The New Zealand labour movement used to have its own newspaper. A group of us thought that now might be a good time for it to be digitally reborn: The Standard v2.0.
It’s good to see Bill English acknowledge the last government has left New Zealand in a good position to face the economic crisis.
The only shame is that he’s using that position to throw money at people who are more likely to pay down debt and increase savings than engage in stimulatory spending.
Matt McCarten, head of the Unite Union, has just released emails showing police informant Rob Gilchrist gave the police spy unit details about activities being organised by the union as part of their push to abolish youth pay rates and increase the minimum wage.
“These emails give lie to the police claim that only potential criminal actions by individuals were being targeted. A wide range of legal actions by unions, political parties and peace and justice groups came under the evil eye of the police. There is no evidence that the actions of Gilchrist were in any way discouraged by the police.
“We need a full public inquiry into the actions of the police spy unit whose actions have clearly gone way beyond any legal mandate,” said Mr McCarten.
So, now we have not just peaceful environmental, animal rights and anti-war groups being spied on, but political parties and trade unions too. This is far too close to home for my liking - now it’s personal.
You may recall the first thing Judith Collins did as Police Minister was to make a media splash about the need to crack down on the perceived “politicisation” of the police. You’d think a coordinated campaign to spy on peaceful left-wing political movements under the guise of anti-terrorism would be reason enough for a public inquiry, but apparently not.
No doubt her reaction would be very different if it were Business NZ and the Sensible Sentencing Trust in the gun, but I guess Judith doesn’t mind politicisation after all. Just so long as it’s her enemies that are getting the stick.
UPDATE: More detail from No Right Turn here - seems Unite wasn’t the only union the police were spying on. NZPA has a report here.
Update 2: The EPMU have weighed in and they don’t sound happy - SP.
So, I’m out of work. I was employed on a contract and when it came up for renewal the boss told me business is too tight, have to let me go. It wasn’t their fault and they were pretty good about it. For the first few weeks I just looked for work but there’s not much going so I thought I better get on the dole. That’s what it’s there for.
I’ll tell you what though, anyone who reckons that its easy to get on the dole and there’s heaps of bludgers hasn’t ever tried it. Firstly you have to go along to this seminar about how to get a job. I had to wait 3 weeks before I could get into one of those seminars. Then I had to get a meeting with a case manager, take along all these forms and hopefully get on the benefit. But seems I’m not the only one in this situation. I was going to have to wait until February to get meeting at the nearest WINZ office. I managed to get a meeting at an office in another suburb instead just 3 weeks later. That was last week. All my papers were in order and I was accepted. Got my first dole payment. After tax, it’s $184. Not much left after $150 a week in rent. I’m lucky to have some savings to get by on but you’ve got to worry about others less fortunate.
Don’t get me wrong, we’re lucky to have benefits to keep us going when we fall on tough times. Just don’t go thinking that people like me are bludgers. It isn’t easy to get the dole and it sure isn’t easy to try to live on it. It’s great to have it while you need it but, like most other people on benefits, I’ll be keen to get work as soon as possible.
- Ben the wannabe worker
Bill Ralston usually gets stirred by posters at The Standard for what he says. I’ve generally liked him after seeing him give some politicians a degree of ribbing at the annual foreign policy conference in Dunedin in the mid-80’s. I really liked his most recent blog “Wimpy response to out-of-line cops”.
The latest Hager/Hubbard story about the police spying on community groups and other activists is a good one, however. I’ve waited a few days to see what action the government would take and how the other media followed the story.
I needn’t have bothered. The government seems to have simply shrugged and the rest of the media contented themselves with merely noting it had occurred.
This story is much more important than that and should not be allowed to fade quietly away.
I’m pretty sure that it won’t. The air of disquiet about the implication of the police actions seems to spread across wide areas of society, and across the political spectrum.
It is worrying in the extreme that the SIG was monitoring the activities of at least one political party, the Greens.
There is no risk of serious criminal offending by these groups. There is no threat to the security of the state or the people of New Zealand. These folk are going about their lawful, if noisy, business exercising their democratic rights.
Where was the indignation from the government at this appalling waste of public money and police resources? Where is their anger at this heavy handed Iron Curtain approach to people voicing their legitimate dissent as part of the political process?
John Key tut-tutted that the police should only be investigating groups that posed a “real or credible risk to the safety and security of communities”. He is right but what is he doing to stop them abusing their powers? Nothing.
I suspect that Bill is being a bit impatient here. This issue about the use and abuse of police powers will continue to rumble for a long time yet. It is a problem that I’ve been thinking seriously about for some time now. Now we’re not likely to have an election for a few years, it seems like a good time to start following it up. At present the police seem to need to have a mirror set up to look at their own actions from the outside.
I really did like his last few paragraphs.
Broad’s assurances are patently ridiculous and anyone with half a brain could see that most of the individuals and groups targeted posed no risk to anyone but their macrobiotic sandal-wearing selves.
The police were patently out of line and yet nothing is to be done about it. It exposes the dangers inherent in John Key’s lack of real political principles. Key’s wimpish, tepid response shows how he and this government are most probably going to be snowed by the public service over the next three years.
Frankly, the media’s coverage of the fallout from the affair was equally tepid and wimpy. Few thundering editorials, fewer still hard probes of what else the SIG might have been up to.
So much for the Fourth Estate and its eagle-eyed guardianship of our civil rights.
Ouch, even the posters here usually don’t hit quite so many targets in one sitting.
The latest Treasury economic forecasts are out and, in a continuing pattern, they not only make worse reading than the previous updates but they are already out of date. We are now looking at gross government debt rising from less to 20% to 30% or as much as 40% by 2013. Unemployment could rise above 7% from its current level below 4%.
We are one small country caught in a global storm. Although we went into recession earlier than most other countries, we have entered the storm in better shape than just about any other country with a balanced budget, a decade of strong growth behind us, record low unemployment, and a government with net financial assets for the first time. (ironically, the high inflation and higher interest rates we had also come in handy - other countries are facing the far worse condition of deflation and have already reduced their official interest rates as low as they can go, they have pushed the monetary policy level to maximum without success).
The causes of this crisis are not domestic, our domestic situation is better than most, which makes attempts to blame the last government for the crisis all the more pathetic. However, the way we react domestically will have some bearing on how badly the crisis hurts ordinary New Zealanders.
Right now the National/ACT government is ramming through under urgency a series of hastily written laws (most only a page or two long) dealing with minutiae that National themselves claim won’t change anything but are merely symbolic. How much better it would have been if National/ACT would have shown the same sense of urgency towards developing an economic stimulus program combining sustainable infrastructure spending, skills training, and job creation as they have shown in relaxing energy efficiency standards for lightbulbs.
From Bill English’s comments on these latest updates, it seems he is most concerned about the size of the deficit the government is projected to run. That is the wrong focus. During the growth period we ran large surpluses and used them to pay down our debt, now is the time to run deficits. If we attempt to reduce the deficit significantly (and tax cuts for the rich don’t help) we will have to cut government spending on health, education, benefits, and superannuation, as English did when he was Finance Minister during our last recession. As it did then, that course of action would only make things worse by further reducing employment and cutting people’s incomes. What’s worse we would feel the long-term effects in worse education and heath outcomes.
I’m hoping that English’s instinct to slash public services and hope the economy will fix itself will be over-ruled by Key who, if he really is a pragmatist, will see that we need a proactive government willing to spend and lead the economy out of recession. But I fear my hope is in vain.
Bill English has stopped the sale of BlueScope’s Taharoa ironsands business to a Chinese investor based on the fact that it won’t bring any value to New Zealand. Good on him. If we aren’t going to profit from investment then why should we allow it?
Of course there is the small issue of hypocrisy given John Key’s wailing over the last government’s decision to stop a similar sale of the Auckland airport but I’m sure somebody from the right will be able to explain here why that was completely different.
I haven’t commented on the maiden speeches yet (we’re doing some analysis later) but I can’t let this stand. Aaron Gilmore, the bottom-ranked National List MP who got in by 39 votes, is having his maiden speech. He started by remembering growing up in a state house, going to school, a teacher giving him some lunch. He said the lessons he learned were hard work and that compulsion is bad.
Umm, no lesson that strong public services, like state housing and education, are essential to give young people a chance in life?
No. Instead, he’s an MP for a party that is committed to cutting those services. Now, he’s rich he’s determined to pull the ladder up after him. Well, that’s gratitude for you.
Gerry ’sexy coal’ Brownlee has spent today ripping apart more anti-climate change laws. Today, under urgency and without the opportunity for the public to contribute via the select committee process, National/ACT has repealed the Biofuels requirement and is now in the process of repealing the ‘ban’ on new baseload fossil fuel power plants.
Disturbingly National/ACT’s ministers just don’t seem to understand what they are doing. Nick Smith nodded his head when Jeanette Fitzsimons said ‘greenhouse emissions grew under National and grew faster under Labour’ but started yelling when she added ‘because growth was faster under Labour’. It’s like Smith doesn’t understand that, unless there is investment in research and legislation adding a cost to carbon, then greenhouse emissions are tied to growth.
Gerry Brownlee didn’t seem to understand that the fossil fuel power plant ban has exemptions for security of supply and replacing existing generators with better ones, if he did he wouldn’t have given those reasons for repealing the ban. Incredibly, he argued that a price on carbon will mean there is no need for a ban on thermal plants because they will be priced out of the market, even though National/ACT are having a select committee to see whether climate change is even real and a price on carbon is needed. Fitzsimons also showed he had no idea about the dynamics of the oil and biofuel markets. She showed that there were plans, now cancelled, for plants to produce enough biofuel from sustainable in New Zealand, so Brownlee’s scaremongering about imported, unsustainable biofuel was unfounded.
The really weird thing is that you keep on hearing National MPs running the line that nothing will change from repealing these laws. They seem to think the biofuels market will do just fine without the boost from a requirement that low percentages of biofuels be included in petrol and diesel, despite biofuels plants already being cancelled because of the removal of that requirement. They seem to think that there will be no new thermal plants without the ban, despite the ban already resulting in power companies already dropping plans for thermal plants near Auckland. They seem to think they haven’t just cost hundreds of millions to the carbon market by throwing the future of the emissions trading scheme into doubt.
The fact is, for all their talk of a commitment to climate change, National has voted against every piece of legislation to tackle this the greatest threat to our future. And, now they are in government, they are repealing those laws. We no longer have a government programme for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The only thing that is going to save us from from a blowout in emissions under National/ACT years is the contracting economy. Cold comfort.
National’s decides to hit workers in the pocket:
ACC Minister Nick Smith yesterday said levies would increase from $1.40 to $1.70 for every $100 earned from next April.
The employer and self-employed levy would rise from $1.26 to $1.31.
Recommendations by officials to increase motor vehicles levies and lift registration fees by $50 would not be considered until next year.
Well, there goes your tax cut. Of course, the interesting thing is that the National/ACT government doesn’t have to impose such heavy levy increases, but they are. Why? They’re deliberately ignoring options that the Labour government had on the table to keep levies down, in order to demonise ACC and justify privatisation further down the track. Simple as that.
Gordon Campbell raises a good question in his latest Scoop column - are the Police also using paid informants to spy on mosques?
According to the original Sunday Star-Times article, the Police informant Rob Gilchrist was getting $600 a week for his information. This is a substantial amount, and more than enough to entice anyone to manufacture information to keep the money coming in – and no surprise then that Gilchrist seems to have been active in promoting activities he could then inform on.
The incident raises an additional concern. A fee of $600 a week could well find takers among refugee communities and mosques in New Zealand, and any information manufactured in this context would have an extra dimension. Most social activists are New Zealand citizens, and so their immigration status is not at risk. That is not the case with many refugees and among some ethnic minorities. Recent arrivals from Islamic countries who may be attending mosques in New Zealand do not enjoy the protection of citizenship.
Therefore, there is genuine potential for dubious, paid information to be used secretly in decisions that affect immigration status. To date, there has been no more evidence of security risks emanating from mosques in New Zealand than there is from the environmental or social activist groups spied on by Rob Gilchrist. If the Police anti-terrorism unit is willing to spy on people exercising their right to freedom of protest, what is it doing to infringe on those exercising freedom of worship ?
I’ve had similar thoughts myself. After all, it’s hard to believe that the spying activity revealed by Rochelle Rees was limited to one paid informant. If they’re investigating Greenpeace and Auckland Animal Action for potential terrorist activity there’s a good chance there are paid Police informants in the Muslim community and elsewhere.
So, who else are the Police spying on? And why don’t the Prime Minister, the Minister of Police or the media appear at all interested in finding out?
After initially saying they would cap the number of state houses, National/ACT’s Housing Minister Phil Heatley actually got informed. Despite the good work that Labour did increasing the number of state houses and their quality, the problem has not been completely solved - there are thousands of families still in need of affordable housing. Now, Heatley says, there will be more state houses in South Auckland. He hasn’t said how many, or where in South Auckland, or if there will be more in other parts of the country that need more, or if the overall number of state houses will remain capped and new ones in South Auckland will replace ones sold elsewhere but, from National, we can’t expect too much in terms of substance.
I’m happy that National has had finally caught up and realised that there is a shortage of low-income housing. At least they’re heading in basically the right direction now. Question is: now they are going to build state houses, will they do it right?
Brian Rudman has an excellent piece today where he discusses this issue, and he has a good suggestion - allow Housing New Zealand to build state houses at Hobsonville. HNZ had planned 500 state houses for that project but John Key called it ‘economic vandalism’ and the incoming government cut the state house from the plans. Now that they have decided they do want more state houses, Hobsonville is an excellent site for them with building ready to commence very soon.
Rather than yet another isolated, low-income suburb tacked on to the bottom of South Auckland, far from jobs and amenities, a natural home for unemployment and crime, we could have State house families living in a modern, well-planned suburb on the North Shore. Rather than further accentuating the physical divide between rich and poor, National could create the kind of mixed-income community close to jobs and with good amenities that give children from poorer households a better chance to succeed.
Of course, if he were to do that Key would have to disappoint the wealthy voters of Helensville who cheer at the end of this recording when he promises no state houses at Hobsonville. And, unfortunately, I think we can safely assume Key will back the interests of wealthy people like himself over the interests of state house kids like he once was.
First question time - the teams square off. Let the games commence. So what was the vibe? Well both sides kept getting their language muddled up (Minister/ member etc) as they tried to remember that they had shuffled around in their roles. So what of the performance?
I start by making it clear this is an impression only - I didn’t watch every second of question time (which I think lasted around an hour and a quarter or so?). I think the Government benches should feel reasonably pleased that they held their own (especially after being on the back foot from last week’s urgency lessons at Labour’s hand). Key wasn’t quite up to his charming best but he didn’t wilt or overplay his hand. Goff made his points (perhaps a little on the long-winded side) although I’m not sure they were especially relevant to those of us who are moving into holiday mode (and who are praying that we keep a paypacket in order to pay for our indulgences).
English was clear, crisp and to the point - his experience of the battle ground clearly shining through. Made some good points about Labour’s supposed overspend/underplan approach. I suspect we will see this line repeated frequently as they set the stage for spending cuts (or “re-prioritisation”).
Unfortunately for Chris Carter, question three turned from an attack opportunity on Anne Tolley and her commitment to teachers regarding the 90 day bill into a messy brain teaser which he couldn’t quite master. I would have preferred to see the more experienced hand of Trevor Mallard running the attack, especially as he handled both the 90 days and the national standards issues so well last week in the House. Hopefully the limelight will be shared out more widely next year.
Cullen showed himself as being in a league of his own when it comes to both procedure and point. He angles the political alongside the process to the point that it looks simple and seamless. There was a slight counter-punch from Brownlee which hinted that not all might have gone so smoothly on Labour’s side regarding the lodging of questions, but not enough to take the gloss of Cullen’s mastery
National allowed itself an worthwhile attacks on ACC (unexpected costs), housing (the need to for, helpfully covering up their flip flop on the matter) and lightbulbs (incandescent). They did enough to feel that they weren’t the pushover Labour was hoping for.
Also pleasing was that we had good representation from the smaller parties, with Jim Anderton showing that he has lost none of his passion for agriculture and a well honed angle (do National really value agriculture). Jeanette tackled a subject close to her heart (ETS) while ACT did the equivalent (the EFA). The Maori Party found themselves in the midst of a tangle as to the boundaries of what Dr Pita Sharples could be asked. It was great to hear so much of te reo used through the question - something that also came from National. Labour would do well to consider how it is to handle their presence on Maori issues in the House (as elsewhere).
As for the new speaker, he is still finding his feet and it shows. With Cullen watching his every move it is not an easy place to be - in that he has my sympathy.
All in all it made me wish we had a chance to see them settle in a bit more this year, but I guess there’s time enough in the New Year. That’s when the real work for National begins.
When I went to my first parent/teacher interview I was amazed at the breadth of markers against which my daughter’s performance was being evaluated. I admired the commitment of the teacher to such a level of engagement. I felt fully aware and informed of my daughter’s strengths, and the areas we needed to work on. So when I read of National’s plans to introduce national testing I was agnostic to say the least. Now I see the NZ Principals Federation saying that the new Government’s bid to set national literacy and numeracy standards “totally unnecessary” and they want to work with the Ministry of Education to make sure no extra testing is put in place:
New Zealand Principals Federation president and Balclutha School principal Paddy Ford said schools already had testing tools to find under achieving pupils. Tests such as Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning (ASTLE) (progress and achievement tests), Running Records (reading test) and STAR (school reading test) were used extensively, he said.
“We don’t need any more tests. We’ve already got enough tests in place - we’ve just got to use the ones we’ve already got. The Government is trying to do something that’s totally unnecessary.”
This government was elected on a platform of reducing compliance and red tape. Surely we have an inconsistency here? Perhaps that’s why they passed this legislation without allowing time through the select committee process for groups and individuals to make their contribution - and highlight that the changes were really not required in the first place.
Meanwhile what scenario awaits parents with children due to start school next year? I fancy the idea of an opt out clause myself……
On discovering that her boyfriend had been spying on her and her friends for the police, and the consequent violations of her expectation of privacy, my niece Rochelle had quite enough tolerance of the police. That is sufficient cause to get seriously annoyed, and it is generally unwise to seriously annoy geeks. So she has invaded the privacy of her spy and his police handlers.
Rochelle says
I made a decision that my priority had to be to get everything I could, prove everything I could, and do everything I could to prevent the police doing what they did again.
I flew down to Christchurch and installed spyware on Rob Gilchrist’s phone to monitor his phone calls and text messages, and a script on his computer to continue sending his emails to me. I also downloaded the past 12 months of his phone bills from telecom, and managed to decrypt documents in his emails that had been encrypted.
In effect she had access to a large amount of the ongoing and past dialogue between Rob and his police handlers. This makes some of the statements made by Howard Broad in the last few days somewhat hilarious. He badly needs to get on top of what his officers are doing, if only because otherwise Rochelle can tell him.
Since she became a peaceful activist for animal rights trying to work within our supposed democracy, Rochelle has spent a lot of time in court on mainly spurious charges. She has been remarkably tolerant of the police on the advice from family and friends, who have been advising her that living without them would be worse. However over the years that tolerance wears down.
The police reaction to me as a protester has been completely and utterly over the top. They have intruded into my life more than I could ever have expected was possible. It felt good to feel like I was giving some of it back. This whole thing is like something out of George Orwell’s 1984, not something that happens in the real world.
What she is referring to are charges like “intimidation by loitering”. This was brought for noisily protesting in front of a shop that was selling factory farmed fur. On appeal, after a couple of years and $30k in defense costs, the judge concluded that protesting was not loitering. The question of intimidation was never really looked at on the appeal apart from counting the few seconds that her camera had caught the store keeper in frame. In my opinion the charge was only brought so that the Threats Assessment Unit (TAU) could obtain a search warrant to grab her computers and cameras for intelligence gathering.
There has been a lot of talk around the media and the blogs over the past days about the role of political protest in our democracy. Well some police appear to have a different idea to most of the commentary. To them trying to raise a different point of view means that you are a target for the excesses of some crazies in the police who obviously have over-active imaginations. Who better to quote on the subject than Ross Muerant talking about the Oct 15 raids. Ross was in the Red Squad during the 1981 springbok tour before becoming a politician.
As I look at it now I can see that I had been brainwashed to the extent that I actually believed the nonsense that we were producing out of the police. The information we were getting in and the decisions we were reaching were too subjective. There was no man on the clapham bus sitting outside and looking in and saying ‘Is this a reasonable conclusion to draw based on the information you have collected’.
So when the current commissioner of police Howard Broad said on his appointment
New Police Commissioner Howard Broad cannot recall another time in his 30-year career when there has been so much bad publicity about the police and says he is committed to restoring public confidence.
he wasn’t wrong.
I’d suggest that the commissioner looks at what level of confidence is generated by having out of control police intimidating and spying on peaceful activists. Not only does it affect the people targeted. It also affects their family and friends who then spread the word. It clogs the courts with police bringing charges as a way of harassing of activists (which regularly get dropped or fail to achieve conviction), and misusing their powers to charge to obtain search warrants. It has a chilling effect on the process of peaceful democratic change. Moreover it is a waste of my taxes.
I’d suggest to the commissioner that the main problem is with controlling your more paranoid sworn officers abusing their powers. They bring the reputation of the police into disrepute through campaigns of active intimidation against activists trying to bring about peaceful change. It is something that can and should only be done within the police.
I’m sure that there are activists who will assist in the required changes as Rochelle is. Take the opportunity.
[lprent: Apparently the police don't like us using their logo. So it has been changed to a more evocative image. Thanks to SP for finding the right one.]
A fundamental of social democratic politics is full employment. It is sometimes said that work is the best form of welfare. When people are in work they have a sense of belonging and self-worth, they commit fewer crimes, they contribute to funding public services, they can afford a better standard of living for their families. In government, Labour and its allies followed through on that principle - the number of beneficiaries was reduced by 100,000 and 350,000 more jobs were added to the economy.
Now that we are entering what looks like a prolonged period of a weak economy, it is more important than ever that the Government focus on jobs, jobs, jobs. If they stand idle while unemployment rises (or take only token efforts like ReStart) then our communities will suffer from the flow-on effects - higher crime, higher welfare costs, lower tax revenue, poorer health (leading to poorer education outcomes).
If My Key really is a pragmatist he must see that he needs to create an economic stimulus program focused on job creation. Part of that, surely, should be a mass house insulation program, which not only creates jobs but has a 4 to 1 payback on investment from lower electricity use and improved health. Yes, these are leftwing ideas but they make sense. If he really is a moderate pragmatist, Key can surely see that and do what is best for the country.
Here’s a quiz. Can you name the one killing that has seen Sensible Sentencing’s barking mad Garth McVicar support the killer and argue, in direct contrast to his normal practice, that the sentence ought to have been more lenient? And can you point to the unusual socio-economic conditions around this killing?
Yup. The only, only, killing in which McVicar has called for leniency is the manslaughter of young, working-class Maori Pihema Cameron by middle-class Pakeha businessman Bruce Emery. Frankly, the real crime here is that a person who purposely assaulted another person with a deadly weapon resulting in that person’s death (even though that death was intended) was not found guilty of murder despite the clear words of the law. But, no, McVicar thinks the poor Maori had it coming, property rights for the white, middle-class trump the right to life for others. He says this killer, and this killer alone, should have been set free because that “would have sent a message that minor crimes like graffiti need to be dealt with seriously” - by vigilante killing, for example.
Well, we knew McVicar is a racist and a fascist but let’s not forget he is also the man whose policies National/ACT have xeroxed and turned into their law and order agenda.
Just in: Coldplay to play at Vector Arena on March 18th. No word yet on whether John Key has managed to get tickets.
Yesterday, Howard Broad made statements about the targets of the SIG (Special Investigation Group) to National Radio. Interview with Howard Broad on his actions.
I’ve seen some of the e-mails when Rochelle Rees discovered them. From them and his statements, I get the impression that the police commissioner is and has been kept out of the loop and fed a line of bullshit. Perhaps he should ask questions about who is doing that. But here is some help for the commissioner to get to the core of the problem.
Howard Broad said
The SIG was meant to assess threats from individuals who may or may not be members of groups.
“[People who] want to do some damage, they want to do some violent things,” he said on Radio New Zealand.
“Our job is to identify those people and do something about it.”
Unfortunately these are not the questions that people in the SIG have been asking. Rochelle has released some of the questions by a SIG handler to Rob Gilchrist.
Included in Gilchrist’s emails were questionnaires sent from the New Zealand Police, with the police identification number PG4369. The following are excerpts from those documents:
The list includes open ended questions that are about groups. I’ve pulled a few questions about groups out of Rochelles press release :-
Climate Change Groups
What is happening with climate change groups in Auckland.
Who is involved?
What actions might they be considering for the future
What specific plans are in place for Climate Day of action 07/07Auckland Animal Action
What is the structure of AAA and who fills the key positions?
How does AAA communicate and promote demonstrations?
Do they use / have access to chat rooms etc?
Update Addresses / Ph (cell and landline) Numbers / Vehicle details of AAA members.
What is the proposed activist activity for the rest of the year?
Who is responsible for the stickers on Tegel products? *
Where is the printer / scanner / etc for the above stickers? *
What other activity is proposed against Tegel or any other chicken suppliers?
And so on. The list of general questions about groups covered groups like the anti iraq war groups, and groups with people going to ANZCCART, Sydney and Auckland APEC, etc.
There is my favorite
Q - Information regarding the 26th November Grey Lynn festival.
Q – Are there any other plans for that weekend?
What the hell? This is a favorite venue for a lot of groups doing fund raising, recruiting, and ground-level publicity about their issues. It is a fun day for all concerned. What does it have to do with national security?
These questions are clearly not looking at individuals that may be a problem, they are looking at organizations. For obvious privacy reasons Rochelle will not be releasing questions about individuals. From what I’ve seen, there are as many questions about the intentions and strategies of groups as there are about dangerous individuals.
Hopefully this will assist in asking some better questions now? Perhaps you should also look at the misuse of using the police power to charge people for harassment. In particular to obtain search warrants.
* In this particular questionnaire, these are the few questions about an individual.
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