About 200 protesters swarmed Port Chalmers yesterday holding placards and directing chants of "shame on you" and "complicit in genocide" towards Rail Minister Winston Peters as he prepared to give a speech about the inland port project at Port Otago.
Mr Peters was in Dunedin with Regional Development Minister Shane Jones for the opening of Port Otago’s new rail siding.
The protest was the result of Mr Peters’ speech at the United Nations last week in which he announced New Zealand would not recognise Palestine as a state.
As Mr Peters gave his speech, protesters climbed ladders, used megaphones, shouted, chanted and banged on a metal fence near where Mr Peters was speaking in an effort to drown him out.
Mr Peters seemed to cut his speech short and said "now, ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be rather difficult to try to carry on this speech, so I’m just going to get the flag and wave it and shut those people down".
Mr Peters and Mr Jones then held yellow flags aloft and then lowered them, which signalled a locomotive driver to sound out a long blast from the horn.
"Now beat that, eh?" Mr Peters said.
Earlier, Mr Peters had a few choice words for the protesters.
Mr Peters said it was in the "Good Book" that nobody was beyond redemption.
"But they’re going to be hard work, aren’t they?"
Among the crowd was veteran activist John Minto.
He said Mr Peters’ UN speech made him feel "the most ashamed" he had ever felt to be a New Zealander.
Mr Minto had travelled from his home in Christchurch to be part of yesterday’s protest.
It was Mr Peters’ first public appearance since his UN speech.
"There was a real visceral feeling there of rage and shame that was sort of on display for everybody to see," Mr Minto said.
"[There] was a real feeling that [Mr Peters] represents all the worst of a small minority of New Zealanders."
Palestinian Solidarity Network member and protest organiser Oscar Bartle said protesters planned to block Mr Peters’ car and hand him a strongly worded letter.
However, the minister uncharacteristically avoided the crowd and slipped in through a back door.
"Winston has refused to do the bare minimum and recognise Palestine," Mr Bartle said.
"We’re here to make sure that Winston Peters cannot go about business as usual, and we’re here to demand that Winston Peters grows a spine."
Free Palestine protester Sam Bosshard said recognising Palestinian statehood was "the smallest symbolic move the government could have made".
"The whole world is standing up and calling it genocide, yet the words genocide have not escaped from Winston Peters’ lips.
"This government, by refusing to admit that it’s a genocide, is hiding behind the rhetoric and the words." — Additional reporting Ruby Shaw and Grant Miller
