The remnants of the Occupy Wellington protest are vowing to continue their vigil, despite a failed molotov cocktail attack overnight and a council determined to unleash gardeners on their home of the last three months.
The day after a combined police and Wellington City Council dawn raid to evict the 108-day-old protest - the dozen stalwarts and their accumulation of camping gear - between five and nine protesters remained at the city square site yesterday morning.
"We will still be here for a while longer," says Occupier Matt Barrett.
He said nine people slept at the site overnight - continuing the Occupy protest - as the council only wanted the structures down.
There are just a handful of items left at the site, including flags, banners, pallets and bicycles.
The international Occupy movement started off as an anti-corporate greed movement, but in Wellington appeared to morph into a sanctuary for homeless people.
Mr Barrett said the protest had also highlighted the plight of homeless people, but denied the protesters themselves were homeless and had nowhere else to go.
"We are not ordinary protesters like hippies. We are the real deal, we are street people."
Mr Barrett said many of the original student protesters had left because of the presence of inveterate objector Benjamin Easton, who has been reported to be a divisive influence on the group.
Mr Barrett also said a molotov cocktail - a wine bottle containing kerosene - thrown at them last night, from the street below, but did not explode.
They had handed the bottle to the police, who could not be contacted for comment.
Council spokesman Richard MacLean says the council would return at some stage today to start work on fixing up the area and if the protesters did not move it would look at trespassing them.
Mr MacLean defended the dawn raid tactics, saying they were necessary to surprise the occupiers and get them to move.
NZN