'Stitch-up': Kiri Tamihere-Waititi calls backlash to MPs' gang hui 'manufactured outrage'

Kiri Tamihere-Waititi has criticised the cross-party rebuke of Te Pāti Māori and Green MPs meeting and posing for photos with Mongrel Mob members at their South Auckland gang pad, describing it as “manufactured outrage” from the right bloc. 

Tamihere-Waititi – Te Pāti Māori’s general manager, daughter of president John Tamihere and wife of co-leader Rawiri Waititi – laid into the “debacle” on Instagram yesterday, while criticising Labour for ruling out both parties holding the police or corrections portfolios in response. 

“We need to see it for what it is, whānau. It’s manufactured outrage. It’s an absolute stitch-up. From who, you might ask? From the people on the right,” she said. 

“This is normal for us, eh? It’s normal for Māori to go and sit with our gang whānau. Why? Because they’re our whānau ... We don’t discriminate in that way.” 

Earlier this week, Te Pāti Māori MP Oriini Kaipara posted photos from a “health and wellbeing election hui” at the Mongrel Mob gang pad featuring her and MPs Hūhana Lyndon and Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke, and Greens candidate Michel Mulipola. 

“The kaupapa [theme] wasn’t about us but about the health and wellbeing of the Mob community,” Kaipara wrote. 

MPs from the parties pictured with members of the Mongrel Mob. Photo / Facebook 

“Many will raise eyebrows, throw stones and cast judgment over our visit but the truth is, every member of a gang is a member of a whānau, a whakapapa [lineage] and a part of New Zealand society.” 

In the video, Tamihere-Waititi said political opponents had deliberately turned “a normal one of those huihui into an absolute scandal”, with the right bloc “fearmongering” so they could paint Labour as soft on crime. 

“It puts old Chippy under pressure and he’s fallen for it, because then he goes, ‘That was terrible what Te Pāti Māori and the Green Party did. They should never have done it’,” she said. 

“Meanwhile, we have lunches, holidays, Christmases, and events and birthdays and everything with them. Why? Because they’re our whānau.” 

Tamihere-Waititi called the backlash an orchestrated attempt “designed to stress everybody out and to make Labour say ‘we’re not working with the Māori Party or we’re not working with Greens’”. 

“It’s just there to sow division, sow seeds of doubt, and whakawehiwehi [scare]. 

“That’s what they’re really good at, eh? And we fall for it all the time. So, you know, it’s really important that we have our eyes wide open to all the different tactics that they pull out in the playbook.” 

Defending colleagues against criticism over the meeting, Greens co-leader Marama Davidson – who made headlines for a similar visit in 2021 – said the party was “proud” to engage and advocate for marginalised communities, while co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick wanted to understand the context behind the visit. 

During the NZ Herald Leaders’ Debate on Wednesday night, Hipkins said he didn’t condone the meeting and, in response, ruled out giving the Greens or Te Pāti Māori the police or corrections portfolios in a future coalition government. 

National leader Christopher Luxon said Hipkins had “a new coalition member today, it’s the Mongrel Mob”, while National’s justice spokesman Paul Goldsmith later called the Greens’ willingness to fund the Mongrel Mob to deliver drug prevention programmes a “sick joke”. 

Following a walkabout at New Lynn Mall today, Hipkins restated his belief that the meeting had been “an error of judgment” from the parties, adding he had shared this view with Davidson in more detail yesterday. 

“Visiting a gang pad and taking photos at a gang pad is not the sort of stuff that any responsible politician should be doing in an election campaign,” he said. 

“Any engagement that validates the legitimacy of gangs is stuff that politicians need to be careful to avoid.” 

Asked whether he believed gang members are equal to the average Kiwi, Hipkins said everybody’s vote was equal. 

“I’m not out there campaigning for gang members’ votes though. My focus is on making sure that Labour wins the election. 

“Gangs do a lot of harm in society and their peddling of drugs, the violence that we see that’s perpetrated by gangs, that’s not something that I want to give any credence to.”