File photo. Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere. Photo: RNZ
Te Pāti Māori says police trespassed a man who unlawfully entered the home of its fourth-ranked candidate Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke on Wednesday morning.
It comes less than a week after her home was invaded and vandalised, with a threatening letter left behind.
Party president John Tamihere said the person involved in the latest incident was "an elderly Pākehā man" who was a well-known advocate and campaigner for the National Party, and the incident was politically motivated.
"Huntly's a small town, and what he wasn't aware of is that whānau were in residence when Hana on her schedule on her facebook page was out campaigning. When he entered the house and was confronted he advised 'oh I thought Hana was out on the campaign trail'," he told Morning Report.
"He then fled the scene and was followed to his house in Huntly, his house has National Party hoardings on it ... these are facts."
Police trespassed the man and could have laid a criminal charge of unlawful entry but had chosen not to, he said, so the party would be seeking further action.
"We are left with no choice but to elevate this matter to the Commissioner.
"We want one law for all people, this guy shouldn't have been trespassed, there should have been more [that] happened to him in terms of illegal entry and a range of other matters that could have been investigated but were not."
Police have confirmed they were making inquiries into reports received in relation to a property in Huntly.
The primary focus for police over the election period is to maintain law and order and ensure the right to freedom of expression was protected, they said.
They expected to have an update on Thursday afternoon.
Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke Photo: Erica Sinclair / Supplied
Maipi-Clarke is standing in Hauraki-Waikato, and at age 20, is one of the youngest candidates of any party.
Tamihere said race-baiting by National and ACT had empowered and emboldened this sort of behaviour, which he said was another in a string of attacks on Maipi-Clarke in the past week.
"Anyone who gets their homes targeted like this are under pressure and traumatised is probably too heavy a term but she's a strong girl and a strong mokopuna and it's a huge impact on her personally and has taken some wind out of her sails as it would with anybody that gets targeted like this.
"In 30 years of politics, I've never seen ... any candidate targeted in such an intentional way, particularly invasion into their own houses."
He said political parties consistently attacking Māori over things like te reo, Three Waters, or with policies that disproportionately affect Māori like limiting benefits or increasing prison populations, "they licence this kind of conduct".
"There has to be some pushback points because a tipping point is reached, and if you keep going down that track what we will have is civil disorder, and what we will have is vigilantism, and what we will have is division."
A National Party spokesperson said it utterly rejected any suggestion of race baiting.
"These are very serious allegations. Police have not been in touch with us and Te Pāti Māori's comments are the first time we were made aware of these allegations.
"National utterly rejects racism and any suggestion that we have engaged in race-baiting."
Speaking to media on Thursday afternoon, National leader Christopher Luxon said: "They're very serious allegations that have been made, we have no further details and we haven't been reached out to by police either, and we don't have any further details about that."
He sai they did not know who the person is.
"We utterly, totally condemn any threatening or intimidating behaviour on any political party candidate, their family or their property. This is New Zealand. We actually believe that we should be able to hold an election campaign where people are free to talk about their principles, their policies and their beliefs."
He said he rejected "outright" that any of National's rhetoric or policies had led to the event.
"All political parties have actually been on the receiving end of abuse, threats and intimidation. We should be able to have a civil discourse where we actually tackle the debate and the issues rather than the individuals."
ACT leader David Seymour said Te Pāti Māori's claim that ACT had empowered and emboldened people to silence Māori should not be taken seriously until there was evidence.
"ACT condemns any acts of abuse or violence on the campaign trail, but trying to stir up political division by baselessly accusing other party leaders of responsibility only makes things worse," he said in a statement.
"Te Pāti Māori and their allies have accused ACT of 'race-baiting' over and over again, but can never provide an example ... New Zealanders are sick and tired of being accused of racism for wanting equal rights for all New Zealanders."
National Party leader Christopher Luxon on Monday said the party condemned any threats and violence against political candidates.
"We have been the recipients of abuse ourselves, and our own candidates and our own volunteers. Just this morning we had [a volunteer] out campaigning that had wood thrown at them and we've had some serious incidents that we've raised with the police."
At the time, Seymour said the party had needed to involve police over multiple threats, saying any kind of political violence was "totally un-Kiwi and unacceptable in New Zealand's democracy".
He acknowledged that women and Māori were being subjected to more abuse than others: "I have no doubt that, looking at the abuse that our female and Māori MPs have taken, that there is a bias in that sense and, yes, ACT's female MPs and Māori women MPs I feel get more and worse abuse, and I wish that was not the case."
However, when asked if political leaders had a responsibility to dampen down supporters from seizing on political rhetoric and taking it too far, Seymour said there was "no suggestion that there's any risk of that".
Labour leader Chris Hipkins last week gave a speech promising to call out race-baiting and explicitly criticising National, ACT and NZ First for their rhetoric, saying it was playing on people's fears and would chip away at the Treaty of Waitangi's place in New Zealand.
