When I saw Brian Tamaki on the news last night, he looked more pompous than ever.

Pompous - not pious.

Because he was the one who instructed his so-called followers to disrupt that drag artist’s kids show and protest at the Auckland Rainbow Parade at the weekend.

From the pictures I’ve seen, both of those events looked pretty ugly. His idea. Under his instructions. And I’ve had a gutsful of this guy. And we need to be condemning him in the strongest way possible.

Because, it seems that’s all we can do. Sadly.

They were doing a particularly vigourous haka at the end of the parade. That wasn’t free speech. That was hate.

I saw one person saying on the news that Tamaki’s Man Up crew is nothing more than a gang and should be treated that way.

This person made particular mention of the gang patch legislation - saying that these guys ride around on motorbikes wearing patches, So why aren’t they included in the gang patch ban?

The organiser of the rainbow parade says there is a difference between freedom of speech and hate speech - and what we saw at the weekend was hate. And I completely agree.

The parade organiser says it was clear that they had set-out to intimidate, to bully, and get their message of misinformation across.

I agree they wanted to intimidate. And I agree they were a bunch of bullies. But I don't know about the misinformation bit, because you never get any information from these clowns (misinformation or otherwise).

And, as per usual, we had weasel words from the Prime Minister when he was asked about it yesterday.

He said he respects peoples right to free speech and he respects people's right to protest, but he said Tamaki’s puppets “went too far”.

You're damn right they went too far. Even by turning up, they went too far. What the PM should have done yesterday was condemn Brian Tamaki and his deluded followers in the strongest way possible.

He should have done what Auckland mayor Wayne Brown did. He said it was nothing short of “thuggery”. Which is a great way to describe it.

I thought Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick was a bit light on it when she said that the rainbow community needs love and support, not hateful rhetoric.

I know what she’s saying, but I want her to condemn these people too.

Because, for me, this wasn’t free speech - it was hate speech.

And remember that this kind of thing isn’t new for this Destiny lot. You’ll remember they got all excited about an event at the library in christchurch that time when there was an event with people in drag reading stories to kids.

And there’s no stopping them.

Last night Tamaki was saying that he doesn’t think they’ve gone far enough yet. And he challenged the Prime Minister to get show some fortitude and to do a Donald Trump, and declare that only two genders will be recognised in New Zealand. Male and female.

So these guys are dangerous. Not because of their mickey mouse beliefs, but because of the way they express them.

If someone doesn’t like the idea of same sex people being in relationships - they’re allowed to feel that way. If someone thinks we should go back to the way it used to be, with just boys and girls and men and women, they can think that too. Good luck to them.

But when people take it to the next level - like we saw at the weekend - that’s not ok by me.

I tell you what else isn’t ok. The fact that this outfit is out there bullying people - dishing out their hatred - and because they call themselves a church, they enjoy all the tax benefits that come with that.

A few years back, some Destiny Church charities were removed from the charities register for not filing their annual tax returns.

Before that happened, more than 70,000 people signed a petition calling for Charities Services to strip the church of its tax-exempt status.

I’ve had a look at the register today and the Destiny Church New Zealand Trust is still there. There are still some regional branches registered as a charity too. Which is a rort.

And, until the government delivers on its promise to crackdown on so-called “charities” not paying tax, we just have to accept that it is what it is.

But that doesn’t mean we have to sit back and let these people do what they want. We can’t make them pay tax. We can’t tell them to take their patches off - because they’re not a gang.

But we can stand up and tell them to pull their heads in.

<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">When I saw Brian Tamaki on the news last night, he looked more pompous than ever.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Pompous - not pious.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Because he was the one who instructed his so-called followers to disrupt that drag artist’s kids show and protest at the Auckland Rainbow Parade at the weekend.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">From the pictures I’ve seen, both of those events looked pretty ugly. His idea. Under his instructions. And I’ve had a gutsful of this guy. And we need to be condemning him in the strongest way possible.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; background-position: 0px 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: var(--urlContextualSpellingAndGrammarErrorV2,); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent;">Because, it seems that’s all we can do. Sadly.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">They were doing a particularly vigourous haka at the end of the parade. That wasn’t free speech. That was hate.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">I saw one person saying on the news that Tamaki’s Man Up crew is nothing more than a gang and should be treated that way.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">This person made particular mention of the gang patch legislation - saying that these guys ride around on motorbikes wearing patches, So why aren’t they included in the gang patch ban?
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">The organiser of the rainbow parade says there is a difference between freedom of speech and hate speech - and what we saw at the weekend was hate. And I completely agree.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">The parade organiser says it was clear that they had set-out to intimidate, to bully, and get their message of misinformation across.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">I agree they wanted to intimidate. And I agree they were a bunch of bullies. But I don't know about the misinformation bit, because you never get any information from these clowns (misinformation or otherwise).
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">And, as per usual, we had weasel words from the Prime Minister when he was asked about it yesterday.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">He said he respects peoples right to free speech and he respects people's right to protest, but he said Tamaki’s puppets “went too far”.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">You're damn right they went too far. Even by turning up, they went too far. What the PM should have done yesterday was condemn Brian Tamaki and his deluded followers in the strongest way possible.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">He should have done what Auckland mayor Wayne Brown did. He said it was nothing short of “thuggery”. Which is a great way to describe it.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">I thought Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick was a bit light on it when she said that the rainbow community needs love and support, not hateful rhetoric.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">I know what she’s saying, but I want her to condemn these people too.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Because, for me, this wasn’t free speech - it was hate speech.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">And remember that this kind of thing isn’t new for this Destiny lot. You’ll remember they got all excited about an event at the library in christchurch that time when there was an event with people in drag reading stories to kids.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">And there’s no stopping them.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Last night Tamaki was saying that he doesn’t think they’ve gone far enough yet. And he challenged the Prime Minister to get show some fortitude and to do a Donald Trump, and declare that only two genders will be recognised in New Zealand. Male and female.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; background-position: 0px 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: var(--urlContextualSpellingAndGrammarErrorV2,); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent;">So these guys are dangerous. Not because of their mickey mouse beliefs, but because of the way they express them.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">If someone doesn’t like the idea of same sex people being in relationships - they’re allowed to feel that way. If someone thinks we should go back to the way it used to be, with just boys and girls and men and women, they can think that too. Good luck to them.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">But when people take it to the next level - like we saw at the weekend - that’s not ok by me.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">I tell you what else isn’t ok. The fact that this outfit is out there bullying people - dishing out their hatred - and because they call themselves a church, they enjoy all the tax benefits that come with that.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">A few years back, some Destiny Church charities were removed from the charities register for not filing their annual tax returns.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Before that happened, more than 70,000 people signed a petition calling for Charities Services to strip the church of its tax-exempt status.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">I’ve had a look at the register today and the Destiny Church New Zealand Trust is still there. There are still some regional branches registered as a charity too. Which is a rort.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">And, until the government delivers on its promise to crackdown on so-called “charities” not paying tax, we just have to accept that it is what it is.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">But that doesn’t mean we have to sit back and let these people do what they want. We can’t make them pay tax. We can’t tell them to take their patches off - because they’re not a gang.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">But we can stand up and tell them to pull their heads in.

Every weekday join the new voice of local issues on Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald, 9am-12pm weekdays.

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Newstalk ZB Canterbury Mornings 9am-12pm with John MacDonald on 100.1FM and iHeartRadio.

Every weekday join the new voice of local issues on Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald, 9am-12pm weekdays. It’s all about the conversation with John, as he gets right into the things that get our community talking. If it’s news you’re after, backing John is the combined power of the Newstalk ZB and New Zealand Herald news teams. Meaning when it comes to covering breaking news – you will not beat local radio. With two decades experience in communications based in Christchurch, John also has a deep understanding of and connections to the Christchurch and Canterbury commercial sector. Newstalk ZB Canterbury Mornings 9am-12pm with John MacDonald on 100.1FM and iHeartRadio.

Every weekday join the new voice of local issues on Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald, 9am-12pm weekdays.

It’s all about the conversation with John, as he gets right into the things that get our community talking.

Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

John MacDonald: Is that all the PM has to say about Destiny Church?

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/9b89c54d-cfc1-4d4d-8e19-b2860184594d/transcript