Characterised by the-then Prime Minister Sidney Holland as an act of terrorism, the bombing caused no casualties, even though a morning passenger train ran over the weakened bridge.
[6][7] On 13 February 1951, the national executive of the New Zealand Waterside Workers’ Union decided its members would only work a 40-hour week, and imposed an overtime ban.
[12] Even though the Waikato open-cast miners returned to work at the beginning of April 1951,[13] this came too late for the freighter Lochybank, which had been in Auckland port since 18 February, and had to load 150 tons of firewood instead of unobtainable bunker coal so that it could sail for Lyttelton to discharge its remaining cargo.
[14] In 1951, during the New Zealand waterfront dispute and strike, six sticks of gelignite were detonated on a railway bridge near Mahuta, at the Rotowaro end of the Glen Afton branch line, three miles from Huntly.
[16][15][17] Although police made extensive inquiries in the area, noting that high explosives were used in the mines, and elsewhere, so would not be hard to obtain, with many people keeping plugs of gelignite at home for various purposes, no arrests were reported.
[28] The next day, 1 May, when calling for volunteers to register for the newly formed Civil Emergency Organisation, which was being set up to protecting life and property, he described the bridge sabotage as a tactic "to stop urgently-needed coal from reaching the people’s fireplaces.
"[29] And said "... it was miraculous that the attempt was not accompanied by serious loss of life ..."[29] The then Leader of the Opposition, Labour's Walter Nash also condemned the sabotage and called on law-abiding citizens to co-operate with authorities to apprehend the perpetrators and prevent further acts.
Richardson, in his history of the United Mineworkers Union, accepts the police assessment that the sabotage was an attempt intimidate the open-cast miners and that Holland exploited the opportunity the event presented to announce the formation of the Civil Emergency Organisation.
[19] In an evening radio broadcast on 1 May, Prime Minister Holland announced that the government had decided to form the "Civil Emergency Organisation" to assist the police and called for male volunteers to register with their local city, borough, or county council, or town board from 10 a.m. the following morning.