A Hutt councillor, who worked on National’s election campaign, posted an anti-Islamic internet meme because he thought it was funny.
Hutt City Councillor Max Shierlaw shared the image on Facebook of two Muslim women, dressed in burqa, alongside two black plastic bin-liners.
The image appeared on Shierlaw’s timeline in September, but has since been deleted.
At the time he was working on National MP Chris Bishop’s campaign to win the Hutt South electorate.
Shierlaw said he didn’t believe the post was offensive and couldn’t recall deleting it.
“I think probably because a friend of mine shared it [on Facebook] I put it on mine too. That’s my recollection, that it was quite humorous...no-one has raised any objection [to me or] to him either.”
Shierlaw, an accountant, has also shared pro-Israeli images on his profile, but says he is not anti-Islam.
“I think the international and New Zealand media’s coverage of the recent conflict in Israel has been a disgrace, it has been so one-sided in favour of Palestine and very little attempt has been made to put Israel’s point of view, mainly that they are being rocketed first...social media is the only other way we have got of disseminating the argument.”
He later emailed to say: “I did not delete the shared post from my wall...I assume therefore that if the originator of the post deletes it, then it is automatically deleted from everyone else who shared it.”
Dr Maysoon Salama, of the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand, said Shierlaw’s actions were “really very sad.”
“It is portraying Muslims in a very bad image and with disrespect. It’s really sad to see something like that.”
Muslim women are reporting a recent increase in discriminatory behaviour, she added.
“We are taking the heat because of what we wear,” she said.
“It is obvious that we are Muslim.”
In Dunedin, recently, there was an incident where one lady was approached by another who was telling her ‘go home’ and ‘why are you here?’.
Hutt South MP Trevor Mallard also blasted Shierlaw for his “lapse of judgment.”
“It’s effectively a racist, and anti-Muslim picture, which is unacceptable at any time. But it is particularly unacceptable in the climate that has been building up through this year.
“What makes it worse is that this is a relatively senior councillor who is meant to provide community leadership and he doesn’t...what he is letting happen here are some pretty fundamentalist beliefs over-ride good judgement.”
A Tory councillor in the United Kingdom came under fire earlier this year for posting the same meme on his own Facebook page.
Conservative Councillor for Enfield Chris Joannides defended his posting as “blokeish banter”, and denied he was Islamophobic.