The wife of Cabinet minister Shane Jones says she was grabbed on the shoulder at Auckland Airport by a man who had shouted angry slurs at her husband.
Dot Jones says she has laid a police complaint, saying politicians and their families should not be accosted while going about their lives.
She said she decided, when approached by the Herald, to speak publicly in part to highlight the risk MPs faced but also as a warning to other MPs’ spouses.
Shane Jones has also spoken about the incident and his wife’s decision to make a police complaint. “If we allow these small infractions to go unchecked it feeds a momentum of malevolence that all MPs and their families are fair game.
“It’s a horrible experience for the spouse of an MP.”
The altercation follows a week in which Green Party MP Benjamin Doyle was targeted in an online campaign that resulted in an “immense” number of death threats.
It comes after research showed threats against MPs had surged, with 98% of the 54 MPs surveyed saying they had suffered harassment, 40% receiving threats of violence and 19% threats against family members.
The Herald had learned the altercation took place after Shane and Dot Jones arrived at Auckland Airport’s domestic terminal to catch the scheduled 8.25am flight home to Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands.
Shane Jones is a member of the NZ First Party and a Cabinet minister with responsibilities for fisheries, regional development and resources.
Dot Jones told the Herald the couple had left their luggage at the regional airport check-in at around 7.30am and were making their way to the main food court area for breakfast when a man started shouting loudly at Jones. Much of the abuse involved offensive language and personal slurs.
As airport workers and other travellers watched, the man continued to shout abuse at Jones along with profane descriptions of NZ First leader and deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters.
“It got so aggressive. We thought he was joking then realised quite quickly he was serious.”
Shane Jones said: “I turned around and said ‘what did you say, mate’ and he came right up in my face and it was a full-throated spray. Then I realised he was addressing his vulgarity at me, that Winston and I would be dog tucker real soon.”
Shane Jones said he thought the man was Australian and asked: “Are you a Kiwi?”
The response from the balding Pākehā man in glasses, who Shane Jones estimated was in his 50s, was to say: “I’m just as Kiwi, in fact I’m more Kiwi than you are.”
Dot Jones said when suddenly confronted with the man moving so close to her husband while shouting in his face – “at hongi distance” – she became aware of phone cameras being directed their way and the potential for the incident to spiral out of control.
She said she was aware that her husband was protective of her wellbeing and was concerned his instinctive response would not be long restrained if abuse continued at such a high-level in such close proximity to his face.
“If there was a fist-fight, that would have been in the news.”
She said she moved to place her hand between the men’s faces telling the man “enough is enough” and to go away.
“His nose hit my palm and he said I assaulted him and he wanted my name.”
Shane Jones said the man, at that point, began berating him: “So fat boy needs a woman to protect him.”
He said: “There was nothing I could say to placate the guy. He was incandescent.”
Dot Jones said she turned to her husband and indicated they should go, turning and walking towards the food court for breakfast.
“My back was turned and he came up behind me and grabbed me. He grabbed my shoulder. It was all so quick.”
Shane Jones, who was a few steps behind, said he saw the man suddenly step past him and grab Dot Jones by the shoulder, turning her so as to cause a loss of balance.
“He had raced ahead to grab her and demand to know her name and for her to show him some identification. He came up from behind – she didn’t see him coming.”
He said his wife had recently recovered from a serious ankle injury and seeing her turn and attempt – successfully – to regain her balance caused concern she would fall and inflame the old injury. “I saw her stumble.”
As Dot Jones recovered her balance, Shane Jones said the man’s wife emerged to intervene, apologising profusely.
“I said, ‘if that’s your husband, he’s a threat to himself’. Another place, another MP, it might not have ended like this.
“I think the most telling remark was [needing] ‘a woman to look after him’. I think the average Kiwi bloke can imagine how that could have gone horribly wrong.
“Bad enough he’s giving me a verbal spray. Manhandling your wife, that’s another level. The bloke, in my view, has committed an offence.”
Dot Jones, who is an NZ First board member, said Air New Zealand and security staff moved in to check on the couple. When told the police would be informed, she was asked if she wanted to lay a complaint.
She said she told those present that she did not want to. “I said ‘no’ because I know Shane doesn’t like to cause a fuss.”
However, having returned home to Northland, she said she thought “he just grabbed me – what the hell just happened here?”.
She said the adrenaline of the moment had passed and been replaced by shock.
“While I said [initially] I don’t want to lay charges, I thought I will do something about it. It’s just not fair on these MPs to be treated this way. I’m just not going to tolerate that.”
On that basis, she said she contacted police again and told officers she did want to lay a complaint.
As the couple had been boarding their flight, they spotted the man who they say accosted them being spoken to by an Auckland Airport-based police officer.
On occasion, Dot Jones said she had accompanied her husband to political events at which there were protests and abuse hurled.
In this instance, though, she said the couple were trying to return home and simply making their way through the airport in search of breakfast.
“It’s just some random person attacking you. It’s something you don’t assume will happen when you’re just getting on with your day. It’s so unfair these politicians are getting this. When it’s after hours, they’re just normal people. They are just normal people doing their jobs.”
Shane Jones said it was not unfamiliar to have people direct abuse at him because of his political roles. “I don’t go to the pub and the reason I don’t go to the pub is because you encounter Dutch courage.”
Auckland Airport said its security staff were on site after the incident and the company was “supporting a police investigation into an incident that took place yesterday at the Domestic Terminal”.
“Auckland Airport has zero tolerance for abuse of any kind and takes matters like this seriously.”
Police said in a statement they were advised that officers “dealt with a confrontation between individuals at Auckland Airport on Saturday morning. No injuries are reported”.
Members of Parliament have faced aggression in recent years with complaints about harassment and stalker-like behaviour increasing.
In 2019, a new agency called the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre was set up with experts from the Ministry of Health and police to identify people seeking to harm politicians or parliamentary staff.
The issue became even more tense after Covid-19 restrictions proved divisive across the community as the number of threats soared – in the year to October 2022, 93 threats were recorded against MPs including 64 against then Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern.
The change of Government and the move onward from Covid-19 issues took some of the heat out of the politicallyfocused environment with the year to October 2024 resulting in 25 recorded threats against MPs, including nine against Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.
Last week, the Green Party said Doyle was staying away from Parliament after a surge in threats that followed a highlypersonalised and targeted online campaign.
David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He first joined the Herald in 2004.
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