Destiny Church's Brian Tamaki descended on Parliament on Thursday to deliver a fiery castigation of New Zealand's prison and justice system.
Surrounded by gang members, Mr Tamaki accused the Government of disproportionately locking up Māori and called for an alternative indigenous justice system.
"For too long we've allowed something that has literally run out of answers, run out of solutions, and ends up being a problem year after year after year," he told the crowd.
"The only solution they've got now is to bring harder sentencing... to lock away our whanau and then spend billions of dollars building bigger prisons and re-shaping existing ones.
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"Fifty-one percent of male prisoners are Māori, and 62 to 63 percent now of women. They're not just locking our fathers up but locking our mothers up. Sixty-three percent of those women are Māori."
Mr Tamaki was met by several politicians, including current Justice Minister Andrew Little, former National Justice Minister Judith Collins and ACT Party leader David Seymour.
Mr Tamaki has launched a Waitangi Claim to get Destiny Church's Man Up prison programme funded.
A statement from Mr Tamaki said he had been "prejudicially affected" by the Crown and demanded "fair and equal access to government funding for social programmes" and "access to Māori in prison or other state confinement".
Newshub.
