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March 03, 2022
Alt-right grifters behind Parliament riot says MP
Adam Gifford
Posted On March 3, 2022
Download AudioGreen MP Teanau Tuiono wants to see sanctions against not only yesterday’s rioters but those who turned the parliament protest into an alt-right recruitment drive.
Police arrested 89 people yesterday, including former New Conservative Party leader Leighton Baker.
Mr Tuiono says the saddest part of the past three weeks has been watching Māori being lured into something that wasn’t their fight.
“I know the police will go through the footage and arrest the people who did the things but it is also the enablers we need to think about – the religious con artists and the right-wing grifters that enabled what happened on the steps of Parliament,” he says.
Mr Tuiono says he tells all his vaccine-hesitant relatives who say they don’t trust mainstream media to get off mainstream social media, which is the gateway to misinformation, and instead get their news from Māori media.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says those involved in the protest didn’t want to engage in a healthy debate.
Speaking at an urgent debate in Parliament today, she called out the imported misinformation and disinformation spread by protest organisers.
While it feels hard being in the pandemic, soon tourists will return and mandates will lift.
Ms Ardern said 600 police officers and 50 firefighters were involved in yesterday’s action, and 40 were injured.
There were 23,183 new community cases of Covid-19 reported today and 503 cases in hospital.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says 30 to 40 of the hospital cases are Delta, with the rest Omicron.
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