Masterton leader for white pride group

STALWARTS: Right Wing Resistance co-founder Kyle Chapman (left) and Masterton-based national director Vaughan Tocker. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

Masterton man Vaughan Tocker has been made national director of the Right Wing Resistance New Zealand organisation.

Mr Tocker, who works in metal recycling and car parts in the town, was also promoted to the organisation's rank of lieutenant colonel and was the New Zealand ambassador for chapter leaders in Europe, after earlier being made regional leader for the lower North Island since joining the organisation about three years ago.

Kyle Chapman, co-founder of the nationwide organisation, said they had forged international affiliations with similar groups overseas soon after forming about six years ago, and today had chapters around the globe.

He said there were about five of the original 21 founders of RWRNZ still active and he took on the role of leader soon after the organisation was established.

Mr Chapman, who is based in Christchurch, said there were close to 100 active members across New Zealand not including supporters, and a women's or Valkyries division, that was involved in welfare and family roles within the organisation.

Mr Chapman said Mr Tocker had been made the head of the RWRNZ management team, which also included a representative each from the North and South islands.

"The national director role is something new really. I can't lead the New Zealand organisation and the growing numbers of international chapters as well," Mr Chapman said.

Mr Chapman will work as an adviser to the national director and remained chairman of the RWRNZ national committee. He said primary issues for the organisation were freedom of political expression and opposition to "mass" immigration and multiculturalism in New Zealand. He refused to comment on immigrants to New Zealand like billionaire Canadian film mogul James Cameron, who in 2012 shifted his family to South Wairarapa, buying farms and firms in the district.

"For us an individual case isn't something we want to be drawn into. I don't know the person individually. To us it's about mass immigration. If there was 200,000 Canadians arriving this year, we'd have something to say about that."

Mr Chapman, who often visits Masterton, said the RWRNZ membership growth in the lower North Island had "exceeded everywhere else, primarily because of Vaughan's commitment and self-sacrifice".

"Areas we thought were dead and would never have membership have become our strongest areas, like Palmerston North and Taranaki," he said. "I have complete confidence in Vaughan's abilities to help run the national management team."

Mr Tocker said there were five active members in Wairarapa, including himself, and he was committed to recruitment, circulating flyers and posters that protested immigration laws and multi-culturalism, and supporting other political stances RWRNZ championed.

Every year he took part in National Flag Day in October and White Pride Day in March, he said, and on Tuesday hand delivered to Parliament a "letter of defiance" protesting mass immigration.

Mr Tocker, also a member of the organisation's national committee, planned to step up his political engagement within the region, he said, but was yet to meet Wairarapa MP Alastair Scott.

"We'll probably storm his office sometime in the future. But we we won't say any more than that, it might spoil the surprise," Mr Chapman said.