{"id":220871,"date":"2026-01-07T05:33:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T05:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/220871\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T05:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T05:33:11","slug":"climate-protesters-hand-drawn-50-note-featuring-shane-jones-rejected-by-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/220871\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate protester\u2019s hand-drawn $50 note featuring Shane Jones rejected by court"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt is a climate emergency<\/a> and there\u2019s nothing controversial about that,\u201d Mahalski said.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday morning, he arrived at Dunedin District Court with his hand-drawn $50 note, which he created over the weekend, depicting Cabinet minister Shane Jones instead of Ernest Rutherford, a vulture instead of a k\u014dkako and the Beehive instead of a marae.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe note shows Shane Jones, a vulture and the Beehive in place of legal images. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

When court staff questioned what he wanted them to do with it after he presented the note, Mahalski told them they could auction it off and donate the proceeds to victims of violent crimes.<\/p>\n

They refused, and another climate activist stepped in to buy the note, covering the fee.<\/p>\n

Mahalski said this all started with a collaborative art project where he would go to different places wearing the T-shirt and holding a tiny sign to photograph.<\/p>\n

They had been to Christchurch Airport with no issues, but he said it went downhill when he was standing alone, with his sign, as people arrived off the new Jetstar Gold Coast flight at Dunedin Airport last year.<\/p>\n

He had gone to the information desk to check he could be there and was told that was okay, but security staff asked him to leave. They had called the police and he had been trespassed when he asked to take photos first, he said.<\/p>\n

Another trip to Christchurch Airport had been uneventful, but when he returned to Dunedin Airport, he was trespassed.<\/p>\n

The airport was owned by the Government and Dunedin City Council, both of whom had declared a climate emergency, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis storm in a T-shirt. I just can\u2019t believe we\u2019re standing here talking about it,\u201d Mahalski said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just absolutely ridiculous that we\u2019re still talking about this stuff when the Government in 2018 \u2013 \u2018It\u2019s a climate emergency, we\u2019re going to do something. We\u2019re going to reduce emissions. Here\u2019s an emissions trading scheme, we\u2019re going to put all of these mechanisms in place,\u2019 and suddenly, bang \u2013 it\u2019s all gone. Forget about it. Never happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

He called out Jones, questioning how he went from telling the House in 2010 that mining would ruin the country and destroy tourism to backing mining.<\/p>\n

The Government has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

It was not the first time he had returned an unorthodox offender fee.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast time, I took the $50 note for my offender levy into the court in a bag of coal.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was inspired by American artist J.S.G. Boggs, who was charged with counterfeiting after hand-drawing banknotes and using them.<\/p>\n

The hand-drawn note would now be auctioned off on Trade Me, with half the proceeds going to victims of violent crime and the other half to the climate movement. He hoped it would raise about $1000.<\/p>\n

As to whether he would return to Dunedin Airport, he did not plan to but expected other activists would.<\/p>\n

\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt is a climate emergency and there\u2019s nothing controversial about that,\u201d Mahalski said. On Wednesday morning, he arrived…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13212,6796,3595,4442,1349,15144,132824,2176,111,43,139,9332,69,25266,38606,7228,6795],"class_list":["post-220871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-13212","tag-brunton","tag-by","tag-climate","tag-court","tag-featuring","tag-handdrawn","tag-jones","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-note","tag-nz","tag-protesters","tag-rejected","tag-shane","tag-tess"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}