A controversial Mongrel Mob-led methamphetamine rehabilitation programme, ‘Kahukura’, will stop receiving money from the Proceeds of Crime Fund from this year.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell said the programme’s end would be welcomed by police in Hawke’s Bay, where it was based.
“They felt it was perverse, that $2.7million was going to the local Mongrel Mob, who are responsible for a lot of the crime and harm that’s happening in the communities that they police and protect,” he said.
The Kahukura programme, run on a marae near Waipawa, received $2.75 million from the Proceeds of Crime Fund in 2020. The Fund is comprised from cash and earnings from the sales of assets that have been seized by police because they were obtained directly or indirectly from the proceeds of crime.
The Ministry of Health applied for the funding over four years with the support of Corrections, Police, and the Ministry of Social Development.
Funding was approved by a panel that made recommendations to the prime minister, minister of finance and minister of justice, who determine which proposals should be approved and funded.
The programme was run by H2R Research and Consulting Ltd. Its directors are lifetime Mongrel Mob member Harry Tam and Angie Wilkinson.
It involved participants working on a community garden on the property of the president of the gang’s ‘’Notorious’' chapter, the late Sonny Smith (who died last month) and his wife Mahinaarangi Tuhi-Smith, who was the programme facilitator.
The programme was prompted by “a noticeable increase in homicides and suicides” among Mongrel Mob members in Hawke’s Bay and an increase in meth addiction and violent crime following the cessation in 2017 of the Hauora rehabilitation programme run by the Salvation Army and the gang’s ‘Notorious’ chapter.
Hauora ran from 2009 until 2017 and was funded by the Health Ministry under the Prime Minister’s Tackling Methamphetamine: An Action Plan. Funding for the Hauora programme stopped under the last National government.
Kahukura was a community-based rehabilitation initiative “designed to reduce crime and harm to the community by addressing methamphetamine dependency, facilitating and supporting trauma recovery, and enhancing positive whānau and identity development and resiliency”.
It was primarily targeted at members of the Mongrel Mob and consisted of an eight-week live-in programme followed by an additional eight-weeks of wrap around support.
Evaluations of the programme’s progress, provided to the Justice Ministry, revealed that most graduates reported no use or reduced use of methamphetamine, increased mental and physical health, and increased uptake in training, education and employment.
Funding for the programme comes to an end this year and will not be renewed.
Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora co-director, addictions, national commissioning Ian McKenzie said the contract for Kahukura had finished “and this has been communicated to the provider”.
“This programme is under evaluation and the final report is due in January 2025,” he said.
There had not been an application made for further funding, but all funding applications were considered on a case-by-case basis, he said.
Mitchell said no funding would be provided to any rehab programme with gang links, and he dismissed evaluation reports that said the programme was effective.
“I don’t agree with that at all,” he said.
Funding of the programme prompted outrage when it became public in 2021.
Police Association president Chris Cahill said at the time that police officers were “angry that police hierarchy and the Ministry of Health consider a gang such as Notorious Mongrel Mob, which is responsible for the majority of meth dealing in Central Hawke’s Bay, should now be trusted stewards of millions of dollars to fix a problem they are instrumental in creating”.
Then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern defended her approval to fund the programme.
“We either have to make a decision in New Zealand. We either want to fund programmes that use, or have people involved in them who have a criminal history, but we are determined to address their methamphetamine addiction, or we exclude people with criminal histories from meth programmes,” she said.
Tam could not be reached for comment.
- Stuff