chained themselves together<\/a> outside Willis’ office in Johnsonville yesterday, calling for sanctions on Israel.<\/p>\nIn an update this evening, the remaining four say they were ending their ‘non-violent lock-on’.<\/p>\n
“We leave with our message ringing louder than ever: further sanctions on Israel are an urgent step New Zealand must take.<\/p>\n
“We have seen an incredible outpouring of support for this message from people of all faiths and walks of life.”<\/p>\n
They said in the 32 hours outside Willis’ office, dozens of people have died in Gaza, and they renewed their request for a meeting.<\/p>\n
Willis said she received a large number of meeting requests and simply could not accommodate all of them.<\/p>\n
“I will not be setting a precedent that the way to get a meeting with me is to don an adult nappy and chain yourself to a door.<\/p>\n
“I reiterate that the result of this protest action is that Wellingtonians are currently unable to access my office for help with any local issues they may have.”<\/p>\n
Earlier today, Archdeacon Martin Robinson said ongoing deaths in Gaza overnight had strengthened the resolve of the people who remained at the site today.<\/p>\n
“We wonder how many more children have to die before we’ll show moral courage as a nation and impose these sanctions on the Israeli government.”<\/p>\n
In Auckland yesterday, five members of a group of clergy members carried out a similar protest at National MP Simeon Brown’s electorate office and were served trespass notices.<\/p>\n
The group left the building without incident, police said.<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The clergy members chained themselves together outside Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ office in Wellington on Monday. Photo: RNZ…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-25591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25591","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=25591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}