I know you’re curious, but should students be checking out the parliament protest?

“I would not be going anywhere near there.” 

That’s what a Victoria Law student who works in parliament advises Wellington students. 

With Red Light restrictions limiting orientation, students are already struggling to enjoy their first week and protestors taking over the city aren’t making it any easier to explore.  

The Victoria University Pipitea campus car park and front lawn were crowded with trespassing protestors. The campus has officially closed until April, leaving over 1,000 Law and Business students working in online classes and unable to access student healthcare. 

Metlink alerted that bus lines one, three, seven and 22 were affected by the protest, with most of Lambton Quay stops closed. 

A Victoria Law student, who wished to remain anonymous, works inside Parliament for an MP – double downer. 

When she arrived at work on the first day of the protest, she walked to her usual entrance at the front gates. But unlike most days, 20 people stood at the gates harassing her to take off her mask. 

“It just got crazier from there.” 

She recommends students “definitely avoid it, if not because it’s a hostile sort of occupation, just because there will be so many illnesses running through there. If not Covid-19, you will catch something else.” 

“I wouldn’t go anywhere north of the end of Lambton Quay, as soon as you cross the block and you're near the Law School, it's hostile.” 

“They’ve been using the train station bathrooms so I would avoid any other public bathrooms in the area … nothing in the area is sanitary.” 

She said Victoria students cannot access the Pipitea health services and many of her friends are doing their last law exams from home. 

“They can’t even study on campus for their last exams, which when you’ve spent five or six years at uni for a degree that you’ve spent thousands of dollars for and worked so hard for, and then there are a bunch of people camping on grounds which aren’t even Parliament grounds. It’s just unfortunate that they’ve spread there as well.” 

“They’re talking about freedom while they’re limiting all of our freedom as students.” 

While she had encountered disrespectful protesters, she felt the majority were peaceful. 

“It feels like the ‘not peaceful’ is greater, but it's probably because they're the louder ones. Realistically it's just a few.” 

However, “It doesn’t matter how many of them are peaceful, if there are people being disrespectful and aggressive, that's gonna taint the whole movement.” 

While some felt you should stay as far from Parliament as possible, others were curious, wanting to meet the people that flooded our phones. 

Massey Film student Ashley Pratt spent four days at the start of the protests interviewing protestors and hearing their stories, alongside fellow Film students Chris Hansen and Oliver Snow.  

“I’ve interviewed at least 80 people,” but Pratt said only about five of them were the crazy, violent protestors many of us envision. 

Before visiting the protests, she thought “that they were just anti-vaxxers" and “I see them on my Facebook and Instagram feed and I’m like ‘stupid idiots’”. 

“After hearing everyone express themselves and their stories and their trauma, it made me give a shit now.” 

In regards to curious students, “I don’t think it would hurt, if you take the right precautions, to just have a wander and open your eyes to everyone suffering” financially and mentally. 

“Wear a mask, sanitize every two minutes, only walk around Parliament for seven minutes tops.” 

While Pratt said most people she spoke to were really onto it, there were some “people trying to fight me for wearing a mask and that was scary”. 

However, she said the majority were peacefully looking for financial or mental support. 

Pratt spoke to a woman from Wainui who brought her to tears. The woman was a hairdresser, student and mother. She told Pratt her jobs went under because of Covid-19 and she started homeschooling her daughter who she said got sick from wearing a mask all day at school.  

Pratt didn’t want to label the woman as anti-anything but rather she had lost faith in her country and needed help. 

“I think this just shows that we need to prioritize the mentally unwell [because] otherwise this is gonna be one of many protests.” 

Pratt self-isolated after visiting the protest and got a negative Covid-19 test.