A West Auckland lawn mower says he’s received death threats after a Facebook post from Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere accused him of vandalising election hoardings.
Emerald Lawns operator Steve Howley told RNZ he didn’t go to work on Thursday because he was fearful of being attacked.
But, Tamihere said the issue is now with the police who will determine the “veracity” of the claims.
Pictures of Howley and his work vehicle were posted to Tamihere’s Facebook page, who urged his follow to help identify the owner the vehicle and thanked “vigilant bystanders” for capture the footage, following the vandalism of election hoarding for Tamaki Makaurau byelection candidate Oriini Kaipara.
Howley said he was there cleaning his own signs, which had also been vandalised, and had no idea he’d been photographed. …
Howley said he had since filed a report with the police.
“I’m not even into politics. I have no interest in any political party. All I’ve tried to do is get a small business off the ground and build it… this could damage my business. It’s just crazy, it’s nuts.” he said.
No apology, no retraction. Just a torrent of online abuse. It would be very simple to verify that he had his own signs there.
You may also have seen that Hobson’s Pledge used a stock image (purchased from a stock image library) of a woman for one of their campaigns. The woman complained (fair enough) but here’s what TPM did:
Te Pāti Māori were quick to post images of the billboard on their social media pages along with the personal phone numbers of people working at LUMO. This was the contact information of staff – from the finance team to marketing to sales. They have all received huge numbers of abusive phone calls, including threats. This was explicitly what Te Pāti Māori wanted. They said they “encouraged” their supporters to contact the staff from the company.
As of about an hour or two ago, the party has removed the post from their Facebook and Instagram. But it was too late. The comments on the post itself were atrocious, but the intimidation campaign they instigated was unacceptable.
My own address was posted publicly also. We were told we were going to get “smashed”, “death to all white people” was called for, and there were open plans discussed to destroy the digital billboards.
This isn’t a bug, its a feature.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders
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