The Huddle: What does the Greens situation mean for Labour's chances?

Let us get ourselves to The Huddle right now. We have Liam Here, who is a Labor- a lawyer and a National Party member, and Oscar Kightley, um, artist and local government politician. Hello, you two.

G'day, Heather. G'day, Liam.

Now, Oscar, tell me, how bad have the Greens made this today?

Well, [sighs] um, gosh, you know, one thing we do know is that you're not gonna diminish or, or, or, or, or help New Zealand's gang problem by ignoring them, uh, as we've done or by increasing punishments. And I think actually one way to g- you know, help these people leave gangs is, is actually to f- is to get them more connected with the community and, and if that takes meetings from politicians, then-

Yeah

... uh, you know, it's a positive-

But the problem, Oscar, just to be clear, the problem is not the meeting.

Yeah. [clears throat]

I don't have a problem with anybody-

Mm

... meeting with gangs. That's fine.

Yeah.

Should you have a picture with the f- the gangs and then put your fingers up, your thumbs up, and go, 'Yeah, awesome,' and then the next day when you're in trouble for it, you go, "And you know what? We're also gonna send them some millions for the meth program, and we're gonna take the- we, we're gonna remove the gang patch ban." Is this, is this good politics, is it?

Um, [sighs] a, a, a picture is such a, a part of the daily language of, of, of everything. It, it doesn't mean what it used to mean. There's... Everybody has pictures with everyone, and, you know, I don't see that as-

I don't know. Do you have a picture with a neo-Nazi?

Uh, no, but I've had a-

Why not? Everybody has pictures with everyone.

[laughs]

[laughs]

Yeah, no, fair point. Fair point.

Okay.

But, yeah, I, I don't know. I j- I just think, you know, gangs, we made gangs. This country made gangs through, through wards officer orders years ago-

Mate, um, mate, come on

... all these smart policies, all these things like gangs-

These men, some of these men-

Yeah

... not necessarily the ones in the picture-

Yeah

... some of these men rape women.

[sighs] Yeah, but God, you meet church leaders, and some of those, you know, some of their colleagues, uh, do awful stuff, too. You know, do you punish a whole community because of the actions of some of them?

You want to have a picture with Brian Tamaki?

I, I would. He's a, he's-

Would you?

... a man of his... Yeah, I would.

Would you?

I mean, I've, I've met him. I've, I've, I've shaken hands with him, and I would sit down with him and try and hear what he's on about.

Okay, but anyway-

So, yeah

... you're not the one who's got to be punished for this. Liam-

Yeah

... how bad is this for the Greens? Like, g- o- on a scale of, you know, oh, look, old mate was stealing stuff from, from Scotties down the road, and nothing really happened to the polls through to Metiria Turei, the welfare fraud, and the polls crashed, where are we?

Yeah, it's really bad. I mean, I take a really different view to Oscar. I just think, look, I mean, it's, it's very easy to romanticize and make excuses, but at the end of the day, these are organizations that are best known for extortion, for drug distribution, um, for, um, [laughs] for rape, for murder, uh, and, um, you know, time and time again, the