Summarised by Centrist
A climate protest group has apologised after members posed as a journalist and university students to access a community hall and monitor a minister’s movements ahead of a high-profile mining protest.
350 Aotearoa, registered charity and the local arm of the global climate movement 350.org, apologised after its co-director and strategist were discovered using false identities during planning for an Easter Weekend occupation at Bathurst Resources’ Stockton coal mine.
Alva Feldmeier, the group’s co-director, admitted she had pretended to be “Kristina from Access Radio” to gather information about Cabinet Minister Shane Jones.
She claims, “These are isolated instances of good people trying to do good work and making a wrong decision in the moment.”
The incident follows revelations that strategic adviser Adam Currie, using the name “Adam McLaren,” booked Westport’s Sergeants Hill Community Hall under the guise of an Otago University tramping group.
Local organiser Carol Keoghan, who helped prepare the hall for what she believed was a student group, said she felt “betrayed” upon learning it was a base for activists. “I took it completely to heart… I stayed at my kitchen table shaking.”
Currie, Feldmeier and nine others were arrested after occupying aerial coal buckets at the Stockton mine for 60 hours. Currie was arrested again this week for breaching bail conditions during another protest, though his supporters say the court had previously recognised a clerical error in those restrictions.
Shane Jones condemned their actions, stating, “At a time when trust in the media is already low, these activists are doing the fourth estate a disservice.”
Access Radio station manager Tony Kemp said Feldmeier had “no connection with the station” but accepted her apology.
