A social media video widens the fallout from the Greens and Te Pāti Māori visit to the Mongrel Mob

New footage shows Green and Te Pāti Māori candidates campaigning for votes at a Mongrel Mob pad, contradicting the Greens’ initial insistence the visit wasn't a campaign event, Henry Oliver writes in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.

Following nearly a week of back-and-forth about the Greens and Te Pāti Māori visit to the Mongrel Mob’s Auckland pad, yesterday, a video from inside the Mongrel Mob's Auckland gang pad showing candidates being given a microphone and making pitches to the crowd, circulated on social media and was published by the Herald.

The footage, released just days after the Green Party argued the visit wasn't a campaign event for its candidate, shows Te Pāti Māori MP Oriini Kaipara telling those gathered that her party’s policies would help “reinstate what should have always been.” The Herald reports she described gang members as tangata whenua and descendants of Māui, Toi, Kupe and Tupaia.

“How come you have to beg for, not a handout, for more than support acknowledging your mana?" she said. “Our policies reinstate what should have always been.”

Green MP Hūhana Lyndon and Māngere candidate Michel Mulipola sit behind her in the video, alongside Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke.

Yesterday, Green co-leader Marama Davidson told Stuff her MPs attended the hauora day – hosted by the gang and featuring social service and health providers – to “outline our priorities on how we can bring down people's cost of living.” Asked whether her party was seeking votes from the Mongrel Mob, she said: “The Green Party wants to put our solutions to people.”

The political fallout

Labour leader Chris Hipkins drew a clear line during Wednesday’s leaders' debate, ruling out any Green or Te Pāti Māori MP holding the police or corrections portfolios in a government he led. He has since gone further, saying, as reported by Stuff: “Gangs are a scourge on society. They do enormous harm. They peddle drugs. They perpetuate violence.”

Luxon told Stuff that ruling out portfolios wasn’t sufficient, because MPs from those parties would still be involved in Cabinet discussions. “To all decent, centrist, Labour supporters, there are the idiots that Chris Hipkins and Labour are going to be in government with,” he said.

‘I see whānau’

Kaipara has since doubled down on her own position, telling RNZ’s Midday Report: “You see Mongrel Mob, I see whānau. I see mums and dads, I see uncles who have been trapped in intergenerational trauma who have not been listened to.”

She said she accepted there was a harrowing history of sexual violence against women in gang culture. “I am not dismissing the stark realities and the violence and the crimes committed by many a gang, not just this one,” she said. But she argued gangs exist because of systemic failures, including abuse in state care.

Luxon rejected that framing, telling RNZ he was proud there were 2,000 more people in prison, half of them gang members. “They are not Probus or the Lions or Rotary, they’re not a community organisation, they peddle misery and death and suffering.” The Abuse in State Care findings were not “an excuse,” he said: “gang members go get people hooked up on meth and drugs, that is their business model.”

‘We don't change who we are as a political party just for the campaign’

Davidson has refused to resile from the decision to attend. “We don't change who we are as a political party just for the campaign,” she told RNZ. “This is not new. It’s not new for the Green Party. We have to engage with the very people who are pushed to the margins.”

Asked about victims of gang violence seeing the images, she said: “I acknowledge that harm, and we want to prevent that harm. I want to acknowledge to any of those people and any of those victims of violence that should never have happened. They deserve justice and accountability.”

She said the Greens would eventually repeal the gang patch ban, but it wasn't a priority "at all."

But on Kaipara’s “restore mana” comments, Davidson distanced the Greens: “Oriini Kaipara made those comments, not the Green Party, and that is for Te Pāti Māori to answer to.”

The bigger picture

Writing on The Spinoff last week, Lyric Waiwiri-Smith argued the photos “were always destined to promote a reaction” – and that the reaction says more about the campaign than the visit.

Engaging with constituents is what politicians should do, she writes, “and yes, gang members are constituents too.” Gangs don't form in a vacuum: the Royal Commission into Abuse in State Care showed former state wards gravitated towards gangs after institutional violence and neglect, a pipeline Aaron Smale has reported on extensively.

That leaves Māori MPs walking a difficult line. “Don't engage and how will you achieve change? Engage too much and you're soft on crime, or, worse – an apologist for criminals.”

Labour knows it. The Ardern government was heavily criticised for providing $2.75m from the proceeds of crime fund to a Mongrel Mob-affiliated rehabilitation programme, Hard 2 Reach – which saw a “significant” number of participants stay clean. That didn’t wash away the criticism, and National’s Mark Mitchell halted the funding in 2024.

Waiwiri-Smith also notes that National hasn’t always opposed treating gangs as a social issue: Rob Muldoon favoured a carrot-and-stick approach with subsidised work schemes, cancelled in 1987 after funds were misused.

But nuance doesn't survive a campaign with the polls neck-and-neck, she argues – “any bad optics become immediate weapons.” And the photos are “ultimately not as much of a problem for the Greens or Te Pāti Māori as they are for Labour.” Hipkins' rule-out was “the safest call to make this close to election day,” even though engagement is not endorsement.