Exhibits > The Fallen

Ernie Abbott died in the bombing of Wellington Trades Hall in 1984. In the forensic examination of the bombing police identified pages of the Evening Post published 7 years earlier that had been used to pack the empty spaces in the suitcase bomb. A police raid on a suspect’s house found the issues of the Evening Post with the bomb pages missing. He was never charged. The motive for the bombing was widely considered a terrorist attack on the trade union movement engendered by the anti-union policies and rhetoric of the National Muldoon led government.

The portraits were painted by Heleyni Pratley as part of the project to earthquake strengthen the building and marking it's history.