Brian Tamaki has called on people to take to the streets if lockdown is extended beyond midnight on Friday. Photo / Facebook
Brian Tamaki has called on people to take to the streets if lockdown is extended beyond midnight on Friday. Photo / Facebook
This article has been amended from the original.
Destiny Church bishop Brian Tamaki has told his followers they should take to the streets if the New Zealand Government announces an extension to the current three-day lockdown in effect in Auckland.
Speaking outside his church in South Auckland, across the roadfrom a Covid-19 testing station, Tamaki said "there's another virus just as bad as Covid-19, it's called fear".
He pointed the finger at the Government who he says is telling New Zealanders to close their front doors while keeping the borders open to "immigrants, refugees still, and people from countries where this Covid-19 pandemic has been very active".
"I wanna say something: This has gone too far," he says.
"We're gonna end up like a third world country that's having civil war," he says.
"I don't believe we should let our freedoms and our rights be railroaded again. I think we should be contemplating about taking to the streets."
Tamaki says the "socialistic and communist" Government is using the pandemic for political reasons.
"If you want New Zealand to remain New Zealand you can't sit at home and be locked down," he tells his followers on Facebook.
"Our borders are wide open but she [the Prime Minister] wants to shut our front doors and our back doors in our homes - don't you find this ironic?"
New Zealand's borders have been closed since earlier this year, except to returning citizens, residents and very small numbers of workers whose jobs are deemed essential to this country.
"If there is any community transmission, it's coming from our open borders," he adds.
"If she goes beyond the shutdown on Friday, we ought to be considering a stand on the Saturday," Tamaki says, urging his followers to defy lockdown rules and take to the streets.
He says the country needs "to get rid of this socialist communist Government".
"If the case is true, isolate them, but let the economy, let us continue to work."
