National leader Judith Collins on gang leaders being given exemptions to enter Auckland. Video / Mark Mitchell
National leader Judith Collins said gang members are not hard to reach, criticising the Government's excuse for cooperating with the members of the Waikato Mongrel Mob Kingdom.
She said gangs were so easy to reach that the Government could co-opt gang methamphetamine deliveries to extend the vaccine rollout to their members, noting gangs are not that hard to reach if it is still possible to buy drugs from them.
Covid-19 Minister Chris Hipkins said he backed the exemption, saying "I back any method that will help us to reach those who are hard to reach, and back the Ministry of Health and police to make the right decisions about how we do that".
"I keep hearing how apparently they're a 'hard to reach community' - well I've thought of a way of doing it: you ring them up, you ask for your methamphetamine, they deliver it to you, not that hard to reach - they come to you, how about they get the jab while they're there," Collins said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the exemption was because Fatupaito was "part of our work to make sure that we are tracking and tracing and isolating Covid".
But Collins said there were plenty of gang chiefs in Auckland who could be used.
"Are you saying there's not enough gang leaders in Auckland to do it without having to have the Waikato come up to Auckland and go back again.
"All the information we've received says that Covid has got into the Waikato through gangs."
She said the decision was an insult to people who wanted to leave Auckland for other essential reasons.
"It is a total insult to all those Aucklanders - all those people who genuinely doing their very best to comply with the rules are giving up their freedoms to have these Mongrel Mob and other gang members coming and going supposedly as essential workers.
"The gangs are still selling methamphetamine and they're doing deliveries and collecting debts.
"Here we have one rule for one people and one rule for everyone else."
In a statement, via a spokesperson, Fatupaito said he has been liaising with health officials and police to assist in reaching people in communities within the gang's chapters and their whānau in Auckland.
He was asked to travel to Auckland by South Seas Healthcare, which has been co-ordinating much of the response to the South Auckland clusters.
"This required immediate intervention from the senior leadership in the Waikato Kingdom, and this onsite intervention ensured compliance and welfare assistance was provided as needed."
