How much more of these hand gluing protests in Wellington are we going to tolerate?

Especially now that we know how badly it’s tying up police resources.  

We’ve just found out today that up to 10 police officers are now dedicated to dealing with these protestors.

Up to 10 police, between 7am and 9am daily, waiting to find out where the protest is, then responding quickly to get them off the road and get traffic flowing again.

Those are ten police officers who are now unable to do their actual jobs, which is to deal with crime.

Harsh at it sounds, I'll say it again, these people should be put in jail so that this stops.

This is exactly what’s just happened to a kiwi in the UK. 

Morgan Trowland is a civil engineer who grew up in Ashburton and now lives in London.

This week got sent to jail for three years for blocking the Queen Elizabeth bridge in October during a climate protest.

The judge told him he had “to be punished both for the chaos [he] caused and to deter others from seeking to copy [him].”

The judge also said “You plainly believed you knew better than everyone else, and it did not matter if people suffered in consequence so long as it allowed you to impart your message. In short, to hell with everyone else.” 

Now, I don’t want the Restore Passenger Rail people to go to jail because I dislike them, quite the contrary; I admire their conviction 

They're always polite and nice to deal with, and they’re probably very nice people, but yesterday was the 5th attempted protest in two weeks.

And they’ve done even more than that in the last four months.

Essentially, they're doing the same thing as Morgan over in London who just got three years in the slammer.

They don’t care if other people suffer, to hell with everyone else.

It’s really got to stop and apparently the only way is to put them away for a bit. 

Surely, the fact that they are now tying up ten police officers is enough for our tolerance to end.