Billboards mimicking Green Party campaign materials have appeared in Auckland and Wellington, attacking MPs Chlöe Swarbrick and Tamatha Paul with slogans like “Defund the Police” and “Woop Woop! Defund da Police.”
The campaign led by the Sensible Sentencing Trust, expose the Green MP’s radical views on law enforcement, accusing the party of an “anti-victim mentality.”
The billboards use real portraits from Paul’s 2023 election campaign.
Swarbrick responded by calling for “evidence-based debate” and accusing “right-wing groups” of trying to silence civil discourse.
This is an absolute disaster for the @NZGreens if correct.
Chatter is the Green Party are trying to use copyright breach to get the Sensible Sentencing Trust billboards taken down.
This would be incredibly hypocritical given it is what they advocate for in Kahurangi Carter’s… pic.twitter.com/rCcwtv2zcp
— Suit and tie (@Suitandtie9999) April 7, 2025
“It’s clear right-wing organisations and political parties are keen to shut down any civil discussion about where things have gone wrong and how we could improve – so much for being free speech advocates.” – @_chloeswarbrick
Apparently quoting a Green on a billboard is wrong. pic.twitter.com/ndBnKZ9efh
— The New Zealand Rocketeer (@TheNzRocketeer) April 7, 2025
Good ‘nail on the head’ stuff.
The better Billboard: Fund the police to roundup the immigrants to receive their covid vaccines.
Tamantha Paul has a valid and coherent point, she is an elected member of parliament and has every right and mandate to voice her opinion. Are we to exist in a country of fabricated class division as a construct of a colonial wet dream? I don’t know if the ‘Sensible Sentencing’ people have ever been on the end of a broke week when there is no milk to go on the weetbix but they sound like the sort of people who run the food bank and treat the clients like crap. Even Hipkins displayed his duplicity in calling Paul stupid, which is inaccurate as well as insulting. If copyright abuse is in question then maybe defamation or straight out hate crime is more applicable but I’d put my money on plain ignorance. While I don’t believe in defunding the police (much)* there are some members of the force who are a little too zealous in jumping to the conclusion of ‘guilty’, and the stopping and photographing of Maori children is a recent and pustulant sore for many families. Incidentally, the ridiculous ‘ethnicity’ categories being forced by governmental and non-governmental entities alike are now so stupid they match the Voyager space programme.
* They have a very fancy retirement scheme.