Can you believe the arrogance of John Key when asked about the GCSB mass surveillance Bill on Campbell Live last night?
‘NZers care more about Snapper‘ was his condescending reply. Unbelievable.
Firstly, congrats to Campbell Live for dedicating an entire week to the GCSB mass surveillance Bill, secondly, fishing quota’s are a red herring, and it’s not working in keeping the media distracted.
Wanting to change the flag didn’t work either, so now we suddenly have Paula Bennett announcing a white paper to deal violently with people SUSPECTED of child abuse. Note the word, ‘suspected’.
We see this tactic again, and again and again with this Government. Propose a policy to the right of Caligula and then back down to look like you’ve listened and every time National are in trouble, Paula Bennett wheels out some crazy beneficiary bashing nonsense to distract.
Remember when the Government said they were going to mine Gt Barrier Island when they were never intending to, so that when they ‘backed down’ it looked like they were giving ground and then could push ahead with mining?
This time around however, these announcements aren’t to promote an agenda, they are merely to divert attention, so let’s spend the barest of seconds on this joke announcement…
Child-abuse suspects to be kept away from kids
Wide-ranging restraining orders will soon be in use to keep suspected child abusers away from children for up to 10 years.
Some will be prevented from going to parks or public swimming pools.
The new Child Harm Prevention Orders against people considered to be a risk to children will be among several changes Social Development Minister Paula Bennett is to announce today as part of the Government’s response to its white paper on vulnerable children.
High Court and District Court judges will be able to impose the new civil orders on people who are tried for serious offences against children such as incest, sexual grooming or sexual violation – even if they are not convicted of the offence.
…are we all seeing how concerning this is? People suspected, but not convicted of a crime will be punished regardless? If you haven’t been found guilty of a crime by your peers or by a judge, then where the hell does a Government get authority to enforce upon you a set of restrictions about what you can do and where you can go in public on threat of 3 years imprisonment?
So these are punishments without the actual verdict of guilt. While we all righteously find child molesters despicable, can we pause in our disgust to acknowledge these powers are a terrible over step of authority? How quickly would this Government want to start pushing punishments without convictions onto other crimes?
Even with the verdict of guilt, notice how quickly the concept of ‘do the crime, do your time’ has evaporated here. These prisoners would be punished beyond their sentence with these prevention orders and of course this new law would require a vast active surveillance network to keep tabs on everyone who is under these orders and the Police would be more than happy to use the GCSB to do that.
The only people happy with this law will be the private prisons that are desperate to be filled for their profit margins and the GCSB for the extra excuse to spy on the domestic population.
It’s easy to introduce the mass surveillance state when the first targets are the lowest of the low in the form of child offenders, but to agree to these types of extra punishments on people who have served their time and onto those merely suspected of crimes should raise red flags everyone who isn’t a cross burning member of the Sensible Sentencing Trust.
When you consider the amount of vulnerable children who are abused while in State care, perhaps the first group targeted by the Child Harm Prevention Orders should be CYFs.
Let’s push aside this joke policy and refocus on the GCSB.
Crime, any crime has proved to be a handy tool to keep peoples minds occupied and fearful. Society is so divided and twisted that few know which way is up, and many will sell their souls for a security based on propaganda.
At the end of the day, all crime is the result of social inequity and twisted politics. The snapper may be a flippant remark, but under the GCSB, we’ll loose all our rights including the right to fish, this will become a privileged sport for our masters.
If we want less crime and real freedom, everyone needs to wake up and create a government to serve the people, as now it’s the other way around.
“At the end of the day, all crime is the result of social inequity and twisted politics.”
really?!
All crime is the result of twisted people. Social inequality and twisted politics is usually the result of twisted people.
Chicken and egg… people will choose what suits them. Having known some people who were unaccountably twisted when others in their family were not, I find myself undecided…
If I could point out. People don’t create their own existing social circumstances, but inheret them from previous historical development. Thus from the very beginning people are conditioned by their material reality. Material reality decides conciseness and not the other way round. To speak of the individual without a material and historical context is meaningless, as their actions can only be scrutinised against this context.
“At the end of the day, all crime is the result of social inequity and twisted politics.”
What crap.
[…] Bomber Bradbury has pointed out this new law would require a vast active surveillance network to keep tabs on everyone who is […]
This policy tears me in half. On one hand I don’t agree with punishing people who have not committed a crime. On the other hand, I recognise that police generally know who’s most at risk of committing this type of crime and children need protecting.
I think this is worth debating further before writing it off completely.
Will the aquited molesters have to wear a yellow patch on their sleeve like the jews in Nazi germany?
I, who had to drop bombs (incedently, nearly killed several of my future friends) to get rid of the nazi regime in Germany am appaled to see simmilar nasty types infiltrating the NZ government encouraged by the same amorral multinational companies.
Katheryn Ryan was just this morning interviewing a school principal who said there were not enough foster families in Christchurch already. Is Paula announcing a huge improvement in the recruitment and other incentives for all these children that are going to be removed? Or is it going to be institutions again? They worked out so well in the past….not.
I do agree with background checking of all people working with children though. It won’t completely stop risk but is a wise move.
I have a paedophile in my family who doesn’t work with children but does visit homes as an employee of a research company and I regularly see him around town/libraries/mall etc. Not ideal but I guess he can’t just sit home and rot.
There should be no punishment for people who have not been convicted by a jury of their peers of any crime. Nor should there be any consequences after a person has completed their sentence and is free, because then they are not free. Is there anything in human rights about this?
If there are risks to children from convicts who are free, then there is a problem with sentencing, and possibly length or type of sentences need to be looked at, not a reason to restrict access of freed convicts from public areas.
In terms of damage done to children, the numbers effected by a rock spider are low compared to the damage a mad dog Tory like Paula Bennett, Judith Collins, or John Banks does on a regular basis. By any reasonable measure, Tories are lower and more dangerous than kiddy fiddlers.
Preventive detention for anyone who joins NAct!!
Now pile punishment for people suspected of being a risk to children onto legalised illegal surveillance, and add in throwaway remarks misunderstood (like the Irishman who said he was “off to destroy America” and was prevented very uncomfortably from entering that country – see “Terms & Conditions May Apply” for that and more). The innocent will have EVERYTHING to fear.
Let’s come up with a real distraction.
How about restraining orders on those suspected of abusing citizens and misusing the power of their position. This would see them banned from anything to do with the public and of course, all interaction with the media.
My first nomination? Come on down ………………..John Key!
how does it go…
innocent till proven guilty!
errrm oh no its…
Guilty till proven innocent!
ah sorry wrong again…
its guilty when proven innocent
yes that’s it!
ahhh lovely, I feel safe now.
I am just waiting for national to announce a fifth season – its getting so dark outside now we must be expecting a downpour of Oobleck.
This new set of law changes to protect children from abuse is not really a distraction effort to distract from the deservedly much criticised GCSB bill (for allowing wider powers to spy on New Zealanders and others), it is just a further expansion of legal powers for the state, its agencies, including the police, to turn the traditional legal concept of “innocent until proved guilty” up on its head!
It is indeed a slow, gradual move towards fascist like, dominant, prejudicial and scare mongering state rule over the population, which has become very typical for this “Natzi-anal” led government.
This is just more draconian stuff coming from Stormtrooper Bennett and her departments, where it is not sufficient to address the real abuse, to hold accountable those guilty and proved guilty, but where they want to take it further, and suspect anyone, who may be blamed by anyone, to potentially be “guilty”, so they have to make efforts to prove innocence.
They have already brought social obligations in, where parents on benefits are discriminated against and have to do more than other parents to comply with the law, they have already brought in drug testing provisions, where those failing tests are considered guilty of offences, so they face benefit cuts, without having been given the right to dispute and challenge a finding. They have already brought in a regime where beneficiaries having a warrant issued against them potentially have their benefits cut, before a matter has even been proved, whether the warrant is correct and justified, whether they actually are guilty of anything.
They also brought in new work capability expectations, where sick and disabled will face expectations to be work ready, unless they can prove their “innocence” by proving more than their doctors may already testify in medical certificates.
This is all stuff breaching the Bill of Rights, the Human Rights Act, and numerous international conventions New Zealand has signed up to. There have also been other law changes that are basically forcing suspected to prove their innocence, and see also a recent ruling by an Employment Tribunal or court, that employers can now in certain situations expect to have employees present their facebook page details and bank statements to prove innocence.
New Zealand is moving towards becoming a solid dictatorship, and what is happening re these proposed changes, especially the cunning insignificant changes to the GCSB bill, it will all just be the beginning.
As for how the wool is being pulled over beneficiaries re work capability testing, and “overwhelming evidence” of the “health benefits of work”, study the analysis found via this link, it is revealing how we are being misled and lied to:
http://accforum.org/forums/index.php?/topic/15188-medical-and-work-capability-assessments-based-on-the-bps-model-aimed-at-disentiteling-affected-from-welfare-benefits-and-acc-compo/
Whilst some child abuse is perpetrated by strangers it is an unfortunate fact that the family remains the most likely setting in which it will occur (http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2013-08-11/4870366). If the government wants to do something about protecting kids it needs to start with the family. Stranger danger is (mostly) a myth.
Trying to turn ‘suspects’ into de-facto criminals is dishonest. I expect more from ministers of the crown. With only 13 members of parliament holding a current practising certificate as a lawyer it is perhaps understandable why they fail to recognise the difference between right and wrong.
@ GM
While I agree with your first paragraph, this strikes me as a bit strange:
“With only 13 members of parliament holding a current practising certificate as a lawyer it is perhaps understandable why they fail to recognise the difference between right and wrong.”
Because only lawyers are able to distinguish between right and wrong? I might expect a lawyer to be able to tell; well written law from poorly written, but that’s as far as I’d go.
I’m a little old woman; I used to teach five-year-olds. Yesterday in a mall I went over to a little girl to tell her I liked her shoes – they had flashing lights on them. I guess she’s been indoctrinated in Stranger Danger because she screamed and ran off to her father. He saw what had happened and wasn’t upset by it, but what if he hadn’t seen, and what if other busybodies had got the wrong end of the stick. Would I have been arrested as a potential child abuser? It makes you think twice about being friendly to little kids. It’s getting to be a very sad place, this country.
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