Focus Live: Jacinda Ardern vs Christopher Luxon during question time at Parliament.
National Party leader Christopher Luxon has spoken out after his party and some of his MPs shared memes based on Will Smith's assault of Chris Rock during the 2022 Oscars.
Luxon said today he was aware of the memes being posted, and it was inappropriate for MPs to share the images.
"I was pleased to hear that they were taken down within 20 minutes," he said.
Luxon said the National Party did not condone any type of violence and told the Herald he had conversations with MPs who shared the meme.
"We will make mistakes ... we should front up when we see it," he said.
The National Party's official account and at least one of its own MPs posted memes based on the now infamous Will Smith Oscars slap before swiftly deleting them yesterday.
The images, which paired captions critical of the Labour Government and the Prime Minister with photos of Will Smith assaulting comedian Chris Rock, were posted yesterday as many around the world leapt on the opportunity to make capital from the incident.
One version was posted to the National Party's official Facebook account and labelled Chris Rock as "Hardworking Kiwis" while showing Will Smith as "Labour's cost of living crisis".
The meme posted to the National Party's official page. Photo / Supplied
Another meme was also shared by the unsanctioned National Party's Meme Working Group page on Facebook.
It showed Will Smith as "Luxon" and Chris Rock as "Labour's poll numbers".
That one remains online at time of publication.
The post on the unsanctioned National Party memes page. Photo / Supplied
One comment on the Working Group page suggested the meme should be "More like JA ... 'I reject the premise of that question'," in reference to Jacinda Ardern's technique of batting away questions.
That was echoed by MP Simon O'Connor, who posted that exact meme to his social media before also deleting it.
Simon O'Connor later deleted this image. Photo / Supplied
The gag was popular across the Tasman, with Australia's Young Liberals sharing a similar meme.
They attached the words, "hardworking Australians" across the face of Chris Rock and attached to Smith it wrote, "Labor's higher taxes".
The Young Liberals in Australia shared this meme. Photo / Supplied
The Young Liberals shared its use of the image to Twitter with the caption: "Labor can't manage money, that's why they come after yours".
The meme was widely criticised on Twitter - and the similarity to the National Party's attempts also didn't go unnoticed.
