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Smith, Adam's avatar

Another excellent set of photos and narrative.

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Mark McGuire's avatar

Thank you, Adam. I appreciate your support.

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Mark White's avatar

Thank you for the explanation. How did a 8.6% minority become PM??? Is NZ experiencing a white-nationalist backlash like here in the US?

RE: your low angle POV. Kudos! Nice choice.

RE: your asking permission. I understand the political/cultural issues you are sensitive to, but IMO, a public protest is a blank check to record what you see and hear. Unless you are an advocate of the protesters. I covered over 15 BLM marches and protests here in Seattle 2020-2021. Some turned ugly thanks to ugly protesters. Some turned ugly thanks to ugly cops. I refused to follow anyone's rules of what to shoot or not shoot. The truth as I saw it warranted that open ended approach.

Just my thoughts and experiences to share.

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Mark McGuire's avatar

New Zealand changed from a first past the post voting system to a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system in 1996. Under MMP, voters have two votes: one for a political party and one for a local candidate in their electorate. The Parliament has 120 members, of which 72 are elected from single-member electorates (electorate MPs) and 48 are elected from party lists (list MPs). If a party gets a minimum of 5% of the popular vote, they will get a proportionate number of candidates from their list into parliament.

In our last election (Oct. 2023), the (right of centre) National Party got 38% of the vote and formed a coalition with (further right) ACT (8.6%) and (populist) New Zealand First (6%). Unfortunately, in a deal that allowed him to become the Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon gave the smaller parties everything they wanted (he turned out to be a very poor negotiator and no match for the smarter, more experienced, and more sophisticated leaders of ACT (David Seymour) and New Zealand First (Winston Peters)). As a result, extreme positions are getting centre stage, and pretty stupid legislation is getting passed (under urgency, which means no debate or scrutiny).

I share your views regarding having a licence to photograph protesters in public space and the importance of fly-on-the-wall photography. I also believe that, in some cases, it can be good to identify yourself as a photographer and ask permission anyway. I've been meaning to write a post discussing some of my experiences relating to this.

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Mark White's avatar

Looking forward to your post on this. Thank you for the lengthy explanation.

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