James Shaw has support from his Parliamentary colleagues to form a cross-party group to discuss safety threats ahead of next year's campaign. He told political editor Jo Moir both candidates and staff are being put at risk.
Several Green Party MPs have already required police intervention due to dangerous threats and co-leader James Shaw is warning next year’s campaign won’t escape it.
It’s not just MPs and candidates that Shaw says are being threatened by members of the public.
“I have public servants who say they’re worried about going out and doing consultations because they’re worried about getting attacked,” Shaw tells Newsroom.
Labour, National, ACT and Te Pāti Māori have all swung in behind Shaw and agreed to take part in a cross-party group if one is set up.
“I do think it will be a feature of next year, and I think it would be helpful if someone in the political system got together a cross-party group that looked at how we are going to handle this, because we are putting people at risk,” Shaw says.
“We have MPs … particularly Marama (Davidson) and Golriz (Ghahraman), but others as well, who cop a lot of abuse, and some of it is quite dangerous and occasionally that calls for police intervention.”
Shaw also points to the local government campaign currently underway having safety concerns, with several Green-endorsed candidates reporting serious abuse at resident association meetings.
“I was frequently abused for my moko kauae, subjected to racial slurs, and even had death threats directed at me and my whānau." – Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer
Shaw himself has been the victim of a politically motivated attack after he was physically assaulted while walking to Parliament on March 14, 2019.
The man, who broke Shaw’s eye socket, was later that year sentenced to prison for injuring with intent to injure.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer echoes Shaw’s concerns saying candidates received all sorts of attacks and threats at the 2020 election and she expects it to be worse next year.
“I was frequently abused for my moko kauae, subjected to racial slurs, and even had death threats directed at me and my whānau.
“This was before Te Pāti Māori was elected to Parliament, so you can imagine this has only ramped up as our movement has grown,” Ngarewa-Packer tells Newsroom.
The backlash against the party was extreme when it came to issues around advancing Māori, such as Māori wards, the Treaty, co-governance, Matariki and Māori history in schools.
“We need to know as a tangata whenua minority that we are able to participate in our democracy without threats and fear,” she said.
The concerns around safety come after deputy prime minister Grant Robertson revealed he’s increasingly having to call on the diplomatic protection squad (DPS) for security when out at public events.
In Whangārei in July Robertson had DPS travel with him after online chatter on Facebook raised the threat level against the senior MP.
Some events on the day were impacted – one was cancelled altogether – and a group yelled obscenities at Robertson from the airport after blocking his entry, forcing his vehicle to have to wait on the tarmac before take-off.
“In the end it did play out unfortunately in the way that we thought it might.
“They disrupted a meeting I was having with some social service providers, they went to the airport to blockade the entrance, and they were screaming and yelling at me that I was a paedophile, and various other revolting things,” Robertson says.
While DPS were there to protect Robertson, he says they can’t possibly be there to protect MPs from all political parties and that is something that needs to be considered ahead of next year’s campaign.
If the intensity and severity of the threats don’t subside it’s likely Labour will reconsider some of its traditional campaigning tools, including walkabouts at shopping malls.
“If someone expresses a fear for their safety you should take it seriously and hear them out but we also need to keep it in perspective, there are New Zealanders who face dangers and I wouldn’t have thought politicians were chief amongst them." – ACT Party leader David Seymour
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern tells Newsroom things have slightly improved in the last seven months, after heightened tensions around the time of Covid vaccination.
She says it's too early to tell what might be needed at next year’s campaign as it is a dynamic environment and things could still change.
ACT leader David Seymour supports being collegial and says “if our colleagues are feeling under threat and we’re in a position to help then we certainly will”.
“I’m not 100 percent certain what that would achieve,” he says.
The problems are a few people outside of Parliament and the solution is DPS, which Seymour says the ACT Party can’t help with.
“If someone expresses a fear for their safety you should take it seriously and hear them out but we also need to keep it in perspective, there are New Zealanders who face dangers and I wouldn’t have thought politicians were chief amongst them,” he said.
Labour’s campaign chair and Cabinet Minister, Megan Woods, is happy to be part of a cross-party group, but says ultimately “it’s up to each party as to how they choose to manage their campaigns”.
“New Zealand can rightly be proud of the easy access we have to politicians and it’s in everyone’s interest we keep it that way.
“Unfortunately threats against politicians have been on the rise and that means we do need to give thought to safety,’’ Woods says.
National’s campaign chair and senior MP Chris Bishop says he hasn’t heard of any concerns from his colleagues about safety, and leader Christopher Luxon has said the same.
However, Bishop is happy to contribute to a cross-party group if one is set up.
“I’m always happy to talk, but nobody has raised any issues with National, including the Green Party or the Labour Party, who seem to be more keen on raising the issue through media,’’ he says.
