“On Thursday night our group ‘Queers Against Injustice’ targeted an ANZ GAYTM with pink paint symbolising pinkwashing, attaching an accompanying manifesto outlining our reasons,” an anonymous posting on the website hashtag500words.com states.

“When we woke up we found articles by the NZ Herald and Stuff.co.nz reporting the GAYTM had been attacked with white paint and quoting passers-by as being offended at the homophobia implicit in the vandalism.”

The groups says in fact the vandalism was not homophobic, but a protesting of “pinkwashing”, saying they left a poster at the site stating so.

“Pinkwashing, a term we defined and outlined in the attached poster, describes the way that institutions co-opt LGBT struggles to distract from and disguise unethical behaviour.”

The group says it targeted the GAYTM to draw attention to “the commercialisation of the Pride Festival” and “the lack of representation of bodies that counter the racist, classist and cis-biased nature of Pride”.

It says it also wanted to highlight working conditions for ANZ staff.

The protestors say they are disheartened that the symbolic pinkwashing of the GAYTM was made out to be homophobia, and “has been manipulated into an act of hatred and complicity”.

It’s encouraging “all queer subjects to remember that, despite the gains of Pride, discrimination will continue to exist for many others both outside and within our community and what would truly create a semblance of pride is the dismantling of all hatred.”