committed to no funding being given to gang-led programmes<\/a> after Green co-leader Marama Davidson said she was open to supporting services like the Mongrel Mob-led meth rehabilitation programme that was funded in 2021. Hipkins said such a move would be \u201clike asking the arsonists to put out the fire\u201d.<\/p>\n![\"Labour]()
Labour leader Chris Hipkins says his party was wrong to provide funding to a Mongrel Mob-run addiction programme when it was in power. Photo \/ Stephen Barker<\/p>\n
But National\u2019s justice spokesman Paul Goldsmith said last week that Labour \u201ccannot be trusted on gangs\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the Greens and Te Pati M\u0101ori\u2019s meetings with gangs were an error, what was Labour\u2019s $2.75 million gift to the Mongrel Mob in 2021?\u201d Goldsmith said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cRuling out their coalition partners from holding law and order portfolios makes no difference. In a single-party majority Government with all law and order portfolios held by Labour MPs, crime skyrocketed and the Mongrel Mob was given almost $3 million.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yesterday, footage circulated of Kaipara vowing to restore \u201cmana\u201d to gang members during the visit.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are tangata whenua. You are of this land. You are M\u0101ui\u2019s descendant. You are the descendants of Toi, of Kupe, of Tupaia,\u201d Kaipara told the Mongrel Mob members. <\/p>\n
\u201cHow come you have to beg for, not a handout, for more than support acknowledging your mana?<\/p>\n
\u201cOur policies reinstate what should have always been.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kaipara later doubled down, telling RNZ\u2019s Midday Report she saw wh\u0101nau who had been trapped by intergenerational trauma.<\/p>\n
She said community engagement was more important than perceptions people might have. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But following a recent political uproar where Green and Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori MPs and candidates were photographed posing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2246,579,3276,5903,295,738,42,13480,6721,13489,4281,311668,4280,43,4762,10112,9527,16654,28700,312,61,40,38,41,39,6736,1316,25152],"class_list":["post-635791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-2246","tag-addiction","tag-chris","tag-election","tag-fund","tag-funding","tag-headlines","tag-hipkins","tag-labour","tag-leader","tag-mob","tag-mobrun","tag-mongrel","tag-news","tag-party","tag-power","tag-programme","tag-provide","tag-rehab","tag-says","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-was","tag-when","tag-wrong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635791","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=635791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}