The new and frightening footage from the end of the Parliament occupation

A new documentary from RNZ, Boiling Point: March 2, includes new footage and recollections from eyewitnesses and reporters who were on the spot.

It's 8.26am on Molesworth St, in Wellington.

On one side of the street is the High Court. On the other, Parliament and the Beehive.

In the middle, a heaving mass of angry, determined people wrestling with a grim-faced line of police. The cops have blue lids on the top of their heads, Perspex visors over their faces and hi-vis vests on top of body armour.

Some of them are reaching over the shoulders of the frontline to aim pepper spray at their opposites. Phones and cameras are pointed back - and insults, and rage. A great lump of a beige and white caravan parked right in the thick of it completes the strange picture.

To an alien observer, it must look like a desperate struggle for territory. What is it about this section of tarseal that each side is so keen to secure?

"The protesters and police had been pushing against each other for ages," says Angus Dreaver, an RNZ visual journalist who was there capturing the chaos.

An earlier rush of police swept through other parts of the occupation. But here, the protesters are not so swiftly moved.

"Hold the line. Turn your head away from the police," is the cry.

Then, a frightening moment.

"Suddenly I just see a police officer ripped to the ground and pulled right in amongst the protesters," says Dreaver.

"And these guys just bear down on him, kicking him and I remember seeing him on the ground and just thinking one bad hit to the back of his head and he's gone."

It's about 20 seconds from the moment the officer is separated from the front of the police line to scrambling back in behind it. It feels much longer to watch, as the officer is well adrift and for a moment invisible to Dreaver's camera beneath the circle of bodies surrounding him on the ground.

The whole, horrifying thing is shown, for the first time, in an RNZ documentary - Boiling Point: March 2 - released one year since the chaos at Parliament exploded on 2 March, 2022.

Shocking scenes

Around the time of that incident, and only metres from where it happened, a protester is asked how he thinks it might all end.

"I'll be honest with you. I don't like to say it, but I think violence," he says.

There is actually a period of relative calm through the middle of the day.

In a press conference, Police Commissioner Andrew Coster declines to say when he expects the occupation will be cleared.

Nothing much happens for a while after that. But then, a surge of police across Parliament's lawn launches the destructive climax of the occupation.

As tents are pulled from the browned grass, fires break out.

"I remember the heat on my face from the fire and you could see people throwing gas bottles and little aerosol cans onto the fire," says RNZ political reporter Anneke Smith.

The flames seem to spark even more brazen lawlessness among those raging on against police.

Somehow, a pocket of officers becomes pinned back against the outer wall of the Beehive. Into their shields, people throw tent poles, gumboots, bits of wood, and foldable chairs as hard as they can.

Dreaver has been chased off the lawn by people furious at him for being from "the mainstream media". He films the projectile siege on the officers from just behind the frontline of offenders.

A man in a shirt-collar, cap and sunglasses puts himself between police and the people throwing things at them. The man moves about in his denim jeans and white sneakers, remonstrating with them to stop it.

Next to a fallen down basketball hoop, a young man in a red t-shirt and cap is working hard on breaking a large piece of concrete into smaller bits he can biff at the cops. He grabs and throws at close range as many chunks of rock as he can before running off from the advancing police.

This all happens right around the place visiting dignitaries roll up for visits to the Beehive. It's where Jacinda Ardern and John Key bid a cheerful farewell to staff and well-wishers on their last days as Prime Minister.

Which makes it even more of a stark thing to see just 12 months on. This happened at the seat of our government. And it happened very recently.