The Vision NZ Party has made its opening play on the election trail with Destiny Church’s Brian and Hannah Tamaki travelling to Hawke’s Bay to announce Flaxmere minister Michael Ngahuka as its Tukituki electorate candidate.

Ngahuka owns building, maintenance and civil company 2020 Construction, he is involved with the Destiny Church-affiliated Man Up programme and he is the deputy chairman of the Kaiwhakamana volunteer programme supporting people in prisons.

He said he decided to stand for Parliament because he didn’t see leadership on the ground in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle, while he and his team worked to save livelihoods and clear homes.

“I only saw one MP, and that person just came and took a photo with an orchard owner while my guys were in the orchard volunteering and helping to save that orchard so he was able to harvest 200 bins of apples and keep going.”

Vision NZ, led by Hannah Tamaki, is one of the parties under the umbrella of the Brian Tamaki and Sue Grey-led Freedoms New Zealand political alliance.

Hannah Tamaki said on Wednesday that Vision NZ planned to announce three more candidates soon.

Ngahuka’s first public meeting was held outside the electorate he hopes to represent, at the Napier War Memorial Centre, a decision he said had surprised some of his supporters.

Michael Ngahuka is the first candidate announced for the Vision NZ Party and will run in the Tukituki electorate. Photo / Warren Buckland

He promised there would be many more meetings to come in the Tukituki electorate.

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 “I am standing as the candidate for Tukituki with Vision NZ, but under the Freedoms Party, so we wanted to launch in Napier largely in part due to the impact of the cyclone there. It has happened to both cities, but probably more so in Napier.”

The Tamakis have both courted consistent controversy for their anti-establishment views and comments about the LGBTQ+ community, including linking them to disasters.

When asked about the views of Destiny Church, Vision NZ and himself on the LGBTQ+ community, Ngahuka said he had family and friends that were part of the community.

“I may not agree with what they [the LGBTQ+ community] like to do, but that doesn’t mean I judge them on it or anything,” Ngahuka said.

“If you know me in the community, I am very embracing and that is how I have always been.”

Ngahuka stood for the Flaxmere ward seat on Hastings District Council in the 2022 local elections but missed out as the second of six candidates, with 279 votes to Henry Heke’s 376.

He said he wasn’t concerned about the race for an MP seat being even more difficult.

“I am always up for challenges.”

Ngahuka said had a lot of experience working with the disenfranchised and he was passionate about reducing reoffending.

“I know that is a big issue in Hawke’s Bay, criminal activity, ram-raiding, you’ve got children stealing cars.”

Hannah and Brian Tamaki told Hawke’s Bay Today Ngahuka was a good man and would be a good candidate for Tukituki.

Brian Tamaki three months ago caused fury on the East Coast when he blamed porn use in Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne as a factor in why Cyclone Gabrielle hit the regions with such ferocity.

He said his words were “taken out of context” and that he was talking more broadly about values and morals lost in New Zealand.

“We are one of the highest nations in viewing porn. I think it is appalling, I don’t watch it, I don’t know but someone told me. They said ‘look at this’ so I am just looking at the information and it was fairly damning.”

He described New Zealand as “a very toxic country” due to declining “family values” and the rise of online hatred.

“That is what I was talking about in context - we’ve lost any reliability to each other and we don’t care for anybody, not even our closest relatives like mum or dad,” Tamaki said.

“However you see this, pornography is destructive to marriages, it’s destructive to relationships.”

He said a lot of nature’s impacts on the world could be linked to humans ill treating it.

“Insurance companies call it an act of God and I am getting torn to pieces for saying maybe nature is responding to the way that we are abusing it,” Tamaki said.

“I believe in environmental care, that we should be looking after our rivers and lands and that we should be responsible for making sure we are not polluting what we are trying to get something out of.”