#Wellington Region

[dream-world-universe]

Castlepoint, North Island, New Zealand: Castlepoint is a small beachside settlement on the Wairarapa coast of the Wellington Region of New Zealand. It is home to a lighthouse which stands near the top of the northern end of a reef. The reef is about one kilometre long. Wikipedia

[classicalhighways]

State Highway 2 between Featherston and Remutaka Pass, Wellington region, New Zealand by Mike Davidson

[city-flag-tournament]

Bonus Poll

The current flag of Wellington, Wellington Region, New Zealand (Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Te Upoko o te Ika, Aotearoa) vs The current flag of Poole, Dorset, England

*Officially, both of these creatures are supposed to be dolphins.

[beholdingslut]

the single greatest shock of nona to this day is still that john caused a nuclear war and used nuclear weapons like broooooo i know you’ve seen the nuclear free new zealand sign that’s been up by wellington airport since the 80s. come on now

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"SPRING FLOOD NO BAR TO ENTHUSIASTIC VICTORY BOND SALESMAN," Toronto Star. May 13, 1943. Page 2. ---- CLOSED TO TRAFFIC is this section of the Queen Elizabeth Way near Jordan. Several tons of earth were sucked away by heavy rains.

FLOOD WATERS didn't keep Duncan Sinclair, chairman, North Wellington Victory bond unit, off the job. Here he sells a bond to a marooned householder.

[jontycrane]

Marchant Ridge Track

Probably the quickest way to get above the Tararua bushline from Wellington, a return walk to Marchant Ridge made for a decent day out in the hills. It’s only a 45 minute drive from central Wellington to the DOC car park on Kiwi Ranch Road, allowing access into the Kaitoke Regional Park area of the Tararua Ranges. On the way I stopped at the Stuart Macaskill Lakes lookout for early morning still…

[tloaak]

today we lost the great Efeso Collins, during a charity event to raise funds for clean drinking water for children in the pacific. here is his incredible parliamentary maiden speech from just last week (transcript below). i encourage you to listen, and if you can, donate to childfund's water fund here

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Mai i ngā hau o Ōtāhuhu-nui-a-Rangi, o Maungarei, o Motukaroa; mai i ngā awa o Hikuwaru, o Tāmaki e rere ki te Waitematā, kei te Mānukanuka-o-Hoturoa, ko Kaiwhare, ko Taramainuku kua tau, kua tau ki ngā whenua o Ngāti Toa Rangatira, o Taranaki Whānui ki Te Ūpoko o Te Ika. Tēnā anō tatou.

[From the winds of Ōtāhuhu, of Mount Wellington, of Hamlin's Hill; from the rivers of Hikuwaru, of Tāmaki flowing to the Waitematā, to the Mānukau Harbour; Kaiwhare and Taramainuku have arrived, have arrived to the lands of Ngāti Toa Rangatira, of Taranaki Whānui in the Wellington region. Greetings to us all.]

E fakatālofa atu ki te māmālu o koutou na tamāna ma na mātua, vena foki na uho ma tuafāfine kua mafai ke fakatahi i te po nei. Vikia te Atua ko tātou kua mafai ke fakatahi venei. Mālo ma fakafetai.

Fai mai ina ua teʻi ae Iakopo i le mea sa moe ai, ona ia fai ane lea, e moni lava e i ai Ieova i le mea nei. E moni lava e i ai Ieova i le mea nei. Faafetai le Atua aua e le faaitiitia lou viiga. Ua ifo i ati malie tuʻumoega o le taeao le sa tafa i vanu tafaoga o manu sisina, ae sa faalepa le au pea, sa fili ma le manoa le fetu taʻimatagi, ae sei faalaolao le puli matagi aua ua nofoia vao tutuʻi i le malumalu ma nuʻu malumau o le maota.

Ou te le fagota la i le sao aua ua uma ona fili le utu ma uu le vao fofou. Fai mai le matematega nai tumua, ua pei o se iʻa e moemauga o le atuolo, o foliga matagofie ia ma le maualuga, maualuga lava o lenei aso aisea, ae a lea ua malutaueʻe le tiʻa sa maluʻia, ua tapu lalaga foʻi le vaʻa o le Tuimanʻua mamana ua atoa laʻau i fogaʻa.

Faafetai le Atua le Tama, le Alo ma le Agaga Sa, aua sa tu i Fagalilo tapaau o le alataua, ae sa matemate foʻi aiga sa Tagaloa pe tua ma ni a lenei aso. Ae faafetai i le Atua, aua ua tepa i ula, tagaʻi i ula, foʻi atu lou viiga e faavavau. Faafetai i le tapuaʻiga a oʻu matua ma oʻu aiga, faafetai tele i matua o si oʻu toʻalua ma ona aiga, i le latou lagolago aemaise talosaga molia. Faafetai i uo ma e masani, aemaise o le paʻia o le aufaigaluega totofi a le Atua, i soʻo se fata faitaulaga—Faafetai tatalo. Ae faapitoaugafa saʻu faafetai i si oʻu toalua Finevasa Fia aemaise si aʻu fanau pele Tapuiela ma Asalemo faafetai tatalo, malo le onosaʻi. Ae tapuaʻi maia ma le manuia.

Mr Speaker, it is an indescribable feeling to stand up and address this House. As a son of Samoan immigrants who made the mighty Ōtara 274—Southside hard—their home, I am well aware of the giants whose shoulders I stand on and the masters whose feet I learnt at. The courage, foresight, entrepreneurial spirit, and hope of our ancestors who journeyed thousands of years ago through the vast waters of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa brings me here today.

My parents arrived in New Zealand in the early 1960s, told that this was the land of milk and honey. Dad started off as a taxi driver with South Auckland Taxis, and mum on the factory floor at New Zealand Forest Products in Penrose. We lived in a four-bedroom State house on Preston Road in Ōtara, and I attended local schools: East Tāmaki Primary, Ferguson Intermediate, and the great Tangaroa College. We're forever grateful for the State house that was our home for around 20 years, and the quality public education we received from our local State schools.

I did try my hand for a short period at a decile 10 school outside of Ōtara, but that experiment lasted only two weeks. It was during the time in the late 1980s, when families from poorer areas were being discouraged from going to local schools because they weren't considered up to scratch. I'm glad we changed course and decided to high school it in Ōtara, where the motto of our school was "Waiho i te tokā tu Moana"—"Steadfast like a rock in the sea".

Later, at university, I went on to write my Master's dissertation on brown flight, critiquing the Picot reforms that have wreaked havoc on our public schooling system. That period was also a challenging time for my family because we were being told by our teachers to stop speaking Samoan at home and only to speak English. My parents didn't want us to fail at school, so we were allowed to speak English at home and over time we stopped speaking Samoan altogether. In the end, I lost my language. I struggled, I was embarrassed, and I felt incomplete. Even speaking to you in Samoan this evening gives me major tremors.

There's a saying in Samoan: "E le tu fa'amauga se tagata"—no one stands alone, no one succeeds alone—and, for me, no one suffers alone. Over the past years, with the support of my family and friends, I've taken to trying to converse again in Samoan, reading more texts in Samoan, praying in Samoan, and sending our youngest to a local Samoan early childhood centre. Our beautiful language, Gagana Samoa, has returned to our home and is helping to overcome the inadequacy that had taken root in my soul.

As I speak this evening, I'm mindful of the many young people who are navigating these at times treacherous and unsettled waters in life, filled with so much potential, energy, and hope, yet too often misunderstood. In my time as a youth worker in South Auckland, I've spoken with hundreds of young people with massive dreams for the future. We need youth workers, we need social workers, and we need mentors to walk alongside our young people, and, yes, we want our youth to be responsible and caring and considerate. So it's our job in this House to resource the people and organisations who will model the behaviour to them that we expect, but who also won't give up on them and won't come with a saviour mentality.

Many of our societal challenges are driven by poverty. We can achieve greater social cohesion and lift our sense of belonging by addressing poverty. I've been honoured to run youth mentoring programmes for nearly 25 years—that's about how old I am—and to this day I mentor young people. When we undertook and published research on youth gangs some years ago, the youth we spoke to had the solutions and just needed the means to make it happen. Too many of our young people are filling our prisons, and it is wasted human potential. Give them the tools, the resources, and the means to make a meaningful contribution to the world, and they will. I was at a conference recently about the threats to democracy and an attendee spoke about their work in developing nations and used the familiar retort, "You can't eat democracy." And I couldn't agree more. This House, this centre of democracy, needs to do more to engage our people, all of our people, so that they can see this House is not just relevant but an essential part of their lives.

The greatest challenge facing our generation is climate change. The Pacific Islands nations are among the most vulnerable to climate change in the world. The world's continued reliance on fossil fuels, loss of coral reefs, rising sea levels, and increasing severe weather patterns means that our extended whānau in the Pacific are in immediate danger. We, as a collective, must do all we can to do as we say out south "flip the script". Truth is, those who've done the least to create this predicament are being the hardest hit. Our challenges, whether ecological, geopolitical, or cultural, are diverse, but we're bonded by the inextricable ties we have to our lands and our oceans. We've inherited philosophies, knowledge systems, and profound ecological wisdom that holds the answers and drives our collective resilience—from West Papua to Hawai'i. Our fight for a climate resilient, nuclear-free and independent Pacific remains as strong as ever. We are not drowning; we are fighting.

I haven't come to Parliament to learn—learning happens as a matter of course through reflection. I've come to this House to help. Helping is a deliberate act. I'm here to help this Government govern for all of New Zealand, and I'm here to open the door, enabling our communities to connect better with this House. During the election campaign, I spoke to people frustrated about their lot in life, scared for their and their children's futures, and feeling their dreams were slipping away. The people I spoke to expect the Government to do more and move faster. And I know that there are some in this House who believe Government is not the answer to these challenges and that less Government is better. But here's the thing: the Government cannot be a bystander to people suffering confusion and disenfranchisement. New Zealand must close the divide between those who have and those who have not, because the reality for my community is that those who have more money often wield more power, more health, more housing, more justice, more access, more canopy cover, more lobbyists with swipe cards, and more time. And the opposite is true for those who have fewer resources.

It's hard to be poor, it's expensive to be poor, and moreover, public discourse is making it socially unacceptable to be poor. Whether it's bashing on beneficiaries, dragging our feet towards a living wage, throwing shade on school breakfast programmes, or restricting people's ability to collectively bargain for fairer working conditions, we must do better to lift aspirations and the lived realities of all our people. To that end, I want to say to this House with complete surety that the neoliberal experiment of the 1980s has failed. The economics of creating unemployment to manage inflation is farcical when domestic inflation in New Zealand has been driven by big corporates making excessive profits. It's time to draw a line in the sand, and alongside my colleagues here in Te Pāti Kākāriki, we've come as the pallbearers of neoliberalism, to bury these shallow, insufferable ideas once and for all. And this, sir, is our act of love.

Paolo Freire, in his seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, said love is an act of courage, not fear; love is a commitment to others. No matter where the oppressed are found, the act of love is a commitment to their cause, the cause of liberation. The most recent election campaign left many in our Māori communities bruised and targeted for the perceived privileges supposedly bestowed upon them. Shared governance is a rich concept about how we include those who've been excluded for far too long in the work of this House and the democratic institutions that are fundamental to our collective wellbeing. We are Tangata Tiriti and we have nothing to fear. As a New Zealand-born Samoan living in South Auckland, I've experienced, written about, and spoken about racism in this country. I've also been on a well-publicised journey in understanding the needs and views of our rainbow communities, and I have a long way to go. And my message to whānau who often experience the sharp end of discrimination—disabled, ethnic, rainbow, brown, seniors, and neurodiverse—is thank you for trusting us with the responsibility of facilitating a new discussion on how we move forward together and make possible what was once deemed impossible.

The American civil rights activist James Baldwin said, "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." We commit to working across this House as a nation and with each other irrespective of our post code, income bracket, skin colour, or level of qualification attained. But, in order for that work, we must come with humility, the desire to listen, and dare I say it, maybe speaking last. If I was to inspire anyone by getting to this House and my work over the next three years, I hope that it's the square pegs, the misfits, the forgotten, the unloved, the invisible—it's the dreamers who want more, expect more, are impatient for change, and have this uncanny ability to stretch us further.

[glamboyl]

In the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, about 100 miles from the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, there’s a small sliver of land that is populated entirely by wild horses.

These horses — about 450 of them — are the only full-time residents of Sable Island.

“There’s really nowhere else like it on Earth, and it’s one of those places that I think very easily puts you into perspective about our place in this world,” said Drew Doggett, a photographer and filmmaker who has been visiting the Canadian island for more than 10 years. “You’re on this teeny-tiny speck of sand in the middle of the North Atlantic, and you’ve never felt so small. Yet you’re amongst these animals that are thriving in this place that is nothing but sand and dune grasses and a few freshwater ponds.”

Canada’s Sable Island is home to hundreds of wild horses. No other species lives there year-round.

For more than 250 years, horses have been living on the remote, crescent-shaped island, which has a land area of just 13 square miles.

They’re one of the remarkable breeds Doggett photographed for his new coffee-table book “Untamed Spirits: Horses from Around the World.” His images celebrate the beauty and enduring appeal of horses by documenting some of the most exceptional on Earth.

“Their stories of survival and ability to thrive in these places — places that man oftentimes has not been able to — it’s awe-inspiring,” he said.

An Icelandic horse traverses a black sand beach. Iceland is “home to these extraordinary natural features that almost defy reality,” Doggett said.

Some of Doggett’s most striking photos came out of Iceland, which is home to a rugged breed descended from the original Viking horse.

“They live a very surreal and otherworldly existence,” Doggett said. “There are some pretty remarkable geological features, from black sand beaches to dramatic waterfalls, that I wanted to photograph these horses amongst.”

The photos look like something out of a fairy tale or a fantasy novel, artfully shot in front of Iceland’s stunning backdrop.

“They’ve created their own fortune in this really difficult, yet beautiful land, and that’s something that attracted me to their story,” Doggett said.

Another breed that Doggett features in his book are the white horses of Camargue. This ancient breed is native to a remote, marshy area in the south of France, where it has roamed for centuries.

“Large, dark, expressive eyes and a palpable, innate confidence punctuate the raw, bold beauty of the Camargue horses,” Doggett says in his book. “They move swiftly, without hesitation, and charge through the water in the natural hierarchy that inevitably arises within their ranks.”

These horses are semi-wild, protected by herdsmen known as gardians, or “the cowboys of the Riviera.”

“There’s been cave paintings discovered in this region of these horses, (from) probably prehistoric times,” Doggett said. “So there’s this lineage that was fascinating.”

Doggett set up a studio in Florida to take portraits of sport horses.

“I find it fascinating when wild animals have a similar domesticated counterpart,” Doggett said.

Wild breeds were Doggett’s initial fixation when he started this project, but his book also includes portraits of world-class sport horses from the equestrian world.

He set up a mobile studio in barns in Wellington, Florida, and drew on his background in fashion photography.

“I was focusing on the musculature of these horses almost as if they’re kind of carved from marble, and I was using studio lights, almost painting them with light,” he said. “I really enjoyed being able to hone in and focus on — in a very intensive way — the physical attributes of these elite animals.”

When Doggett wanted to do a series of images showing this musculature in motion, he went to the Caribbean and photographed horses swimming in the crystalline waters off the island of Tobago. He linked up with a nonprofit rescue group that cared for retired racehorses, polo horses and show jumpers.

“As their daily exercise, the owners of the nonprofit would swim them off the waters of the beach in Tobago,” he said. “This is part of their everyday existence.”

Doggett would put on scuba gear and take photos below the water’s surface — difficult, he said, but extremely rewarding.

“I felt like underwater was a way which I could highlight these animals’ elegance and grace in a minimalist backdrop,” he said.

Across all of his different photo shoots, Doggett felt there was a common theme among the horses — an untamed spirit that inspired the title of his book.

“Whether they’re domesticated or not, their wildness never truly disappears,” he said. “They also represent strength, resilience, courage, endurance — all these various qualities that I am drawn to and want to celebrate.”

“They represent a certain mythological and symbolic-like ideology that doesn’t really exist in other animals,” he said. “They’re respected and honored symbols around the world. …

“I think there’s something incredibly romantic about the notion that there are these animals out there which exist that are so strong and courageous yet their wildness can’t ever be tamed.”

Drew Doggett’s book “Untamed Spirits: Horses from Around the World,” published by teNeues, is now available.

[officiallordvetinari]

Below are 10 featured Wikipedia articles. Links and descriptions are below the cut.

The election in 1860 for the position of Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford was a competition between two candidates offering different approaches to Sanskrit scholarship. One was Monier Williams, an Oxford-educated Englishman who had spent 14 years teaching Sanskrit to those preparing to work in British India for the East India Company. The other, Max Müller, was a German-born lecturer at Oxford specialising in comparative philology, the science of language.

Adolfo Farsari (Italian pronunciation: [aˈdolfo farˈsaːri]; 11 February 1841 – 7 February 1898) was an Italian photographer based in Yokohama, Japan. His studio, the last notable foreign-owned studio in Japan, was one of the country's largest and most prolific commercial photographic firms. Largely due to Farsari's exacting technical standards and his entrepreneurial abilities, it had a significant influence on the development of photography in Japan.

Girl Pat was a small fishing trawler, based at the Lincolnshire port of Grimsby, that in 1936 was the subject of a media sensation when its captain took it on an unauthorised transatlantic voyage. The escapade ended in Georgetown, British Guiana, with the arrest of the captain, George "Dod" Orsborne, and his brother. The pair were later imprisoned for the theft of the vessel.

Abu Muhammad Hasan al-Kharrat (Arabic: حسن الخراط Ḥassan al-Kharrāṭ; 1861 – 25 December 1925) was one of the principal Syrian rebel commanders of the Great Syrian Revolt against the French Mandate. His main area of operations was in Damascus and its Ghouta countryside. He was killed in the struggle and is considered a hero by Syrians.

Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel (April 23, 1922 – July 24, 1995), who professionally used the mononym Cameron, was an American artist, poet, actress and occultist. A follower of Thelema, the new religious movement established by the English occultist Aleister Crowley, she was married to rocket pioneer and fellow Thelemite Jack Parsons.

Maya stelae (singular stela) are monuments that were fashioned by the Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. They consist of tall, sculpted stone shafts and are often associated with low circular stones referred to as altars, although their actual function is uncertain. Many stelae were sculpted in low relief, although plain monuments are found throughout the Maya region. The sculpting of these monuments spread throughout the Maya area during the Classic Period (250–900 AD), and these pairings of sculpted stelae and circular altars are considered a hallmark of Classic Maya civilization.

The North Norfolk Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) is an area of European importance for wildlife in Norfolk, England. It comprises 7,700 ha (19,027 acres) of the county's north coast from just west of Holme-next-the-Sea to Kelling, and is additionally protected through Natura 2000, Special Protection Area (SPA) listings; it is also part of the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The North Norfolk Coast is also designated as a wetland of international importance on the Ramsar list and most of it is a Biosphere Reserve.

Preening is a maintenance behaviour found in birds that involves the use of the beak to position feathers, interlock feather barbules that have become separated, clean plumage, and keep ectoparasites in check. Feathers contribute significantly to a bird's insulation, waterproofing and aerodynamic flight, and so are vital to its survival. Because of this, birds spend considerable time each day maintaining their feathers, primarily through preening.

The Wells and Wellington affair was a dispute about the publication of three papers in the Australian Journal of Herpetology in 1983 and 1985. The periodical was established in 1981 as a peer-reviewed scientific journal focusing on the study of amphibians and reptiles (herpetology). Its first two issues were published under the editorship of Richard W. Wells, a first-year biology student at Australia's University of New England. Wells then ceased communicating with the journal's editorial board for two years before suddenly publishing three papers without peer review in the journal in 1983 and 1985. Coauthored by himself and high school teacher Cliff Ross Wellington, the papers reorganized the taxonomy of all of Australia's and New Zealand's amphibians and reptiles and proposed over 700 changes to the binomial nomenclature of the region's herpetofauna.

Wulfhere or Wulfar (died 675) was King of Mercia from 658 until 675 AD. He was the first Christian king of all of Mercia, though it is not known when or how he converted from Anglo-Saxon paganism. His accession marked the end of Oswiu of Northumbria's overlordship of southern England, and Wulfhere extended his influence over much of that region.

[dream-world-universe]

Mana Marina, Porirua, New Zealand: Located north of the Capital, and just 18 nautical miles from Marlborough Sounds, Mana Marina is a safe haven from the wild Wellington weather. The best marina to sail to the sounds of Marlborough, nearby beach, train station, supermarket. ....Porirua, a city in the Wellington Region of the North Island of New Zealand, is one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area. The name 'Porirua' is a corruption of 'Pari-rua', meaning "the tide sweeping up both reaches". Wikipedia

[snakemanaustralia]

New to science .... more new species of lizards in Australia.

Hoser, R. T. 2024. Small and overlooked. New species and subspecies within the Australian skink genera Morethia Gray, 1845 and the closely associated Solvonemesis Wells and Wellington, 1984.. Australasian Journal of Herpetology 72:3-13.

Hoser, R. T. 2024. Pleistocene splits in the Australian Odatria tristis (Schlegel, 1839) species and Pantherosaurus rosenbergi (Mertens, 1957) complexes. The formal identification and naming of a new species and three new subspecies.. Australasian Journal of Herpetology 72:14-24.

Hoser, R. T. 2024. Out from the cold - a new species of Australian Jacky Dragon Amphibolurus Wagler, 1830 from the region near the southern border between South Australia and Victoria as well as a new subspecies from New South Wales and Victoria. Australasian Journal of Herpetology 72:25-28.

Hoser, R. T. 2024. Before we end up with mutts! The formal diagnosis of subspecies within the Sydney basin species, Hoplocephalus bungaroides (Schlegel, 1837) and Amalosia lesueurii (Dumeril and Bibron, 1836). Australasian Journal of Herpetology 72:29-34.

Hoser, R. T. 2024. Two new subspecies of Mountain Dragon, Rankinia boylani Wells and Wellington, 1984 from New South Wales, Australia. Australasian Journal of Herpetology 72:35-39.

Hoser, R. T. 2024. A new subspecies of Hesperoedura reticulata (Bustard, 1969) from south-central Western Australia. Australasian Journal of Herpetology 72:40-42.

Hoser, R. T. 2024. Atraserpens, a new genus of Australian small-eyed snakes from Eastern Australia as well as a new subspecies of the Northern Small-eyed Snake Cryptophis pallidiceps (Gunther, 1858) from north-west Western Australia (Serpentes: Elapidae). Australasian Journal of Herpetology 72:43-46.

Hoser, R. T. 2024. Taxonomic vandalism by Wolfgang Wuster and his gang of thieves. Yet more illegally coined names by the rule breakers for species and genera previously named according to the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Australasian Journal of Herpetology 72:47-63.

[city-flag-tournament]

✯ Round 1 ✯ Match 43 ✯

The current flag of Cusco (Qusqu), Cusco Region, Peru

Propaganda:

None

vs.

The current flag of Wellington, Wellington Region, New Zealand (Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Te Upoko o te Ika, Aotearoa)

Propaganda:

None

Tournament Policies: ✯ Choose the flag that's more meaningful to you! ✯ Be respectful of place names and cultural symbols in your commentary! ✯ If you want to submit propaganda, you may do so at the submission form linked in the pinned post. It will only be included if it is submitted before the next post with that flag is drafted and will be included in all subsequent posts the flag is featured in.

[koffecat]

Hu Tao

A print I’ll be selling at my stall at Armageddon Expo on the 6th and 7th of April :)

If you’re in the Wellington region, get some tickets and come over to say hi!!

[ourdreamsareneon]

I'm sorry if you don't follow me for niche takes on gang culture but UGH I hate Christopher Luxon (NZ's PM) for many many reason, one of which is him saying this government is going to be "harder on gangs" BITCH HOW???

Sentencing is already harder if you're in a gang or gang affiliated. You already can't wear patches in most establishments. The cops already are harsher on people if they know they're patched/affiliated/just happen to live in an area like Cannon's Creek where gang crime is high. The government already busted most of the trap houses in the Wellington region back in 2013.

What more are you planning to do that doesn't involve just killing people in the streets? Or locking people up that haven't even committed any crimes (or that you don't have evidence of because mostly everyone who is patched will have committed a crime to get patched.)

Labour actually worked with gangs to reduce violent crime and give back to the communities that are struggling to prevent young people from entering gangs as a last resort. National/ACT/NZ First has no interest in making life easier for people living in poverty and actually seem dead set on putting more people into poverty - and what have we learnt from decades of gang culture? When shit is bad, people join gangs because a gang is a family that will put food on the table and a roof over your head, and a government is a cold, careless institution that will put you on the streets and starve you so that they have one less person to give health care to.