“The current gang member-driven outbreak of COVID-19 is the logical conclusion of the Government's tending and nurturing approach,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.
“Tending and nurturing is the translation of Operation Tauwhiro that was supposed to take on the gangs.
“I asked the Prime Minister in Parliament about this back in February, and she ducked and dived but the truth is the Government has a program that's designed to tend and nurture gangs.
“Meanwhile, they paid gang members to run bogus programs with no outcomes to stop people taking drugs the gangs themselves were selling, using money that had been confiscated off the gangs for selling drugs, supposedly as a punishment.
“Then they let gang members isolate at home when everyone else had to go to MIQ. Now we wonder why we have an anti-social group of New Zealanders who are flouting the laws and spreading the virus and undermining the efforts of every other law-abiding person in this country.
“The Government has the wear the responsibility for this outbreak continuing, driven on by the behaviour of gang members which they themselves have tended and nurtured over the past four years.”