Thousands of people of Dunedin gathered at the Octagon hell-bent to oppose the loss of jobs of many at the Hillside Engineering Workshops. The state-owned firm, Kiwi Rail’s decision to drop out 40 positions from Dunedin's Hillside Railway Workshops and 70 positions nationally was being appealed to be withdrawn and that they should stop exporting jobs.

The crowd was filled with anger and frustration against the company and John Key's Government by the representatives of various unions, opposition politicians, and Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull. The company was planning to pay out $500 million for the rail construction job for the electrification of the Auckland rail network, and establishment of 300 new container flat top wagons, to overseas manufacturers.

The crowd had filed a petition which consisted of thousand signatures supporting the protest against the decision of the KiwiRails. As per Rail and Maritime Transport Union National Secretary, Todd Valster, “KiwiRail is spending $29 million on buying the Chinese-made wagons, rather than spending an extra $7m building them locally, and is axing the jobs so a smaller workforce can maintain its stock. It is buying a total of 500 Chinese-made wagons”. Rail workers were planning to protest the arrival of Chinese made wagons at Taranga.