Wellington's mayor has publicly called out racism in New Zealand, after receiving an angry email from a local resident about immigrants.
Justin Lester posted the correspondence on Twitter on Monday.
"I received the below from a local resident I know well, which makes it even more disappointing," wrote Lester.
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"Strangely the individual themselves is an immigrant. They came from an Anglo-Saxon country to live here in NZ, which is great. Their rant isn't about immigration. This is racism."
The email is titled "racial abuse cuts both ways."
It references an incident on a Wellington train last week where a teenager was booted off the train for racially abusing a man speaking Hindi.
"Now I wonder why she did that?" reads the email.
"Could it be because politicians like you have turned a deliberately deaf ear to complaints over the sheer numbers of immigrants while spouting out the 'all are welcome' to people who will change our communities and refuse to follow NZ law/customs?"
In case there was any question who the person was talking about - they clarified.
"In case you pretend NOT to understand I mean Asians and Muslims."
It gets worse - the sender attempts to justify the Christchurch massacre, where 51 Muslims were killed in their place of worship.
"I think that's the real reason why 50 Muslims died in Christchurch despite all the 'white supremecy' (sic) bulldust spouted by the apologists for the open door policies.
"People simply get desperate and then some get violent when not listened to."
The writer says although they don't agree with attacking or abusing immigrants, they want to have the freedom to be racist anyway.
"I expect to be able to tell them they are NOT welcome without public critique from you."
Unfortunately for the writer, public critique is exactly what they got.
The tweet has received hundreds of likes, and comments condemning the writer.
"This is the kind of language that should put a person on a watch list," wrote one woman.
"This man really tried to justify the mosque shooting," wrote another.
Newshub.
