Today marks one year since women’s voices were shut down in a show of “love and peace” in Auckland’s Albert Park.
Organisers of the “Let Women Speak” event had expected around 200 protesters to turn up, based on events in Melbourne and Tasmania the previous week.
But the number of protesters swelled to around 2000 on 25 March 2023, swamping the women, and some men, who had come to speak and to hear Kellie-Jay Keen.
Women’s Rights Party Leader Jill Ovens says she was right there by the Albert Park rotunda when the angry mob stormed the barricades, screaming abuse at us and creating pandemonium with extremely loud noise makers.
“I am pretty sure that many of those breaking through the barrier fences don’t give a stuff about ‘trans rights’. I saw the look on their faces. They were there to beat up on us,” Ms Ovens says.
Ms Ovens left the event after Kellie-Jay Keen had been on the rotunda for around half an hour, having been doused with what appeared to be tomato soup by a male protester dressed as a woman.
“People were calling 111 and though apparently there were Police there hanging round Princes Street, from where we were in front of the rotunda, they were nowhere to be seen. We were sitting ducks,” Ms Ovens says.
She says this was in contrast to the Melbourne “Let Women Speak” event where there was a considerable Police presence, including Police on horseback keeping the various groups of protesters apart, and at the same time, protecting event participants.
Ms Ovens says the Auckland event had been whipped up by a week of intense media hype about the presence of neo-Nazis in Melbourne, despite the fact they had nothing to do with the “Let Women Speak” event there.
The leadership of both the Labour and Green Parties stoked the hysteria with widely reported inflammatory comments condemning Kellie-Jay Keen and her supporters, many of whom were Labour and Green Party members.
“This escalated into a dangerous situation in which Kellie-Jay Keen and those around her feared for their lives as they tried to leave the rotunda,” Ms Ovens says.