Listen Now: 
A Rape Crisis volunteer says some Maori men pushing for Mike Tyson to visit New Zealand are blinded by the stars in their eyes.
Manukau Urban Maori Authority Chief Executive Willie Jackson has written to the Minister of Immigration in support of a visa application so the former world heavyweight boxing champion can bring his Broadway show here.
He wants Tyson, who served time in jail for rape, to speak to young Maori on a South Auckland marae about how they can turn their lives around.
Sandra Peipi, the kaitakawaenga Maori for the National Network Against Sexual Violence, says he is not the sort of person who should be put before rangatahi Maori as a rangatira.
"He’s a convicted rapist. He’s a known wife basher and women basher and even today still makes derogatory and oppressive statements about particular women who have been his victims and it would seem women who are in a position of power," Ms Peipi says.
She says there are plenty of motivational speakers in Aotearoa who have risen from poverty or otherwise turned their lives around who don’t keep making the same mistakes.
RELATED NEWS
