Labour cabinet minister and Northland candidate Willow-Jean Prime, is experiencing the worst racism of her two decades in politics, she has told Waatea News.
Prime said she is used to racist heckling after seven election campaigns but what she has encountered at recent debates in Kerikeri and Paihia has been “unhinged”.
“I have given it my time and energy in respect for democracy, but what I am seeing in this election is very different to what I’ve experienced in the past - and I do think it is unhinged, and it is disrespectful,” she said.
Prime told Waatea News that a mostly Pākehā crowd did not want to hear anything she had to say and constantly jeered her about Māori preferential treatment.