Paula Bennett and Shane Jones say they have little sympathy for Hamilton native Mark Taylor, the "bumbling jihadist" ISIS member who they agreed has "disgraced the name of Aotearoa".
Taylor told a reporter overnight that he feels "stabbed in the back" by New Zealand and wants to return to the country to start a medical marijuana business.
Under United Nations law, he can’t be left stateless, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern acknowledged yesterday. The debate follows the revelation earlier this week that Taylor is now being held in a Syrian prison after surrendering to Kurdish forces, who would prefer to send him back to New Zealand.
On TVNZ1’s Breakfast political panel this morning, National's Ms Bennett and New Zealand First's Mr Jones said Taylor should suffer the consequences and "face the music" for his actions.
Mr Jones said, “I don’t see any redeeming qualities, and the fact that he wants to come back and back into the marijuana business just suggests to me that he’s in Disneyland.
"Name me one thing that rooster has done that uplifts the image of our country, amongst the ranks of other nations. You can’t.”
Ms Bennet agreed that he has done "nothing for New Zealand".
"But I so believe that we shouldn’t be revoking his citizenship," she said. “We have an obligation to our own and we have to take the good, the bad and the ugly - and in this case a bit of all of that, although I can’t find the good.”
She said if he does make his way back here, as a country we should not be assisting him in any way.
"There are consequences for actions and it seems that now this guy gets to scream 'poor me', but it doesn’t work that way," she said.
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