Much and all as I think Christopher Luxon stuffed up some of his policy announcement on gangs, a gang member crying a river of tears about their human rights being breached makes me laugh. What about the human rights of their victims?
A Mongrel Mob leader says poverty is at the heart of gang violence, and has accused the National Party leader of dog-whistle politics.
At National’s Auckland regional conference yesterday, party leader Christopher Luxon promised new policies it would enact to crack down on gangs, if elected.
The plan is a response to a spike in gang violence, particularly in Auckland, that has generated concern. It includes bans on gang members gathering together or wearing gang insignia in public, and grants police new powers, including warrant-less searches for firearms.
Waikato Mongrel Mob Kingdom ariki Sonny Fatupaito said the plan would be a breach of human rights and would further discriminate against members’ families.
He called out Luxon’s speech yesterday for continuing the same policies and attitudes that had already failed Maori and Pasifika communities and terrorised them for generations.
Militarising police forces against gangs was proven not to work, Sonny Fatupaito said, but systemic racism and racial profiling by police was an ongoing issue for Maori and Pasifika.
He believed National’s proposed policy would be in direct conflict with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and a breach under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Fatupaito said any political party serious about tackling gang issues would first tackle poverty.
Radio NZ
Do the media and the Mongrel Mob not even get the irony of the Mongrel Mob (whose signature gesture is barking like a dog) talking about the National Party “dog-whistling”? Maybe they are just trying to call them to heel?
And we know Radio NZ is on the side of the Mongrel Mob, because they call Sonny Fatupaito “ariki” which means “paramount chief, high chief, chieftain, lord, leader, aristocrat, first born in a high ranking family”. He’s no chief: he’s a mob boss without the snappy suits the mafia dons wear. Even calling him that gave him respect he neither deserves nor has earned. He deserves derision, not deference.
Then to complain about being “terrorised”. Oh puleeeease! The Mongies are the ones doing the terrorising. That’s why they wear Nazi paraphernalia, shout “Sieg Heil” and wear the Stahlhelm.
They do all that precisely to terrorise people. Now they are crying a river of tears that National’s anti-gang policy will hurt their feelings.
But their argument is a facetious as it is pathetic. If gang violence is due to gangs being poor, how does the Tribesman gang attacking the Killer Beez, or the Black Power attacking the Mongrel Mob work then? Is your “poverty” helped by attacking another ‘poverty-stricken’ gang?
Meanwhile, police have been seizing millions of assets from the same gangs who are now crying poor. I wish I was rich enough to have police seize millions of dollars of my assets and still leave me in a position where I don’t have to go bankrupt or plead to the bank for money.
Gangs also save money by not having to pay for things like firearms licences or anything they steal.
If the Mongrel Mob are squealing, then it sounds like National’s policy is hitting the right notes. At last National is starting to differentiate themselves on key policy from Labour.
If Labour wants to run up to the election hugging criminals then good luck to them.
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