Chris Hipkins says Labour was wrong to fund Mongrel Mob-run rehabilitation programme
The Labour leader said governments should support methamphetamine treatment but should not give funding to gangs, revisiting a decision made while his party was in government.
New Zealand Labour leader Chris Hipkins said his party was wrong to fund Kahukura, a Mongrel Mob-run addiction rehabilitation programme, according to an NZ Herald report published on 19 October 2026. His change of position brings a decision made under the previous Labour government into the current election campaign’s dispute over politicians’ engagement with gang members.
Hipkins told RNZ’s Morning Report that governments should support treatment for methamphetamine addiction but should not give funding to gangs, the NZ Herald reported. His objection was to the recipient of the funding, rather than to public support for addiction treatment.
How Kahukura received government funding
Labour approved $2.75 million from the Proceeds of Crime Fund in 2020 for Hard 2 Reach to deliver Kahukura, according to the NZ Herald. The newspaper reported that then-prime minister Jacinda Ardern and ministers Grant Robertson, Poto Williams and Kris Faafoi signed off on the decision. The funding became public a year later, and Ardern defended it at the time.
Hard 2 Reach describes Kahukura as a marae-based programme addressing drug addiction, particularly methamphetamine, and trauma among hard-to-reach Māori communities. It says the initiative primarily served members and whānau of the Mongrel Mob’s Chaindog chapter, combining Māori healing approaches with clinical therapeutic practices.
The provider says participants spent eight weeks in a residential programme followed by eight weeks of wraparound support. It says a pilot began in 2020 and that its results led to Proceeds of Crime Fund support for nine initiatives between 2021 and 2024.
The NZ Herald reported that funding was pulled in 2024. Hard 2 Reach says Kahukura has ended because of a lack of government funding; that account does not establish why the funding stopped. The newspaper also cited a report on the programme’s final intake saying a significant number of participants appeared to remain drug-free in follow-up testing three months later. That finding concerns the final intake, rather than the programme’s overall effectiveness.
Gang contacts become an election issue
Hipkins’s remarks followed criticism of social-media photographs showing Green and Te Pāti Māori politicians meeting Mongrel Mob members during the election campaign, the NZ Herald reported. He also opposed MPs visiting or campaigning at a gang pad and ruled out those parties holding several major ministerial portfolios if they entered the next government.
National justice spokesman Paul Goldsmith criticised Labour over the earlier funding, according to the NZ Herald. The exchange puts both Labour’s past decision and its potential relationships with other parties under scrutiny during the campaign.
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Sources and context
- 'A mistake': Hipkins on Ardern's sign-off of $2.75m for Mongrel Mob-run programmeNZ Herald
- KahukuraHard 2 Reach
AI-assisted article checked against the listed sources. NewsJaws did not conduct interviews or attend the reported events.