Jump onto the New Zealand Police’s Instagram page and scroll to February 2024.
The official account announces that police were “proud to march in the Auckland Rainbow Pride Parade” and to “show our support for the rainbow community”. Uniformed officers, one holding the Progress Pride flag emblazoned with a police logo, pose with two young girls wearing Progress Pride t-shirts.
But what’s the big deal? The short answer is that the police are supposed to be impartial, and a recent court decision from the UK (attached) suggests that participating in Pride marches, or any other protest, rally or campaign, might undermine this duty.
Lindsey Smith brought the UK case. She’s a self-described “gender critical” lesbian who sued Northumbria Police after they took part in a Pride parade, in uniform and carrying Pride flags, with the chief constable at their head. A nearby police stall and vehicle also displayed the Progress Pride flag – the original rainbow flag, plus a wedge with the pink, white and blue transgender colours – and the transgender Pride flag.
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The New Zealand Police employs over 120 “Diversity Liaison Officers in New Zealand for the “alphabet Community”, but just 6 Ethnic Liaison Officers. NZ Police break speed and resource records to attend a painted-over rainbow crossing in K Rd in 2024, but do nothing if a Conservative politician is threatened with death 72 hours after the political assassination of Charlie Kirk. We have the same two-tier policing system in NZ, as has just been called out in the UK.