Vandals smash office

Tuariki Delamere says it looks like a bullet hole. Photo / Michael Craig

Far-right racists suspected in attack.

An office belonging to a former immigration minister has been hit by vandals in what is being described as a racist attack.

Police were last night investigating the cause of a 2.1cm-diameter hole left in the smashed front window of the Mt Albert office of former Cabinet minister Tuariki Delamere.

Shards of glass sprayed up to 2m inside the modest New North Rd TDA Immigration office.

Etched beneath the cracked single-sheet front window were the words "QUACK OSMS", the latter word in lettering similar to National Front insignia.

An angry Delamere yesterday said a bullet had damaged his New North Rd office and his business was being targeted by an anti-immigration "scuzzbags". "It looks like a bullet has gone through it and it looks like some sort of National Front message scrawled on the footpath," he said.

"It's obviously someone who doesn't like what we're doing, but it won't stop us. I've no time for cowards who act like that."

Delamere said he had received abuse as a government minister but this was the first time one of his three offices had come under direct attack.

It's believed the attack occurred overnight on Friday. The immigration office was closed for business yesterday.

The attack follows the desecration of graves in Auckland's Grafton Cemetery just over a week ago. Three men have been charged with wilful damage after anti-semitic graffiti and swastikas were sprayed on 20 headstones. In another attack, a Grey Lynn house being renovated was defaced with similar Nazi emblems. Police are investigating whether there are links among the attacks.