Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki told Q+A tonight that he didn’t know some members of his group, Man Up, had protested outside the Christchurch Mosque where the March 15th terrorist attack took place.

“They decided to do that on their own steam… first of all I didn’t know that they did it and I wasn’t there. I probably wouldn’t have done it at that time so that’s my take on it. But they did it and we’ve talked to them about it and it’s over.”

Bishop Tamaki maintains the church has formally applied to run their Man Up programme in prison, despite denials by Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis and the Corrections Department.

“Tenders weren’t available when we went to make the application, so we talked face to face with the Ministers and as I said with Winston. He went and (saw) Kelvin and both Andrew Little, the Justice Minister, made approaches to them, and both times – and I think this is really important here Jack – they were mystified why Kelvin wouldn’t receive the formal approaches and the face to face approaches and they even advised them that they should look at Man Up because it’s a very successful programme.”

He says he’s frustrated by the number of Maori in prison and wants to see stronger action by politicians. If not, he might consider re-entering politics.

“Maybe I’ll have to ring my mate Hone Harawira up in the North and say brother, we might have to take this electorate”

Please find the full interview here.

Q+A, 9:30pm Mondays on TVNZ 1 and one hour later on TVNZ 1 + 1.
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