Immigration and crime had become a major political issues and, aggravated by the onset of the recession, would intensify in the run-up to the 1975 general election. The dawn raids and the controversy that flourished around them were a product of rapid economic and social change. The perspectives of society were unchanged and the pressures placed on the government to fix the declining economy, sought the dawn raids as a solution. When Norman Kirk’s Labour government came into power in 1972, they wanted to replace the assimilation policy with cultural pluralism and therefore the special taskforce was commissioned by 1973. However, many of the overstayers were Tongan, so the Prime Minister Norman Kirk met with the Tongan Prime Minister about the overstayers. Consequently, the government allowed the overstaying Tongans to extend their working visas fir 6 months, where they could earn $1000 to take home with them. The special taskforce dawn raided the houses of suspected overstayers in the early houses of the morning. They would knock down the doors, flash lights in the faces of the overstayers demanding their identity and passports to prove that they were in New Zealand legally. With the introduction of the new laws, the Pacific Islanders got the impressions that New Zealand no longer wanted them anymore. The racism of the special task force on the Pacific Island community got to the extent that the Maori were complaining because there were times where they were being mistaken as Pacific Islanders and picked up by the Police around the shopping centres. In one case of the dawn raids, one woman was snatched from her home with her two-month old child who was dressed on a tee-shirt and a nappy, herself only in a lava-lava. When the woman was placed in the cell with her child, she requested milk for her child and the officer told her to use the milk that she had for her coffee. The Polynesian Panthers brought her the necessities for her and her child, however at 6:30 am, she was deported back to Samoa. This is just a glimpse of the injustices that occurred during the dawn raids. With the constant dawn raids on the people, the Polynesian Panthers decided to dawn raid the politician’s homes. The Polynesian Panthers stood outside and blared their lights inside the houses and told the politicians that they had 24 hours to prove that they had the right to stay in New Zealand. The Panthers had connections with one of the radio hosts for radio Hauraki at the time who rang the minister, asking him what happened, the minister replied with “how dare these people come at this ungodly hour”. This was the exact point that the Panthers wanted to achieve. Using the element of surprise, the dawn raids intimidated the Pacific Islanders in their homes; this made a lot of the younger generation of the Pacific Islanders hate the police. Two and a half weeks later, there were no more dawn raids. Hone Harawira said “The Panthers gave voice to a sector of society no-one have a shit about…” and through their actions, the Panthers made a statement that they too had a right to be here and they weren’t leaving New Zealand anytime soon.