At least, not if it targets Māori, apparently. That's the obvious conclusion from this morning's news that Te Pāti Māori candidate Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke was targeted by a second home invasion yesterday, by a high profile National Party supporter, and all the police did was issue a trespass notice:
Party president John Tamihere said the person involved in the latest incident was "an elderly Pākehā man" who was a well-known advocate and campaigner for the National Party, and the incident was politically motivated.You'd think, given the past targeting of Maipi-Clarke, with burglaries, vandalism, home invasion, and threats, they might take the issue a bit seriously, as a way of protecting the integrity of the electoral process. But no. But we all know it would have been a very different story had the races of the perpetrator and victim been reversed..."Huntly's a small town, and what he wasn't aware of is that whānau were in residence when Hana on her schedule on her facebook page was out campaigning. When he entered the house and was confronted he advised 'oh I thought Hana was out on the campaign trail'," he told Morning Report.
"He then fled the scene and was followed to his house in Huntly, his house has National Party hoardings on it ... these are facts."
Police trespassed the man and could have laid a criminal charge of unlawful entry but had chosen not to, he said, so the party would be seeking further action.
The public deserve better than this. Sadly, it seems like the NZ police are just utterly unreformable.
