd had assurances that everything would be safe, and they'd done that for weeks.

SPEAKER_04 8:11

Um they thought they had a right, they thought they had a plan.

unknown 8:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:16

The women were pretty confident that it was a plan, and okay. Yeah.

unknown 8:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

I mean, it it's not like we rocked up and were like just fingers crossed, hope everything's all right. Yeah. We um we we'd really work with the police, and we have a lot of experience working with the police, and we what we do when we work with the police is we send clips of when it's gone wrong. Um, we send clips of when the police have let people get too close and the violence that's occurred. Um, and I I I want people to understand this is a group of women that gather in a place to speak. We are not a protest, we're not going, I don't ever go to pride events and so on and say, you know, men can't be women. I'm I'm just creating the whole job of let women speak. The reason we do it is we create an environment in which women can come and say the things that that in other places they are no longer free to say and and must talk about.

SPEAKER_04 9:07

Um so it's like it's it's almost like a symbolic what you're doing is just making the statement that this is this is this this is a space because so many other spaces are being denied.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Yeah. And look, it's not like we don't know that transacists will come out. Um and often what they do when they come out is they they provide energy, so that's quite good, and interest. So um their behavior is always so so bad that people that have no idea of the issue look and go, I wonder what that is. And then they find out it's a group of middle-aged women trying to speak about not wanting penises in our spaces, and it's a group of young people, um, often quite rabid, trying to stop us from talking. So it's they do serve a purpose, um, but maybe a bit too much in Auckland. So I get to the end.

SPEAKER_04 9:58

Wait, how how so sorry, Kelly, um uh how many um women were there speaking?

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Well, there wasn't um it's however many turn up, so they're probably 30, 40. I mean, you've got to be quite brave.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Your employer in New Zealand, if your employer sees you, you might lose your job. If um if you're a teacher, you know, you might lose your job.

SPEAKER_04 10:23

If you're a health, if you work in that sort of yeah, yeah, definitely that sort of profession, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Yeah. Or even if you're even if you don't, even if you work for like the local supermarket and they don't, they don't, they've decided. I don't know what the law is in New Zealand, but you can kind of get rid of people over here if they bring the company into disrepute. And because that's such a vague thing, you can sort of say, Well, you were seen at this thing, and those people are accused of this, and therefore you've brought us into disrepute. Bye-bye. So I I think um employers can do that and do do that and have done that.

SPEAKER_04 10:59

Um even if they're not successful, the the process is a form of punishment, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. So just being dragged through that is is unpleasant enough.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Yeah, well, I often I've I've decided uh because uh I've been doing this quite a long time now. The process is a punishment, and then the solution is the process, which never actually reaches a solution. Like when you're offered something, I've been dealing with the police for the longest of times, um, and they'll basically say, Oh, you've got an issue with this. Well, you can complain, and then you complain, and then you get through to the process, and it goes on and on, and it takes a stupid amount of time. And at the end of it, they say, Okay, well, we will reflect. And you're like, Well, there's no solution. So the process is the punishment, but sometimes the process is the process, is the process, is the process. Um, and there's rare, rarely a solution. So when I get to the edge, so as I'm as we're driving through, I sort of drop down in the back of a car, so I can't be seen, and um, I hear someone say, Oh, oh my god, I think I just saw her. And I assumed that might have been a supporter, right? Actually, in retrospect, I don't think it was. And then I walked through this crowd of people, expecting at the end of this crowd of people, are some police around the rotunda. So just really when I got to the middle, I couldn't believe it. So I'd been punched a few times and kicked a few times, like walking through this crowd of people with a couple of security, and then we um we get in the middle, and these people are nuts. And I'm I don't want to exaggerate because I'm not not very good with how many people were in that crowd, but I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I said there were a couple of thousand people there.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

A lot of people were there, a lot of people were there, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:52

The whole pop because there were all the people where you were, but then there was like a whole lot of people that just continued right right, almost filled the park, didn't it?

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yes, yeah, it did, yeah. Um, and the police had made no contingency plans, there was no escape, there was there was no safe passage, they'd done none of this. I mean, maybe the plan was that we I wouldn't be able to get in, and so we'd have to cancel. I don't know what their plan was. Um, and I think they've been very dishonest in any of our it was very it was rare.

SPEAKER_04 13:25

This was rare. Like uh we were all taken aback by this

Walking Into Albert Park Tension

SPEAKER_04 13:30

because you we don't really see scenes like this in New Zealand. It was it was very odd. Like some of the Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

I mean, I've met some Kiwis a long time ago, and I have to say, I didn't think progressive was some was a word that I'd associate with um men from New Zealand. Um, but then my experience of those men was like 20, 30 years ago. So your country's obviously changed quite some. Quite some. But it feels like you meant you skipped a very important bit in the middle, a bit like the Aussies. You sort of there's a there's a bit in the middle where that that women had some sort of chance of equality, and I think you just dive straight past that stage into men can be women. Um, anyway, I won't denigrate the uh lovely people of New Zealand because I think most people aren't like that, but we do you do have an author authoritarian elite, um, and they're very well connected and they're very, very well funded, probably from foreign money. Um, but anyway, I digress. So we get into the center, and um we're all a bit aghast, and then this man who I think he's still in your country. I think he was a refugee or something, and he he was uh or asylum seeker.

SPEAKER_04 14:46

Full full disclosure here, I actually know the person.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Do you?

SPEAKER_04 14:50

I do because uh they're in the Jewish community. Um uh refers to themselves as Elena, uh intersex.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Quite is he intersex? I don't think he is intersex.

SPEAKER_04 15:06

No, I'm I'm pretty pretty sure. I I won't say how I know.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Well maybe you know, but he's still male, and I I think like intersex is a m is is a uh is a misunderstood.

SPEAKER_04 15:23

It's not a third sex, you're just a male with um you know uh developmental issues with your reproductive uh organs or your female with reproductive issues, but yeah, you know the intersex do get appropriated in this debate a bit in a very misleading way, really. Um, you know, it's the whole, well, you know, of course it's a spectrum because we have intersects, but that's not really what's going on there. It's a very specific condition.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Um, it's it's not proof of a of a of a spectrum or it's like saying we sometimes have one leg just because some people have one leg.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

It's like yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Um so

Soup Attack Sparks Mob Violence

SPEAKER_01 16:00

he then uh pours tomato. I think it's sauce actually, but we are we always call it soup because that's much better for merchandising. And uh the Campbell soup tin that I then made was just beautiful. Um, with like posies. Anyway, um I've got one in this office. So uh he pours some soup on me, and that really livens the crowd.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Um, and they go a bit nuts then, and they start pushing the barriers, and it all kicks off. That's kind of the the ignition for what then turns into a very, very dangerous, very dangerous um situation.

SPEAKER_04 16:43

Well, the image I have in my head that, and I may even uh pull out this because it's all on, it's all filmed, obviously, was a was a young man, he would have been about 22, 23 or something, quite a muscular guy, um, just sort of uh you know, throwing the fence down and sort of moving forward, you know what I mean? And pushing forward. And seeing that, I thought, uh you're doing that towards women, man. Yeah, it's like what's what's with the big tough guy routine? You know, you're you're not walking into a pub to sort someone out. You it's it was very bizarre. Like it was people seem to go completely feral.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Yeah, well, that's the that's a mob, isn't it? I think that's that's what happens with uh crowds that's uh you know, the football chants and stuff, like people just become this organism that sort of acts as one.

SPEAKER_04 17:33

Um and but but sorry, but back to you know, Elena, who I know. Elena has spoken to me and said things like they want to kill us all, there's a genocide, there's a that's the kind of language I I think Elena probably has a few issues, but uh people have been using this kind of language for a long time, and it's dehumanizing all the women that are you know that are looking for, you know, the just want to stand up for themselves. It's almost it's it's like Jews after October the 7th, you know. Call them genocidal, call them this. You know, if if if you honestly believe someone is genocidal, you can kind of do anything with them.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Even like silence is violence, even if you don't speak, apparently, that's a that's an act of violence. Like the whole they are they are a cult, and um, and that's that's what cults do. They don't they don't need reason, they just need emotion, and uh um, you know, I I genuinely have no sympathy whatsoever for his position, uh, because what he did that day caused, you know, there's a there's a woman in her late 60s who got a full punch straight in the face from a young woman.

SPEAKER_04 18:50

Oh, that yeah, yeah, that was insane. That wasn't it.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

And he didn't even get criminalized for it, which is permanent name suppression, I think.

SPEAKER_04 19:01

Was it uh was there conviction or a discharge? But it was definitely permanent name suppression. I think that's what really racked up a lot of people here. It's like if you're gonna do something like that, you know, people should know who you are. Because it's deranged, it's completely unhinged.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Why should you surely part of the punishment for committing really anti-social violent crimes is that everybody in society gets to look upon you with the eyes knowing that what you've done. Surely that's part of the if we don't have shame, then you know, we don't really have much order. Because what's going to stop him doing it again? Like he needs to be humiliated, embarrassed. But anyway, that's another issue because I think right across the West we have got a very, very weird thing going on in our legal systems, which seem to kind of almost feel think the victims are the perpetrators, and the perpetrators are um deserving of our pity.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

And I this been going on for about 30 years, I think.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

It's terrible. It's terrible. Um bring back something. Uh discipline would be nice. Um, so I'm in the middle, I've got this soup or sauce, and uh the crowd's going nuts, and they're starting coming forward, and all of the women at the rotunda are calling the police because they're no the police are nowhere. We don't know where the police are, they're nowhere. So they're all calling the police, and um the police aren't coming, and then the security sends one of their people out to ask for the help for the police, and that person comes back, and then the immortal words of the police aren't coming. Like the security just says to me the police aren't coming.

SPEAKER_04 20:53

Well that's right, they remained on the outside, didn't they? And that they wouldn't get that is really, really bad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Well, I don't think if you were dealing with uh football hooligans, right? And and then that was gonna put officers in danger, which it could.

SPEAKER_04 21:10

If you had if you had too warring, I don't know if you have football hooliganism in in New Zealand, but no, no, strangely, like rugby's a way more violent game, but everyone's just so docile when they watch.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Like the the aggression's on the pitch, isn't it? That everybody else doesn't need to, but I think football for the working class men over here became a you know, there was a bit of hooliganism.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

Um tri yeah, tribal. They got very, very tribal, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

I mean, I'm not an advocate of violence, but I do wonder what the recession of football hooliganism has done for the working classes. I do wonder whether that's that's a consequence, right? That's a that's a consequence. If you go out and you throw a punch at a football match and then you get one back, that's a anyway, that's a totally

SPEAKER_04 22:02

I was brought up in one of our more most working class neighborhoods, and yeah, that's something that I'm pretty familiar with. Like we didn't really need speech laws because if you were overstipped the mark, you'd learn pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Yeah, right. And also I was having this conversation the other day. Like, I haven't seen that many fights in my time. But you never stamped, I never saw anyone get their head stamped on or smashed into a wall. I never saw anybody repeatedly punch someone again, again, again, again in the face, or when that person stopped.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

When they were unconscious, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Whereas you see stuff online now and it's animalistic and feral where the vi the violence is mad. The violence is I wanna, I'm gonna kill you.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

So these people start like there's lots of posies. You can't hide, you've got Nazis on your side. There's loads of uh stomp on a turf, there's all like quite a lot of violent imagery on the signs, you know, the be kind, sort of be kind image. The be kind crowd. Yeah. Um and he says, Oh, with you know, the police aren't coming. And I think at that point, I just thought, oh, oh my god. Um, okay.

SPEAKER_03 23:24

How do we get out of here?

SPEAKER_01 23:26

And uh so they have a talk, and then he says, Right, what we're gonna do, because I'm the target, like uh obviously we know that the other women were targets, and there's some women that actually have PTSD from that day who attended, who still just and and I think that was made a lot worse by the focus being on me, you know. For some of those women, not only did they get traumatized, surrounded, um, assaulted like physically and other and otherwise assaulted, um that at the end the focus was, oh my gosh, what happened to Kelly J. Keene? It wasn't um it wasn't about those individual women. And I think that's probably got hurt quite a lot.

SPEAKER_04 24:09

Um Well, even in the low, I don't know if you sort of were able to follow it um from back back in the UK, but um the the elderly woman that was attacked, like slugged in the face repetitively by this young young man um uh uh on social media and everything. Well the left were dragging her. They were going, oh, look at it again. She sort of pushes in you know, she could have put pushed them all she wanted.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Oh, she was in contact with her grandkids, or she's not a very good mum, or something like that, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_04 24:44

Yeah, yeah, there was that. There, yeah, there was that. There was like, oh, she's fallen out with one of her grandkids. It's like, you pricks. I'm sorry. I mean, that's just disgusting.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

You know, once she cut in line, so clearly she skipped uh she didn't pay her bus fare back in the 19 uh eighties. So fair game. Um and so they put eventually what happened is they put their they locked arms around me and and then we escaped and um This was the the the few security guards that that were with you.

SPEAKER_04 25:18

They're the ones that the yeah, yeah, and and some of the women.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

So some of the women that were stewards or marshals um of the event, they they also did it. And uh you know, you see on the video, you see a man trying to pull one of the women to the floor, and at one point the crowd sort of surged and I felt myself go to about 45 degrees, really start going

Escape Route And Crush Fear

SPEAKER_01 25:45

and having no control of it, you know, just just your feet just begin to leave the floor, and I just thought, if I if I hit the floor, I'm not gonna get up. Now that's not necessarily because the people that are about to stomp me to death want to kill me. Um but that is what happens if you hit the floor in a crowd and it's a rabid mob of people. Um so I just thought, oh, if I oh my god, if I hit the floor, I'm not gonna get up. And I I've never been in moments like I've had babies and um I I was in a very kind of a dangerous situation in in one of my um having one of my kids. I've got four, but I have never been in a situation where you get to the bare humanity of survival, which is one foot in front of the other, and that's it. That's all you're doing, is you just know where you have to be, and you're just going one step in front of the other, and yet that foot has to land on the floor. Um and I don't even know if you're you don't you kind of don't really hear what's going on around you. You can hear the screaming, but and you can hear the odd voice, but you're not sort of there's no time for conscious sort of conversations in your own head.

SPEAKER_04 27:12

Yeah, real reflection. And I guess you're just trusting the the the your guides to get you to because you wouldn't even know where the entrance or exit was at that point. I mean, this is uh it's a foreign place, too.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Well, because I'm also five foot one, so most people around me are like quite a lot taller. So I'm just in the middle and we're just stepping forward, and then I see a bench coming, and then I turn into one of the seagulls from uh finding Nemo. I'm like, my mind is what I'm saying. I don't even know if if the key if if you say mind, mind out, but I'm going, mind, mind, mind, mind, mind, like this, and I just sound like one of the seagulls. And at that point, I think we then see the police who then sort of gather around me and get me to a car. Um, and I don't think they'd ever seen anything like it either, the police officers. And then they get me in a car, and I think I think I do say at that point, I think it's sort of I do sound quite distressed, and I say, Oh my god, I thought they, you know, I thought they were gonna crush us. I thought, I thought they were gonna crush us to death. And then I thought, because I've seen it in movies, I thought the the the crowd were gonna tip the car. Like I just really had visions of, oh, I'm okay, oh my maybe I'm not

Police Station Aftermath And Flight

SPEAKER_01 28:30

okay. And then they take us to the nearest police station. Um, and then I have a couple of officers guarding me, and they're the only ones that know I'm there, aside from the commanding officer. Um, and I believe, and I'm happy for the police to correct me, but I believe in the chain of command from them to the chief, and somewhere in the organization of the police is a what I would call a truon, um, a man who claims to be a woman, who's rather well known in New Zealand. And I think he had something to do with how we were treated. And I think that's what's happened with loads of police forces, is that we, we women, for daring to speak, are seen as the aggressors, just by virtue of us not thinking that women can have penises. We're the aggressors, so whatever happens is an equal, if not absolutely expected, response to our terrible views. And I think that's how we were treated on that day. Um, we weren't seen as women trying to speak in a park, we were seen as provocateurs party people.

SPEAKER_04 29:47

There was a cartoon. I don't know whether anyone showed this to you.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

I did, yeah, where I look like the queen.

SPEAKER_04 29:53

Yeah, and and and you're you're sm you're small there, and there's this big male hand.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Yeah, but it's supposed to be that famous. Is it supposed to be that famous woman the famous man who calls himself a woman who's sort of revered in your culture?

SPEAKER_04 30:12

Oh, Georgina Bayer?

SPEAKER_01 30:13

I think so.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

I might Yeah, I knew Georgina.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

I think it I think it might be him. I think it might be his hand. But anyway, carry on.

SPEAKER_04 30:21

Or is that with the yeah, well, well, in the um Georgina was interesting. Georgina thought that Speak Up for Women needed to be heard and ended up withdrawing from society because the younger activists just hounded uh her, you know, to to death. And and so and that was a real shame. But um uh you know, very much a classic lefty, very free speech-y, you know, all of that stuff. I had some, you know, good good talk, long lunches. But um, but but the interesting thing about that cartoon is that the the artist clearly thought it was saying we all got together and created this big fist to to to teach you a lesson. But I looked at it in in red misogyny, you know.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Yeah, big man's. Very, very interesting.

SPEAKER_04 31:21

Yeah, yeah, perfect.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

I mean, it it was a perfect, he didn't know that what he was drawing, obviously, but it was a per it summed up the event perfectly.

SPEAKER_04 31:29

So I mean, I I still can't get over though at at Albert Park that the because you see, you know, you were talking about the soccer hooligans, it's like, hey, if there's gonna be a big fight and you're gonna you're gonna have some people, you know, hurt and everything. But the stakes being all of these men, because a lot of them were just young men, they weren't even trans men, they were just men, you know, like very angry at their mums. Yeah, yeah, something was going on. The police should have got involved. I mean, we made state you know, we were releasing statements and everything at the time because it was just just shoddy. It was just terrible. I mean, if something really I mean, if you had been grievously hurt then, I mean, that would have been just but but like so so you leave the next that you you go straight to the airport pretty much, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 32:20

I was in the police station for about six hours. Um, and somebody went back to my hotel and got my stuff.

SPEAKER_04 32:28

Um you just made the call very quickly, did you? Oh, I'm getting out of here.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

My husband was watching it from England.

SPEAKER_03 32:35

Oh, yeah, oh man.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Yeah, I got a very nice flight home. I flew uh first class with Emirates. It's the nicest flight I've ever taken. I felt it was well deserved. But um, you can have a shower on those planes, you know.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

Really?

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Yeah. You go you go upstairs. So I went upstairs and I had a suite, which is like three windows. You had a little bar that you press the button and the bar comes up.

SPEAKER_04 33:01

Um I'm jealous.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah, well, it was one of the only flights you could get, and it was it was quick. I didn't really want to spend another night in your lovely country. I wanted to felt I was under, I mean, I don't know. Do all your uh all your police armed? Because the people that were with me were armed.

SPEAKER_04 33:20

Um they they can be. We don't have a big gun culture in the in the police, but I mean, you know, they wouldn't need be they can be.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

And I had an armed, I had an escort, a police escort to the to the airport. Then I was at the police station at the airport, and then I had a I had police escort to the lounge where they stayed with me until they said, We're gonna stay with you until that plane takes off and we know you're on it.

SPEAKER_03 33:47

Well, they they got the SHIT to get it then, didn't they? Not in the pack for the state.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Well, one of the women, one of the police officers who was female told me that um she said, Men just don't get it. And your police station at the time, or new building a new police station maybe, um, was having a unisex changing room for all the police. And

Policing Culture And Unisex Spaces

SPEAKER_01 34:10

she had to fight tooth and nail to get an area that could be curtained off or door shut or something, but I don't think it locked, um, for her to be able to change. So, I mean if your police don't look after their own officers, they're not gonna look after anyone else, are they? And this is often because you get you'll get one kind of zealot. Um once you've got one zealot in um in anywhere, you make it really difficult for rational, normal people to have conversations. I mean, it's just it's just the way it is.

SPEAKER_04 34:51

Um and it really does become a barrier between you know the the people on the ground and the managed managerial classes. Like I think a lot of this um censorship is about sort of soloing off the classes, actually. Um, you know, uh do you have the right beliefs? Okay, where you can join us. You don't have the right beliefs, well, you stay over there, you know. Like that's what I I think it's actually quite a class battle.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

Yeah. And people are very nice and polite, aren't they? So they don't. I'm not particular, I'm very polite. I've got good manners, but I'm I don't mind making people feel really uncomfortable. So I went to a meeting, I was invited actually to a meeting at the NMC, which is the Nursing and Midwifery Council, um, and they just wanted to do a number on me, pretending that they're much better with biological sex than they really are. And so I went to um I went to this meeting, and as I walk in, they did this thing where it was a massive table, and there was one person one end. So I was sat in the middle, one person one end, one person the other end, and one person opposite. It was a it was a real like, what are you doing, ladies? Because I know straight away, I'm thinking, oh, this is your strategy, is it? Um, one of them's wearing a pride lanyard, and the other one is wearing the biggest lanyard I've ever seen. Like it's twice the width and twice as thick. And she's wearing these two lanyards, and one's like trans rights and human rights, and the other one's a pride thing. And so we sat and everyone's introduced, and I just I just look and I said, What are you, what are you wearing? And she's like, I I'm I'm and I said, No, what are you you're wearing it for a reason? Why are you wearing it? And she's she says, Um, I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

It's all right, don't worry.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

She says, uh, oh, because you know, I want people to feel included. And I said, Well, it feels like I'm not included. Because when you wear that, you basically say that you don't care about women-only spaces. So why can't you just come to work and do your job? I I mean, do people think you're a homophobe? And she said, No. And I said, Well, then you don't need to say that you're not, do you? Because this lady opposite, so there's a woman called Tracy, I said, Tracy opposite, she's not wearing any lanyards, and I don't think that she's a homophobe. I don't think she's a terrible human being who doesn't like think, believe that people should have rights because she's not wearing it on a lanyard. Um, no, and I so it just takes that one trans right to human rights lanyard person to go in any meeting, and then maybe there's a woman in the meeting who wants to say, actually, I'm really not comfortable that we switched our toilets into unisex, because there's trans rights to human rights. And so you know that you can't have an equal conversation.

SPEAKER_04 37:49

Well, we had a case, and there would be plenty of cases like this. I'm sure that the free speech union in the UK would have had them where there was a um like a workshop, you know, some gender activists were coming in to to workshop with everyone there, and then one of the women was like, Oh, I got a question. It's like no questions. It's like, no, no, I got I got some questions, wanted to ask, and then so asked a few questions and you know, stopped the person a bit. And um then afterwards it's like, you know, up to the office, what were you doing? Why were

How Fear Enforces Silence

SPEAKER_04 38:20

you asking questions? That's not good, and got got a slap on the hand. So we we got involved in that. We sent someone to the um to to the meeting that that they had, the second meeting they had, to say what's going on here, what's the problem, you know? And and it's kind of it's we've been quite effective because it's almost like you're bringing your mum to school, you know, like someone's about the free speech union turns up, yeah. It it can be like, oh, it's too much, this is gonna be more trouble than it's worth, you know, it'll wind up in the paper.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Is they're used to saying something and everyone being afraid. And I think that's all it takes for cult-like behavior to work. You've just got to be afraid. And if you're no longer afraid, if if enough people in New Zealand are no longer afraid, or maybe uh there's a lot of conflict of averse people. Um, and if you stop being like that, then people stop pushing you around. But you have, I mean, you have to stand up for your rights, otherwise you just lose them.

SPEAKER_04 39:20

So so and what I find interesting about what happened in Albert Park, or one element of it, is that like I've in my head, like when it comes to protesters, I've had this debate with another council member actually. Um he was saying that you know, if your protest should try to persuade, so we should, you know, maybe we can shut down protests that's just going to be disruptive for no reason. And the the the excuse the um uh example he had was like uh an Anzac, Anzac day, you know, fallen soldiers, someone just you know blowing kazoos and whistles just to drown everything out. I said to him, my reply was like, Okay, if that happens, it's awful, they ruin the day. But we know exactly who they are at that point. We know how low that we know who they are. If we're too prescriptive with protest, then we're not we might not see the true colours. And I think that in Albert Park, we saw a lot of true colours.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:26

Um and and I think globally, I mean Megan Kelly and all sorts of people saw this, was very embarrassing for the country. Um, and and I think people started to go, hang on, what's all this about?

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:44

Um what happened here? You know? So so do you think it did, did you feel a tonal shift like like in the work you do, or or like what what impact do you think it had ultimately?

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Well, I think um, I mean, a lot of things happened that year. I also broke the spell in the United States. Um, your note I'm very modest. Um, I also broke the spell in the United States because I went to the Leah Thomas meet and I shouted, he's a man. And I I went viral a couple of times. I also did this uh thing where somebody asked me a question. She said, Oh, um, are you a biologist? And I said, Oh, you know, I'm not a vet, but I know what a dog is. Um, was that that same year? I think that was all the same year. So anyway, so um anything that goes from silence to conversation is a good thing. And I met, in fact, I met a, I don't know whether he was Australian or New Zealand and had lived in Australia, whichever way round, but he was now living in a local city. And um he had watched some of the footage from what happened in Australia with the n when I was accused of being a Nazi, and he was like, hang on a minute, and so we looked into it. So even the most terrible story about me or the women or has the capacity to go from silence to conversation, and and that that's all I've ever thought my role is. Like it is to it's to say the unsayable. That's essentially what I can do really rather well. Um, but it's also telling women that that they have a right to speak about themselves. Like we don't all have to, in order to have conversations about women's rights, we don't have to sit in a hall and listen to a few dry speakers who happen to have written an article or published a book because they are not more expert on an average woman's life than the average woman. So I think it's like that those events have their place, and clearly I'm now just sitting here on a podcast. Um, those events definitely have their place, but I think that the the beauty about Let Women Speak is we are just, you know, I was a stay-at-home mum of four kids. Um and my youngest was eight, seven or eight when I started doing this. Um and and I just thought that that women should come and speak, that we would create this space for women to speak. Um so back to your question. Um the what happened in New Zealand, I think, had shock waves throughout the globe. Um as you rightly say, it was covered, it was covered in loads of places. Um, it showed trans activists, it was a the the the best example of trans activist uh extreme antifa type behavior. Um, clearly they've got some real issues with that sort of thing in um Portland and in some states in America. But I think probably New Zealand were quite shocked. I mean, what I don't what I do know actually is I was the

When Protest Reveals True Colours

SPEAKER_01 44:00

most I think I was the most Googled person in New Zealand in that year. I think I beat Andrew Tate.

SPEAKER_04 44:10

So um but see the interesting thing about that too is that if the if the plan was to silence you see if if they'd just gone, oh I don't like that person. She's gonna have a little talk in the park. Let's go nowhere near her. Let's pretend she doesn't exist. If they'd done that, what would have happened? You know? Like they actually gave you a massive megaphone.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

Yes. Yeah they did. Um I do you think so I I know that a lot of people knew about it in New Zealand but I I listened to a a few um there's a one of my favorite things to listen to is the J and Dunk Rock Drive show. I don't even know if it's big in New Zealand but they are very they're just blokes. They've blokes it's a Kiwi one is it yeah yeah it's called the Rock Drive show or something. Oh you and um and my husband and I sometimes when we go if it's been a bit of a long day we'll go to bed and we'll watch what we call funny things and they are like usually the top of the list but they're they they are proper key they are so New Zealand they're just um they they say um um they say something about um up the was or something I don't know anyway they're just brilliant up the was that's the Warriors that's our rugby league team uh okay and they also say we call the Warriors the Waz Up the Waz yeah that's what they say not and then oh that's so brilliant and they also say um just get on with it eh um but anyway it's it's well it's a it's a great export if you're not what if you're not listening to it I mean maybe I I've just revealed my sense of humor but it's definitely not um so I wonder if it reached those people like not those specific people but I wonder if it reached like the men that watch rugby league and um you know oh they they would have been appalled do you think it reached everyone and you do you think it it genuinely reached everyone or I I think I think it did reach a lot of people but you know this is yeah I I think most men would have been appalled by what they saw um completely completely appalled you know I mean this was a very specific I mean you know the the the young kid that hit the elderly woman I mean who is that person?

SPEAKER_04 46:41

I mean that's that's not a normal person that's I don't know what you know what his story is because we're not allowed to know but I mean that was just absolutely deranged I mean you know this i if that whole thing had happened in s in a park in South Auckland which is the working class neighborhood he doesn't get out of that park that kid doesn't get out of that park he would have been knocked around you know and this this is actually the multicultural neighborhoods I'm talking about Samoans Tongans Māori you never would have got out of that park if someone were a different event weren't they just up the road oh yeah oh you were talking about Brian Tamaki and all all those guys yeah they were around yeah he's a hard case yeah he well he's sort of he's not from where I'm from but he his church is out there and he gets a lot of stick he's a he's a provocateur but um but you know complex as well because he's he had is you know a lot of guys come out of gang life to to get into his church and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Yeah I've met them I've met quite a few of them oh because we went over didn't they yeah and so I met I hung out with Hannah for the day um and I met these men that feel like they owe him their lives you know that just turned just turned them around and I I it it maybe he's a a a related figure would be Tommy Robinson over here. And I I recently did so I went to that because I I don't do guilt by association. Nobody's gonna tell me who I can speak to about anything at any point.

SPEAKER_04 48:20

And if you it it gets used very very cynically like there's a reporter here a journalist who's very on you know he's he he's very in in the opposite camp and uh he was going on and on and on about the fact that those Nazis were there at the the Melbourne event and it's like it was clear

Guilt By Association And Open Debate

SPEAKER_04 48:40

that they weren't yes connected to everyone there but it didn't matter you know but of course now he's uh you know supporting the boycott of the Adelaide festival because that Hamas supporter was disinvited. I mean he was fine with that.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

Oh yeah I mean the double standards are just crazy you know um but so I met this I I won't name him because I really do respect him and he's done he's he's covered and broke a story that is so massively important and great work so I I won't name and shame but I met him and he was like oh I was so heartbroken that you went to the Tommy Robinson rally and I said to him and I think it's the same as Brian Tamiki um like slightly different. So Brian I think if he does this good work where he takes these these broken men and and fixes them then you know he probably says some things that I I don't agree with I don't know but uh on balance you know will he have left lived a good life well yes I suspect at the end you know it it all said and done absolutely he will have transformed the lives of those men who go on to have happy marriages and children and different values and of course and with Tommy Robinson um you know this guy was going oh he's done mortgage fraud and he's done this and I said look if he's done anything remotely as bad as the things that he highlights which is the mass rape of girls in this country for 70 years like the the the first girls were uh some of the Sikh girls and the Sikh community um uh uh sorted that out but there there have been mass kind of familial tribal networks of men who have all raped the same girls um over the last seven decades if Tommy Robinson has done anything remotely as bad as that I'm listening to your critic criticism of him but he hasn't like no nothing he's done is is a minuscule amount as bad as the the crimes that he highlights so I'm you know I'm I'm just not gonna listen to that that's how that's how they get you all the time is they they destroy one tiny and your whole message is gone.

SPEAKER_04 51:13

That's right. I mean with Brian I mean at his worst he's I mean he's doing the anti-immigrant thing I I've had taken issue with that but you can actually talk to him one on one and you know he's not an intimidating guy um you know he's very very South Auckland when I sort of talk to him and I'll just say I don't agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 51:34

And he won't stop you saying it right he doesn't want you not to say it. He's quite happy for you to say it.

SPEAKER_04 51:39

I think that's not intimidating I don't find him intimidating at all actually he's quite matey you know but um uh and sort of I mean he you know he's kind of a bit Wayne Newton with the pompadour and stuff and he always looks the part but uh but he is there is a humility there too which is quite interesting. Um but uh he's basically a a very strong evangelical Christian I mean and and we you know we live next to people like that that we have fundamental disagreements with all the time. It's it shouldn't be there's this sort of idea today that like everyone really needs to we need to know all your values and we need to be completely on board with all your values. That's that's never the way it's worked.

SPEAKER_01 52:25

Yeah but we're agreeing with ideas and we we agree with people and I think we need to just get back to agreeing with ideas. Yeah and and that's really badly missing. But I would say that I'm willing to speak to people who I completely disagree with in fact I really enjoy it. It's quite a I quite like a meaty conversation where we have opposing views um and then you come to c some consensus and sometimes you get more entrenched because you've practiced your argument and sometimes you might change your mind a little bit but you don't have a hope.

SPEAKER_04 53:00

I I'm a screenwriter and and and a documentarian. I've done lots of documentary and you know I've had to knock on some pretty tough doors but I have to treat these people with and I have no problem doing it you know I gotta meet them where they are yeah and get trust out of them and tell their story. Um it's I have no problem with that. And I think it could be because of the the background and where I was brought up and things like that. But no there are a lot of people it's like they have to know exactly what you what do you believe okay well I can I could be your friend I can't be your friend. I can work with you I can't work with you. I just find that bizarre and so um go on sorry well it's it's just I mean what's the word I'm I'm looking for for that it's just so um snobby and privileged and you know and what are you gonna learn just by being around people that agree with you all the time. I mean the the people throw at Brian a whole you know he's done quite well out of it you know he's not short of the bob right so he's done well out of it but again it's like is saving a family that were into drinking drugs and and like kids being kicked around and abused by parents like like think about the the worst you know as bad as that stuff can get if that becomes a fit healthy family of five um is that worth the Mercedes to save one family yeah probably is actually you know how many times has he done it I mean I I don't know this I don't know enough about him to sort of talk too much but um you know I I sell in in order to fund my activism I sell merchandise and then people sort of say but you get a t-shirt for that right I'm not you don't just give me money and then because you haven't you have no right to tell me how to spend the money.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

What actually happens is it all goes back in and and I do um I mean I didn't pay for that flight when I flew home from New Zealand my husband did but I will have quite nice flights and I'll stay in hotels um because this is my full time and I don't don't really get any a a wage from it. But people have an issue

Merch Funding And Final Requests

SPEAKER_01 55:20

with that and I'm like well someone working full time is not going to do this. They're not yeah so no you've got to sustain yourself.

SPEAKER_04 55:29

But anyway Well they probably just they wouldn't grasp the the you know the the schedule you'd have and things like that but I'm driving soon and talk oh oh we've been talking a long time look we we we we can wrap up um thank you everyone uh for tuning into free to speak uh if you have any questions or suggestions for the podcast podcast at fsu.nz see you soon thank you for listening to free to speak if you enjoyed this episode please subscribe and consider sharing the podcast with others we release new episodes regularly and subscribing is the easiest way to stay up to date if you have any questions feedback or suggestions you can contact us at podcast at fsu.nz If you want to find out more about the New Zealand Free Speech Union visit fsu.nz