Dame Tariana Turia also revealed she had chosen not to be vaccinated. Photo / Supplied
Dame Tariana Turia also revealed she had chosen not to be vaccinated. Photo / Supplied
Dame Tariana Turia has made a bizarre claim about Jacinda Ardern in an interview that saw her question the safety of Covid vaccines and reveal her own unvaccinated status.
In an interview with Karyn Hay on RNZ last night, Turia said she has no confidence in the leadership of Jacinda Ardern and accused her government of "bullying" the protesters.
She compared the protest to the foreshore and seabed protests, which were met by government representatives.
"That's our right as New Zealanders," Turia said.
The former Labour and Te Pāti Māori MP said the Government was "abusing their power" by choosing not to engage with those occupying Parliament's lawn.
She said she was against mandates in principle and compared the issue to politicians' decision not to meet with the protesters, saying they were both about "power and authority, and the abuse of it".
"We trust people to do what they know to be best for themselves," Turia said.
Turia, 77, expressed wholehearted support for the protesters but said she was getting "a bit long in the tooth" to join them in person.
Turia accused Ardern's Government of "bullying" the protesters. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The interview took a bizarre turn when Turia recalled footage she claimed to have seen of the PM " almost" performing a Nazi salute.
"I have no confidence in her, I've seen a video of her that was on TV a while ago where she was doing almost a 'Heil Hitler' salute, as a young socialist."
A moment of silence followed the comment, before Hay asked: "Are you serious?"
"I'm deadly serious," Turia responded.
Asked if she believed that Ardern had Nazi sympathies, Turia said: "I certainly believe that she's a socialist."
"Nazi and socialist, the two don't necessarily go hand in hand," Hay responded.
"Well, I don't know so much," Turia said.
The Prime Minister's office declined to comment to the Herald when approached for a response to Turia's claims.
Hay continued the interview for five minutes after the exchange, in which Turia continued to criticise the Government for refusing to meet the protesters and said that she would have chosen a path of engagement if she had been in Parliament.
Dame Tariana Turia also revealed she had chosen not to be vaccinated. Photo / Supplied
She also revealed she remained unvaccinated and questioned the safety of vaccines, saying that her children were "very opposed" to her receiving vaccinations due to her ongoing ill health.
She said she was choosing to stay at home and avoid locations that required vaccine passports, out of respect for those vaccinated people who wished to avoid the unvaccinated.
The Ministry of Health says the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, the most common vaccine in NZ, is very safe and was formally tested on more than 40,000 people before it was used - half received the vaccine, the other half a placebo which consisted of slightly salty water.
In the clinical trials, it was found that the Pfizer vaccine gave 95 per cent protection against the symptoms of Covid.
Since it started being used widely, hundreds of millions of people have now received it.
