Was Trevor quoting Jacinda?

In May I blogged a report from a meeting in Wairarapa which quoted former Speaker Trevor Mallard that the parliamentary protest was funded by Russia. I regarded the claim as risible.

Someone with ties to the former Government told me that Trevor wasn’t just hallucinating, but that in fact the then PMs Office had been telling people that they thought the protests were foreign funded. There was zero proof of this, but it seems it was a fervent belief by senior Government figures. There was even some reference to a report from DPMC that backed this up.

So I sent in an OIA to DPMC. After several extensions and transfers, I got the reply. There are many blacked out portions, so I can’t tell if they really did lend any credence to foreign funding, but what they do show is that PM Ardern had a significant interest in this.

A briefing to Ardern on 2 March 2026 says:

So the PM personally asked for info on funding, and DPMC said that they would need Police warrants or production orders to properly investigate. I wonder, if such production orders were then done?

So on 23 March 2022, they stated the protest was domestically crowd funded (which was always my assumption).

On 25 March 2022, DPMC noted:

So they said Police are looking into funding streams,