The danger of National’s over the top response to the Gangs is that it generates grievance.
Heavy handed tactics that allow search powers that go beyond the norm will generate righteous grievance and backlash, the accusation of Police action in Ōpotiki was that they went extremely far in terms of what is legally acceptable.
Organised Crime needs to be dealt to by smart Policing, not tough on crime rhetoric.
Simply giving Police new search powers and green lighting heavy handed tactics will radicalise some and mutate them into something very different.
National is provoking a response.
The Māori Party is right – Police over reach in Ōpotiki risks lighting fuse.
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Martyn – Disagree…Opotiki was being hijacked by the Mob…The heavy handed approach is required against armed dangerous career criminals…
sush nathan you clearly don’t have a clue once again what you’re spewing out of your ringhole! The Mongrel Mob have existed in little Opotiki since the late 1970s establishing itself more significantly during the 1980s. They are people of the area born & breed not some foreign aberration that just recently appeared! These individuals are grandfathers, grandmothers fathers, mothers daughters, sons etc..who are integrated into their communities.
Consent policing with the mob is gone
Overwhelming force reduces the risk of either side being injured.
Polling on this will be overwhelmingly positive
evidence?
99.% of Maori are not in gangs.
99.% of people in this country will never be affected by gangs.
So why does the right wing and right wing media talk gangs all the time?
Its simple.
1. It is a deliberate attack on Maori
2. It is a deliberate attack on the left wing who Maori vote for.
3.It is to hide the real gang problem which is the White National party.
Right now tens of thousands of New Zealanders people are losing their jobs because the National gang want to force a low wage economy and channel the profits into the hands of corporates. The environment is being destroyed for short term corporate gain. Yet these crimes go unpunished no police intervention here because the Police are controlled by the White Right wing gangs National ACT and NZF.
The police are to crack down on gang involvement in drugs.
Why?
Because the White Political gangs want to control the drug market themselves.
Now the White political gangs are heavily promoting tobacco and vape use
for profit despite the long term physical, financial and social costs being horrific.
Doctors deal millions of dollars worth of prescription drugs every day yet the police do not intervene. Alcohol is a huge social and health problem but there are stores every where. Again no police intervention. Yet if gangs sell alcohol or prescription drugs the police are called. Supermarkets sell foods and drinks which see a diabetes pandemic which is having catastrophic effects on all sectors of society. Again no police intervention because all these drugs are controlled by White corporate gangs.
Maori gangs which affect less than 1% of society are hunted by the police.
White corporate gangs which affect 99% of society are ignored by the Police.
The White corporate media peddles the propaganda.
National Party Gang promoting prejudice ignorance, entitlement,
greed and power since 1936.
More than 3 million patched up National party members.
Get patched up now.
100% correct they are the biggest gang in NZ .tHE LEADER EVEN SHAVES HIS HEAD
I did not notice doctors or supermarkets acting any different when the Labour left were in charge .The main difference was they told the police to turn a blind eye to the gangs.
TPM would do well to focus their energy on what Maori really need ,like health ,housing and better education for their people .Ranting about police fighting the very Maori that are bringing Maori into dis repute is stupid .These low life are destroying places like Opotiki,Te Kuiti Kawarau and many other small rural towns by bringing in drugs and creating the shit that comes with it .We are on the road to destruction of rural NZ much like what is happening in Fiji and Tonga .
TPM needs to step up and lead from the front to tackle this scourge on the Maori people which will be far worse than any disease given to them by colonists .
We do not often agree but this post really hit the nail on the head .Well said Gordon
Yes Trevor seldom have I if indeed ever agreed with gordon but on this occasion I very much do.Well said gordon.
Well said Gordon.
Pretty much never agree with your posts, but you got this one right mate
Sorry mate but the drug seen in Opotiki & other rural towns isn’t only peddled by gangs? Pakeha dairy farmers like Brian Hilliard was a major grower of cannabis growing 10s of thousands of pounds and storing illegal weapons on his property living next-door to Barry Grump who also dabbled distributing cannabis but wasn’t caught.
The were also other pakeha farmers that used their helicopters to scout for cannabis acting as Police to steal growers harvest and don’t get me going on the P where the biggest distributors aren’t gang members they’re the minor player
Some gang members are just minor distributors selling dollar bags or the odd gram but they aren’t the big shots as you’re depicting!!
thats why car dealers used to get paid from brown paper bags of cash in Opotiki.
But National fueled by their own creation being neo-liberalism IS a gang. We didn’t vote them in, we now can’t vote them out thanks to jimbo bolgers mmp brain fart and all held together by roger douglas’s nylon neo-liberal under panties. If we were to all vote now, today, we’d have no choice but to vote for a neo-liberal politic. There’s nothing else Left. Our politic needs a reboot. We need to down load a new version of democracy.
Mandate voting and lose dodgy fucking mmp.
Maybe you could explain why mandatory voting would make a difference and what you would put in place of the MMP system?
It should be compulsory to vote .Way too much complacency in NZ ,.We all just make it someone elses problem then moan about the out come .If everyone voted at every election you would have the candidates actually listening to the voters instead of the shit we have now .
The problem with compulsory is being forced to vote for what you don’t support. Abstention is the only legitimate option.
America has FPP and completely free of rich rule? Ireland has STV and still dominated by their conservative pro-corporate parties. Thus, I don’t think the voting system is the vital factor.
Why did the Rogernome Right fight so hard to prevent MMP? It increased democracy in NZ after the ‘coups’ of 84 and 90 — manifestos which had nothing to do with what they actually did, all on behalf of the rich. I can vote for the Greens, though I’d rather vote for Alliance.
The USA has by far the rich rule that you say does not exist there .How many millions are they spending everyday on advertising and media .Try getting elected there if you are a local green grocer or a train driver .
And have you seen mandatory voting in OZ?
Though I now see your point, if it is your point. FPP, rather than preferential voting, plus mandatory voting might overthrow the neoliberal establishment. But several questions there in this anti-compulsory, de-politicized age.
Would the Maori Party be making a fuss if it was a white gang being targeted. They would serve their people better by helping to end these gangs who intimate law abiding citizens including other Maori.
tHE ONLY WHITE GANG IN nz IS THE CURRENT GOVERNMENT .And the Maori ministers like Potaka are traitors as were the Tribes that fought against their own in the land wars in the 1860s.
Kupapa.
Its called TPM for a reason not Te Pati Pakeha
“Intimate’ means to develop close, personal relationships. Good idea!
“These gangs who intimate law abiding citizens including other Maori.” That also is my impression of Opotiki. A happy little town in the Bay of Plenty. ( where I occasionally taught classes at primary and secondary school).
Nice one Trevor!
It depends on what the searches turn up.
If the Police find drugs, guns and bundles of cash, then it is hard to say the searches were unjustified.
The NZ National party and its donors are best dressed gang of all with a silver fern in their button holes to show what proud Kiwis they are while they enforce austerity and unregulated capitalism for the bottom feeders and tell them what losers they are and socialism for the property class and the rich.
they are parasites on our country and dont actually care for our country or the people as they worship profit before people mantra .Luxon and Brown will be in church this morning praying for more money and more bottom feeders to kick in the guts and for more gang members to lock up .
Actually, in response to what you say MB, I think that Mark Mitchell wants to create an over-the-top response to provoke a retailation to that response. A situation which will be ongoing which they then say community police can’t deal with. Then they will justify using private security forces. Which will then replace police. So agent provocateur. Create trouble to install your Atlas Network agenda. Use a small town with community gang members, probably easier to control than say, Whanganui which is bigger, to do it, as a test case and example of how successful a private security force can be, once they subdued the population. Just guessing.
might be guessing but very close to the truth .Just like closing all rural hospitals in the past and making us travel 2 hours to get treatment .The current rural hospitals will become expensive clinics owned by insurance companies .
Mark Mitchell is good at rhetoric but not much more.