, visited a Mongrel Mob gathering in Hamilton<\/a>. Davidson at the time called it a \u201cfabulous community event for justice\u201d.<\/p>\n\u201cWe are unapologetic about making sure that we can engage with all communities, especially communities who are living on the margins. So we\u2019re proud and we have done that year and year again,\u201d she told reporters today.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose communities are the very people who hold the solutions to being able to live good lives, so it\u2019s not a new thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not apologising for making sure that everyone has a chance to engage in democracy and has access to politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added that the Greens also met with victims.<\/p>\n
Asked about the meeting, Swarbrick said it was her understanding Lyndon, the party\u2019s health spokeswoman, attended \u201con the basis that those who are in gangs also need access to healthcare\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just contextualise this and the fact that in this past term of Parliament, we have received the Royal Commission of Abuse into state care, which documented very clearly how gangs were grown in this country from the seed of state violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said there was work for politicians to do in \u201cactually understanding, on the ground, the experiences of those who are oftentimes so hard to reach\u201d.<\/p>\n
Swarbrick denied it was about garnering voters, but a \u201cgreater understanding\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe again are trying to understand the needs of every New Zealander.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said there was a need to end the \u201ccycle of violence and the cycle of criminality and the cycle of gangs in this country\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe way that we best do that is that we understand what is driving that in the first place and we stop that cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if she accepted some New Zealanders would perceive this as the Greens and Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori looking for the votes of gang members, Swarbrick said she understood \u201cdifferent people will have their views on the way that we choose to go about engaging with structurally marginalised parts of our society\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said if politicians wanted to address issues like criminality and ensuring access to healthcare and housing, \u201cthen we do need to have those kinds of engagements\u201d.<\/p>\n
Swarbrick was asked if she would have advised against it if Lyndon had come to her about the meeting before attending.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat didn\u2019t happen. At the end of the day, this is the situation that we are in right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked again, Swarbrick said the Green Party made decisions based on evidence and she needed to \u201cunderstand more of the context as to what has played out here\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut at the end of the day, we come back to the same basic point, which is that there are people in our society who are on the margins, who currently are swept up in cycles of criminality and victimisation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey too need to be deradicalised. They need to be reconnected with services that allow them to reintegrate with society.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jamie Ensor is the NZ Herald\u2019s chief political reporter, based in the press gallery at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist in 2025 for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mongrel Mob lifetime member Harry Tam posted images on social media showing members meeting with Lyndon, a sitting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2246,4492,9092,806,243491,70554,40291,5903,56614,2518,305,42,309144,117715,309145,70555,2374,4754,4281,4280,130,17318,9812,43,1118,90,4762,21692,243492,40,38,41,39,102,14443,6730],"class_list":["post-630565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-2246","tag-advised","tag-against","tag-as","tag-chle","tag-coleader","tag-davidson","tag-election","tag-engagements","tag-green","tag-have","tag-headlines","tag-hhana","tag-info","tag-lyndon","tag-marama","tag-meeting","tag-members","tag-mob","tag-mongrel","tag-more","tag-mps","tag-needs","tag-news","tag-of","tag-on","tag-party","tag-proud","tag-swarbrick","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-with","tag-wont","tag-would"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}