27th April 2023
Today at 8AM four brave Restore Passenger Rail supporters stepped onto State Highway 1 near Aurora Tce (pedestrian access via Europe Lane) to block traffic and send a message to our Government.
“We will not allow our government’s criminal negligence to lead us into societal collapse,” said spokesperson James Cockle.
“Our earth is warming, our politicians know what must be done. But they would rather listen to big money interests and dodgy secret lobbyists than to the will of the New Zealand people who elected them.
“They know we are on track to hit 1.5, then 2, then 3 degrees of warming. They know this will cause large parts of the earth to become uninhabitable. They know it will lead to crop failure, starvation and mass migration. They know that over 1 billion people are predicted to be climate refugees in the next 25 years if we don’t drastically change direction.
“By refusing to act to protect us all, our government is breaking the social contract. They are knowingly leading us into a future of economic and societal collapse as ecological systems break down. They are endangering our people, participating in genocide and undermining the rule of law, and that must be stopped.
“However, it does not need to be this way. We can survive if we choose to reduce consumption of natural resources by sharing what we have so that everyone can live well. Restoring passenger rail and free public transport are two great ways to do this”, Cockle said.
Yesterday veteran political activist John Minto lent his support to Restore Passenger Rail via a message of solidarity. “People will always criticise you for breaking the law, they’ll say it’s undermining your protest and you will lose public support. That’s what they always say. They’ve said it for hundreds of years but in fact the opposite is the case. It’s by taking those actions, by being passionate about something to the extent you’re prepared to take the consequences of breaking the law. That’s what gets people saying ‘hell, this is really a serious issue, we have to do something about it’” Mr Minto said.