To quote from the 2025 Aerospace Summit website, New Zealand is a “global space leader”. Our low population density and open skies make us the perfect arena, in logistical terms, for testing and launching aerospace technology into the world’s shared skies. Rocket Lab, a New Zealand-based company, has been receiving USA military contracts since 2009, including a $460 million deal with a missile company just last year. Earlier this year, they began launching satellites from the Mahia Peninsula, despite warnings from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment that those satellites could be used by Israel in the context of “experts at the United Nations […] warning a possible genocide could unfold in Gaza and that schools and hospitals were being bombed.” New Zealand is launching satellites which aid intelligence efforts in accurate positioning and surveillance of military targets, and potentially actively contributing to a genocide.
Ōtautahi, the City of Peace, held the annual New Zealand Aerospace Summit in October 2025 at the Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre. Among the attendees were Rocket Lab, the private defence company Nova Systems, and Dawn Aerospace which recently received an “innovation” contract from the United States Airforce. Minister of Defence and Minister for Space Judith Collins was invited as a special guest. The conference allows for networking between leaders in the aerospace industry, connecting people into our growing military arms industry and further entrenching us in the Five Eyes alliance.
Over 100 people, including six members of the ISO, were brought together by Peace Action Ōtautahi to blockade the conference. Early in the morning of Wednesday 8 October, protesters moved to cover each of the five sides of the building. The aim was to prevent attendees from entering. Protesters dodged Police, suction-locked doors closed, and chained themselves together across the main entrance. Chants of “blood, blood, blood on your hands!” met the attendees and the dozens of cops there to protect the conference. The Police immediately began picking the protesters off one-by-one, arresting and handcuffing them before taking them away. Many protesters went limp, taking Police resources away from the conference with three, four, or five officers required to manage each arrestee. At the front, more protesters moved in to blockade the doors. Police retaliated with force, pushing people to the ground, grappling, and kicking them. The protest continued with chanting, singing, and speeches. Having been told that no arrestees would be processed by the Police until the protest ended, and wanting to minimise suffering of those arrestees at the hands of Police, protest organisers made the call to wrap up around 12pm. By the end of the day, 38 protesters had been arrested.
One comrade commented on their experience at the protest:
While trying to join up with other comrades blocking a door, we attempted to walk past Police. They responded with aggression, kicking us, including one comrade on the floor. I attempted to put my back to the Police and continue to walk through. They responded by pushing me to the ground and sitting on top of me, causing me scratches and pushing my head into the concrete.
The arrested protesters were taken to the loading docks of Te Pae, where they were processed and put in paddywagons to be taken to the Police station. The Police cells were over-filled with the number of protesters arrested. Fingerprints and DNA samples were forcibly taken.
It felt like we were being dehumanised and treated as zoo animals for Police. The whole process seemed to be designed to strip us of dignity and autonomy. I could see how awful a place that would be based on how unpleasant it was while there with our comrades in a good state of mind. I imagine for many other people in the cells this is not the case and their experiences are far worse.
38 individuals including four ISO members now face up to three months in prison after being charged with offences of wilful trespass, obstructing Police, and disorderly behaviour likely to cause violence. That Police arrested and charged the protesters was an unprecedented repressive move. Lawyers, both sympathetic and not, were surprised that the Police followed through on such a large number of charges for such an action. These tactics speak to a move towards greater repression of peace movements, in defence of the capitalist infrastructure that supports New Zealand’s place in global imperialism. More so than any recent climate or social protest movements, this threat to the corporate players of New Zealand’s military alliances awakened the forces of repression.
We see across the world harsh repression of peace protesters. In the UK, over 1,600 people have been arrested for peaceful pro-Palestine protest action. Peace protesters do not just threaten individual actions, they threaten the imperialism that is inherent to capitalism’s expansion. The aggression of the State’s response to peace protesters gives a clear indication that they pose a threat. As socialists, we must understand that violence is a natural response of the capitalist state to threats, and we must not be deterred.
Participating in active resistance against New Zealand’s role in global imperialism is a valuable tool of propaganda against the narrative of normality that our military alliances and weapons industry carry. The awe people have of aerospace technology and the assumed necessity of the Defence Force of New Zealand speaks to the prevalence and success of imperialist propaganda. As socialists, we must endeavour to reveal the violence of global capitalism and support however we can the movement to resist it. Active mass protest threatens the hegemony of the ruling class. Resistance builds upon itself.
It’s disgusting to see people like us being told we are the violent criminals for protesting an industry which relies on death and destruction. This is a true show of the Police’s purpose.
The Police response to the Aerospace protesters lays bare their role as front line defenders of an oppressive system made to intimidate the working class out of rising against growing inequality and global imperialism. The Police are one of the first tools to be deployed by the ruling class to maintain their power. Over 2,700 people are currently being held in New Zealand prisons on remand, which means 2,700 people are currently imprisoned who haven’t yet had a trial or been sentenced. The Department of Corrections even admits that “People on remand make up a significant proportion of the total number of people in prison.” The purpose of the Police and the courts is to individualise “deviants” of society in order to reconcile the majority to the status quo. Prisoners are intended to be made the dark side of a contrastingly bright society, people who we can scapegoat as the perceived source of any social problems and of our own oppression, and who we can lock away out of mind. This solidifies the capitalist narrative of individual responsibility to their position in society: the failure of the oppressed and the success of the oppressors. Active participation in illegal protest breaks down incorrectly perceived solidarity with Police as our protectors against the deviants, revealing the Police’s actual role as oppressors of the working class.
The Aerospace protest speaks to the unrest of the people to New Zealand’s partaking of global imperialism. The State is not blind to our collective power, and will take all actions needed to repress it. Resistance is built through active struggle. None of us are free until all of us are free.
Image Caption: Protestors and Police at the 2025 Aerospace Summit, Christchurch
