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WELLINGTON: More than 100,000 New Zealand teachers, nurses, doctors, firefighters and support staff walked off the job on Thursday demanding more money and resources for the public sector in a sign of growing discontent with the country’s center-right government.
Public servants marched with placards and banners in towns across New Zealand, chanting and listening to speeches. Protests in Wellington and Christchurch had to be canceled because of dangerous weather conditions.
The unions in a joint statement last week billed the strike as the largest in decades with more than 100,000 public servants taking part.
Middlemore Hospital emergency doctor and Association of Salaried Medical Specialists Vice President Sylvia Boys told the crowd at Aotea Square in Auckland the government had been elected on promises to reduce the cost of living while maintaining frontline services and it was “fair to say these are the issues on which they are failing dismally.”
“The cost of living has worsened, and in health and education we have seen cuts across the sector. We are losing more talent than ever before,” she added in her speech, which was published on Facebook by the ASMS union.
The government has dismissed the protests as a union-orchestrated political stunt, even as the demonstrations highlight growing public unease over the administration’s direction. Recent opinion polls indicate support for the ruling coalition has slipped, though the opposition has yet to open a clear lead.
Since coming to power in 2023, the conservative government has reduced new public spending as it tries to return the government’s accounts to surplus. It has said the cuts would be in back office operations and would keep interest rates low and ensure New Zealand continues to be seen as a good place to invest.
However, the economy has struggled, contracting in three of the last five quarters, and historically high numbers of New Zealanders are leaving the country. While inflation is off its peak, it has ticked higher in the past couple of quarters.
Public Service Minister Judith Collins said in a statement on Wednesday that the proposed strike was unfair, unproductive and unnecessary.
“It is a stunt targeting the Government but the people paying the price are the thousands of patients who have had appointments and surgeries canceled, and the hundreds of thousands of kids who will miss another day at school,” she said. The government said that it was ready to negotiate.

NEW YORK: New York State’s attorney general on Wednesday urged the public to submit photos, videos and other documentation of federal immigration operations to her office for review, a day after a high-profile raid targeted Manhattan street vendors.
Attorney General Letitia James said her office would review footage and other information from operations shared through a “Federal Action Reporting Form,” saying in a statement that “every New Yorker has the right to live without fear or intimidation.”
President Donald Trump, a Republican, has launched an aggressive immigration crackdown in major US cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Wednesday that the Trump administration would send more than 100 federal agents to the city to ramp up enforcement, citing an unnamed source.
Protesters in the cities have used phones to record ICE operations, which critics say have employed racial profiling and swept up many immigrants with no criminal records. The immigration raid on New York City’s Canal Street, a prominent shopping area known for bargain prices and imitation goods, triggered pushback in the street from residents in the vicinity.
When asked for comment on James’ oversight effort, US Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said it “looks like obstruction of justice.”
The new effort to record possible abuses by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and other federal agents is part of a broader resistance by Democrats. US Representative Robert Garcia, a Democrat based in Los Angeles, said on Monday that he and other Democrats would launch an online site to track the agency’s operations and urged the public to record ICE activity.
The Trump administration in March gutted the DHS offices charged with monitoring civil rights abuses as part of its government downsizing efforts.
The ICE monitoring effort by James, a longtime Trump foe, could further inflame political tensions with the White House. James, who brought a civil fraud case against Trump in 2022, was charged earlier this month with lying on a mortgage application, as the Trump administration stepped up its use of government power against his perceived political enemies.
DHS said Tuesday’s operation targeting Canal Street resulted in nine arrests of alleged immigration offenders from Mali, Senegal, Mauritania and Guinea, including some with prior criminal arrests. Four people were arrested for allegedly assaulting law enforcement and another for obstruction of justice, DHS said.
Democratic US Representative Dan Goldman, whose district includes Canal Street, said his office had helped secure the release of four US citizens detained by ICE.
“Dozens of masked federal agents stormed Lower Manhattan, roughing up protesters and indiscriminately arresting people,” Goldman said in statement.
The Canal Street raid came after at least two prominent pro-Trump influencers posted videos in recent weeks focusing on African immigrants selling goods along the busy thoroughfare. One of the influencers, Savanah Hernandez, said in an October 19 post on X that African immigrants without legal status were operating a black market there and urged ICE to visit the area and arrest the vendors.
“I don’t know that ICE officials saw my post,” Hernandez said in an email. “However, the White House has been very responsive to on the ground reporters who have utilized X to share their stories.”
The normally bustling street was largely empty of street vendors on Wednesday, a Reuters witness said.