Green and Maori Party candidates are facing condemnation across the political spectrum after visiting a Mongrel Mob gang pad and posing for photos with life member Harry Tam.
National Leader Christopher Luxon raised the issue during Wednesday night’s leaders’ debate, accusing Labour Leader Chris Hipkins of “tolerating your mates going off to a Mongrel Mob hang out”. Hipkins called the visit “bad judgement,” later describing gangs as a “scourge on society” and saying anyone involved would not have a place in his Cabinet.
National justice spokesman Paul Goldsmith accused the Greens and Maori parties of “prioritising” gangs over victims, saying gang members profited from misery and addiction by selling drugs. Goldsmith challenged candidates to ask gang members what they had done to get patched, adding: “Because their victims know”.
NZ First Leader Winston Peters called the gang visit “appalling naivety”, adding Maori are usually the first victims of crime. Opportunity Leader Qiulae Wong said, “We don’t think it’s appropriate for politicians to be visiting gangs”.
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson defended the visit, saying the Greens were “unapologetic” about engaging with all communities, especially those “living on the margins”. She also said the Greens were open to funding gangs for effective social programmes, and would continue engaging with gangs. Davidson has since said the gang patch ban will be reversed, calling it “unnecessary work that needs undoing”.
Maori Party candidate Oriini Kaipara said the meeting focused on health and wellbeing and that being present wasn’t an endorsement.
Thousands reacted to ACT MP Nicole McKee’s Facebook post criticising the visit, but many commenters shockingly defended the politicians. “God forbid humans talk to humans aye,” one wrote. Others said gang members were ordinary voters and praised the Greens for challenging the “lock em up” approach to crime.
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National & Labour, might as well form a coalition together, and be shot of these smaller parties. ?
Rob Muldoon had an unusually close and public relationship with the Black Power gang during his time in office (1975–1984).
Muldoon personally favored the gang, helping members find accommodation and establishing subsidized work trusts through the Piki Mai Trust to provide employment.
This engagement was part of his broader strategy to connect with blue-collar conservatives and integrate gang members into the workforce to reduce crime.
Muldoon and his wife Thea Muldoon met with gang members on several occasions.
Black Power members performed a haka at Muldoon’s state funeral in 1992 at the Auckland Town Hall.
Thea Muldoon visited the Black Power marae in Wellington shortly after his memorial service.
Tell me who you’re with and I’ll tell you who you are.
From one gang pad to another gang pad.
From red to blue…blue being the cops & Nazional Party..!
No benefits should ever be paid to patched up gang members. They should start lawn mowing businesses……oh wait…..either way this behaviour has been a blow to the Labour Parts election campaign
Manufacture and distribution of methamphetamine, large scale drug dealing and prostitution, extortion large scale theft and organised crime, beatings, robberies, murders, rapes, what’s not to like ? Probably over qualified for politics. But they are only people eh? Hope the chick in the photo realises when the lights go down in the gang pad of a Friday night and the booze and drugs kick in, she’d be on the menu, and she will get to see what the “nice people” are really like.
Things are getting pretty bad if these p#$&ks are given any sort of credibility. The rot started with that idiot Muldoon.
Hopefully the looney Greens and the corrupt Maori Party have scored an own goal by shooting themselves in the foot entertaining the Mongre Mob.
Trouble is that foot may get a leg into bed
Politicians are promiscuous beasts of a self serving nature centered on survival
And will get into bed and fornicate with anyone
To grease themselves through the hoop
What we are looking at now is very scary
What is happening to our cuntry?
Bullshiticians are first and foremost attention-seeking whores with messiah complex.
Usually useless in their normal vocation, mainly failed lawyers, teachers, artists, i.e. public parasites, they feel a calling to improve themselves into saviors of humanity while screwing the public. Just look at them…wud you really let any of them near your family or manage your life?
Let’s face it, Gangs are more orofitable under Labour Policing Policy.
I wonder what else she does to get a vote?
Theyve shot themselves in the foot – and lost all their support. That goes for the MM too.
Hipkins is going to need the Greens and will widdle in their pocket- watch and see
All theater
How this guy has got the cheek to ever show his snout in public again has got me dumbfounded
The Tax Payers Union is running some good depictions
New Taxpayers Union Attack Ad SLAMS Labour and Chris Hipkins Capital Gains Tax Plan – Yew Tube