Kōrero: Pacific Islands and New Zealand

Tongan government workers went on strike for more than six weeks in 2005, demanding a pay rise and democratic reform. Feelings ran high. Government cars were torched, schools vandalised and a beach house belonging to the royal family razed to the ground. At an Auckland residence owned by the Tongan royal family, New Zealand- and island-born Tongans gathered, fights broke out and a window was smashed. There was a march (shown here) up Queen Street in Auckland in sympathy with the strikers and supporting their demand for political reform.