COMMENT

I have no idea how Brian Tamaki is still talking...or should I say tweeting?

It was bad enough when he threatened the Prime Minister with a revolt in prisons over the Government's lack of enthusiasm to put his Man Up programme into them.

Man Up is Destiny Church’s 15-week anti-violence programme, which Tamaki believes in so strongly that he feels prisoners uprising can be the only result if it's not used in prisons. 

The programme claims to "help "dysfunctional men with a record of violent offending and addiction by rehabilitating them to re-enter society".

Sounds good in theory, but unfortunately for Destiny Church, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis (defender of slushy machine purchases) says he doesn’t trust Tamaki.

He says he wouldn’t trust Destiny Church with a Corrections contract because he could not trust that that money wouldn’t go into funding an extravagant lifestyle. “Cars, jewellery, overseas holidays, Harley Davidsons,” the Minister listed by way of example.

But the stoush over who said what, and who did or didn’t meet with who, or promise what, turned nasty and it happened very quickly.

Less than 24 hours after Tamaki threatened prisoner revolts and told the Prime Minister that she had been warned, he was back on Twitter likening his treatment to a "political gang rape".

Excuse me? I mean I’m well aware Twitter is no bastion of sensible conversation or even respect, but this is beyond the pale surely?

Jacinda Ardern was quick to react, calling Tamaki irresponsible and making the fairly obvious point that this is not the way to procure a government contract.

The Corrections Minister accused Tamaki of preaching hate and said his attitude was "disgraceful and repulsive".

Having thrown all his toys out of Hannah’s Mercedes, Brian Tamaki then tried to back-track a wee bit yesterday, saying he didn’t really mean to incite violence in prisons and he didn’t really mean gang rape as in "gang rape". He meant they were ganging up on him. Brian, stop talking.

For a guy that now admits he just wanted attention, I’m embarrassed to say he got it because we reported it.

Because everything he says is catnip for click bait.

I’m aware I’ve now made myself part of that problem by even discussing him, because yes, terrible behaviour is hard to ignore.

But maybe if we report less on the mad rantings of angry people on Twitter, we might starve these narcissists of the attention they so desperately crave.