A far-right extremist group has attacked a shared electorate office belonging to two National MPs, accusing one of them of being a "known Chinese Communist spy".
Action Zealandia, a relatively new group which mixes "European identity" politics with environmentalism and nationalism, uploaded photographs of the vandalism to its Facebook page on Friday.
They show members - faces blurred - sticking A4-size posters over the faces of list MPs Paul Goldsmith and Jian Yang on a sign outside their office in Epsom, Auckland.
The posters show a hand marked 'China' painting the Chinese flag over the New Zealand flag, with the phrase "Don't let them steal your country!"
The Facebook post said it was a message for "the traitors in Parliament".
Yang's past connections with the Chinese military and the Communist Party of China - which rules mainland China as a dictatorship - first made headlines in 2017. He said his job was to train students to monitor communications, but has denied being a spy himself and claims he's had nothing to do with the party since leaving China in the 1990s.
His past became of interest again recently after it emerged he'd largely organised a trip to China for party leader Simon Bridges last year without the involvement of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) officials, who would normally look after it. MFAT officials reportedly only got involved in the week before Bridges left for China, and the schedule was left largely unchanged.
On that trip Bridges met with high-ranking Communist Party figures. Former Prime Minister Helen Clark and called the arrangement unusual, and University of Canterbury China expert Anne-Marie Brady told NZME it was "very telling" that "MFAT were cut out of National Party's China visit planning on this occasion".
And Clark said, "When I was NZ Leader of Opposition, provision was made for an annual overseas mission, always organised through MFAT, one assumes because of the potential for impact on NZ foreign relations."
National said no party politics were conducted on the trip.
Newshub has contacted National for a response to the attack on Goldsmith and Yang's office. A spokesperson for Goldsmith wasn't aware of the damage when Newshub first called.
It's not clear who is behind Action Zealandia. Every single photo of its members on its site and Facebook page are blurred, citing fears "the government and other politically motivated groups may seek to do us and our families harm".
Women are banned from joining, as are drug users and people who engage in "sexual deviancy". Newsroom reported last year the group had been trying to recruit new members through online white supremacist havens such as 4chan.
Its logo - a triangle containing four stars - is similar to that of the racist European-based Identitarian movement, which espouses similar views.
