New Zealand lawmaker has brick, note tossed through office door

A New Zealand lawmaker accused political vandals on Tuesday of tossing a brick through the glass door of her electoral office in a small rural town.

Georgina Beyer, seeking a third three-year term as a center-left Labour legislator, said whoever threw the brick should save their protest for the ballot box in the Sept. 17 general elections.

The brick, which was thrown on Sunday in Masterton, 110 kilometers (70 miles) north of the capital, Wellington, had a note attached to it saying: "We don't forget what you've done, Parekura."

Beyer, part Maori, said she believes the message was for Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia and referred to the government's plans to nationalize the nation's entire shoreline.

Both lawmakers strongly supported the nationalization law.

Some indigenous Maori claim the shoreline is their land and is being confiscated by the government without compensation.

"Intelligent people would save their protest for the ballot" box, Beyer said.

Police are investigating the incident but Beyer said she has no fears for her safety.

Beyer, the nation's only transsexual lawmaker, was a former male prostitute and stripper who underwent a sex change.

She is expected to be returned to Parliament in the elections, despite trying to quit national politics twice in the past four years.

At the 2002 election she won by 6,000 votes, doubling her majority in the conservative rural constituency where she first entered public life in 1992 as a councilwoman and later mayor of a small town, AP reported.