National attack ads against Labour use crime footage from Government's own term

By Lillian Hanly of RNZ

The National Party is defending the use of footage showing violent crime under its own Government in attack ads against the Labour Party.

But Labour says it is dishonest and desperate from National.

It comes after National posted a campaign video on social media showing clips of violent crime. It stated Labour was soft on crime and Kiwis will be safer under National.

But some of the footage is from crime committed during the early part of the coalition Government, with the footage matching news stories from that period of time.

National’s campaign chair Simeon Brown defended the move and rejected the suggestion it was misleading.

Brown said the coalition got rid of gang patches, put in tougher consequences for crime and had given judges less discretion.

“Most of those scenes were prior to when the legislation came into effect.

“We’ve now passed that law and as New Zealanders know, they feel a lot safer now than they were prior to those laws being passed.”

He confirmed Mark Mitchell was Police Minister when the crimes in some of the footage took place, but said National was being “very focused and very honest”.

Brown was asked about the nurses the coalition Government claims to have hired on its watch, as opposed to the crimes the video implies took place under Labour, but he simply responded saying “we changed the law”.

National leader Christopher Luxon dismissed the issue, acknowledging the party may have used some images that “actually were before our laws took full effect”, but said the key message was that “crime is down”.

Labour’s campaign chair Kieran McAnulty said it was “desperate” from National.

“They are desperately worried ... and they are trying desperate measures,” McAnulty said.

“I’m not sure it’ll wash with New Zealanders. I’m not sure it’ll sit that comfortably with them.”

He said liars tended to be dishonest and when National switched its campaign chair from Chris Bishop to Brown, McAnulty said to Labour “we’re going to be dealing with a dishonest campaign now”.

“That’s what we’re dealing with.”

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said it was just another example of National lying to the New Zealand public.

“They can’t campaign on their own track record, so all they can do is make up lies.”

Hipkins added that Brown did not understand the meaning of the word “honest”.

This story was first published on rnz.co.nz