27 OCTOBER 2026
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Sensible Sentencing Trust has slammed Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick and her party for dismissing New Zealand’s longest-standing and largest victims’ rights organisation as an “astroturf” group or a spin-off of a taxpayer group.

Trust spokesperson Louise Parsons said the claim is either ignorant or deliberately deceitful.

“The Sensible Sentencing Trust was founded in 2001 – more than a decade before the Taxpayers’ Union even existed. Within a year we had 135,000 members. By 2009 that number was over 150,000. We are the organisation built by and for the families of murder victims, rape survivors, and those left shattered by serious violence. Swarbrick's slur is a cheap attempt to erase those voices.”

Parsons said the Greens’ outrage over the Sensible Sentencing Trust’s “Backing the Gangs” billboards exposes a deep hypocrisy.

“The Greens and their MPs have backed campaigns and rhetoric around ‘Defunding the Police’. Their own justice policy wants to scrap mandatory minimums, life sentences, and three strikes. Green MPs have even openly discussed defunding of the police and abolishing prisons. They defend meeting with the Mongrel Mob, smile for photos at gang pads, and have even floated funding the Mob to run drug programmes. They have never sat down with the country’s largest victims’ support and advocacy organisation.”

“The Greens hate the fact we are pointing out their hypocrisy. They will defend and fund organised criminal gangs, but they dismiss the organisation that has spent 25 years standing beside the people those gangs have victimised. That tells New Zealanders everything they need to know about whose side the Greens are really on.”

The Trust is formally challenging Swarbrick to meet with them and with victims of gang violence before the election.

“If Chlöe Swarbrick is serious about ‘for all of us’, she can stop hiding and come and sit with the mothers, fathers, and partners whose lives have been destroyed by the gangs. We are happy to arrange that meeting at any time. The victims are waiting. The question is whether she has the courage to face them.”

The Sensible Sentencing Trust is New Zealand’s leading independent voice for victims of serious crime. It receives no government funding and is supported entirely by law abiding New Zealanders.

New Zealanders are encouraged to back the Sensible Sentencing Trust's campaign via www.sst.nz

ENDS