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From TVNZ’s Q+A, on 25 October 2015,
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The Q+A panel were ostensibly discussing out-going Police Association President, Greg O’Connor’s persistent calls to arm the New Zealand police. At one point, former National Party president, Michelle Boag offered her views on policing-techniques in this country;
@5.10:
Michelle Boag: “…But, it’s, it’s a bit of a shame, that for most of us, certainly for me personally, the, the only direct engagement I end up with Police is when they stop me as they did yesterday morning when I was driving to golf at seven o’clock in the morning for a random breath test. Right, so that’s an instant confrontational thing. And, er, it just makes you think, ‘oh god, here they are, enforcing’ all the time-”
Simon Dallow: “So were you more annoyed or were you more pleased that society is being protected here?”
Boag: “Er, well, I was annoyed because I haven’t had a drink for twenty years. And every time I get stopped on the way to golf early on a Saturday morning, I think, it’s a complete waste of your time. However, I know, if rather than saying my name and address, I say, ‘Listen, I don’t drink, you’re never going to catch me’, that I’ll probably get hauled up for, y’know, talking back to a policeman.“
It should not be lost on most politically conscious folk that one of National’s strongest, most agressively promoted tenet is that of “Law and Order”. One of it’s seven main election billboards, for the 2011 election, was the image at the top of the page.
National’s political history is replete with passing laws empowering the police and spy organisations SIS and GCSB. (The GCSB was set up under National, under then-Prime Minister Robert Muldoon’s leadership.)
Since 2008, National has passed the following laws;
Search and Surveillance Act 2012
Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill
The GCSB’s mandate was changed two years ago to permit it to spy on New Zealanders.
This, despite protests from New Zealanders up and down the country, opposed to extending the powers of the State into our lives. One wonders if Michelle Boag attended any of the anti-GCSB protests that’s been held around the country?
This is not the first time that a National Party apparatchik has been caught up in the new, murky atmosphere of surveillance, that is now part of our lives. In 2013, then-National Party president Peter Goodfellow, complained of being under covert surveillance by a private investigator;
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I blogged on the issue here: National Party president complains of covert filming.
And who can forget the outrageously delicious irony of National’s coalition partner, Peter Dunne, having his emails pinched by Parliamentary Services and passed on to the Prime Minister’s Department.;
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Then-Fairfax journalist, Andrea Vance, also had her Parliamentary phone and swipe-card records passed on to the PM’s Department (which was “assisting” the Thorn Inquiry), as an investigation was held into the identity of the secret source who leaked Vance a confidential report into the GCSB.
The irony is that even as Peter Dunne was rearing up and braying in self-righteous indignation at the invasion of his privacy, two and a half weeks later, he voted with National in the Third and final reading of the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Bill (now an Act) which passed it into law.
Now everyone in New Zealand could have their privacy invaded.
I blogged on the issue here: Parliamentary spies and games – some bad numbers
When governments pass laws extending the powers of the State’s security organisations, and increase surveillance capabilities of spy agencies, then it has created a fertile environment where privacy is no longer as sacrosanct as it once was. Whether it be police stopping motorists at random to detect potential drunk drivers*; a private investigator recording a conversation; or one government agency passing private emails on to another; or covert surveillance on potentially all New Zealanders, a new norm has been created.
Michelle Boag may be indignant at being stopped on her way to her golf on a Saturday morning – but her right to unimpeded travel on our roads was extinguished a long time ago. The State now has the right to stop her as, when, and however, it’s security agencies ‘deem necessary’.
She may even have her phone and internet tapped, should she ever run foul of a future government.
All perfectly legal.
I love it when National’s quasi-fascistic law and order policies eventually catch up with it’s own supporters.
Thank you, Lady Karma.
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* Footnote:
It should be noted that this blogger has no problem with random breath-testing conducted by Police. Whilst this country is awash with cheap, easily-available booze; and whilst New Zealanders refuse to address our penchant for binge-drinking, random breath testing is one of the few means we have to protect ourselves and our families from liquored-up drivers. Michelle Boag needs to get over her preciousness and sense of entitlement in this regard. The next drink driver the police catch could be one on her road, as she drives to her golfing rendezvous.
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References
TVNZ Q+A: Panel on arming the Police
Wikipedia: Government Communications Security Bureau
Fairfax media: National Party boss alleges covert filming
Fairfax Media: Emails given to inquiry
Parliament: Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Bill
Previous related blogposts
Parliamentary spies and games – some bad numbers
National Party president complains of covert filming – oh the rich irony!
National’s disdain for democracy and dissent
Welcome to new glorious People’s Republic of New Zealand
Today’s irony was brought to you courtesy of former ACT MP and Govt Minister, Rodney Hide
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I’m not sure if this is meant to build a picture give that Michele Boag is a silly, short-sighted person with the characteristic of being self-centred.
If so it is unnecessary, I already thought that.
Ms Boag probably prefers the world to be a happy, fun place. Maybe one way to do that is to have a police force carry out their job with a bit of joviality and humour. My suggestion is that when cops stop grizzly, witchy old women for booze checks on the way to golf on Saturday mornings, they should say, “Good morning. Sometimes there’s stock out loose on the road presenting a danger to the community. I’m checking to see if we can track down old cows.”
While I am no fan of Michelle Boag I do notice your reference to her as a witch and a cow.
I think your point would have been better made without resorting to the lowest common denominator, referring to women as witches and cows.
Well put, Lara. 🙂
Good work @ Frank Macskasy . The only thing here that sent chills up my spine is how deeply and unabashedly stupid Boag is. She talks like an ‘ Idiocracy’ cast member after a bump on the head. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy ) Is this how stupid the rest of them are? If they’re all that dumb right? How come we pay them in money ? Would not crayons, pink ribbons and gold stars do instead of six $ figures plus entitlements ? If they’re all that dumb then what does that say about us ! ? The dumb leading the stupid ? 4.3 million morons ? I’m surprised that 99% of us haven’t just dropped our trousers on the floor and wandered off into the bush drooling with our tongues hanging out the corner of our gaping maws.
Clown cops with popguns could round us all up then machine gun us against a wall and we’d just gape on like cattle at the slaughter house. Ears forward while shit drops out our MacDonald’s fattened arses. I now know why aliens have never invaded Earth. They can’t keep their suckers on the buttons of their laser cannons for rolling about in hysterical laughter because we’re all intimidated by a special needs golfer in a frock with more of our money than a laughing alien can aim a laser gun at .
Honestly, we should be ashamed of ourselves. Embarrassed is perhaps more the word?
The neo lib nat-zi’s have made us the laughing stock of the known universe .
What really scared me is that people like Boag have no insight into the irony of their comments. On the one hand they demand a perfectly *ordered* society with strong police force and pervasive powers, and other the other they don’t want to be personally inconvenienced.
Boag has just hit that wall of incompatibility.
Iv said it before. We are in a cyber punk universe.
In a way, Bin Laden won, he managed to help destroy New Zealand and western liberty, knowing how we would over react. How the War on Drugs and the Cold War destroyed Civil Liberties and did it again with the War on Terror.
Keys is a really really really shit war time PM.
Well said Sam 1000%
Our future was stolen by the elitists meanwhile we were not looking for there planned attack on our Sovereignty, democracy and Liberty without a bullet shot at us all to signal their war intents.
Precisely.
Very astute, Sam.
the most ironic thing here is that the issues Boages is now most worried about are the very things they’ve proven to be both viable and feasible via their own actions, and as some in the article point out, what they’re setting up for is using these tools and infrastructure for offensive purposes rather than defense ones, and are now moaning about how their defences aren’t good enough so they need even more offensive capabilities.
This is literally a MAD doctrine in digital format.
Good article Frank. Well done.
Seems to me where Michelle Boag and her beloved NatzKEY is concerned, the police can do their job, but not on Boag’s or NatzKEY’s patch!
Says a lot about the law and order situation we find ourselves in now, where NatzKEY is able to get off with a free pass, while the rest of us are expected to be harassed and/or penalized by law enforcement agencies!
http://pressf1.pcworld.co.nz/showthread.php?66492-Boag-uses-rescue-chopper-to-fetch-passport&s=840dbc09c5a33d98cd86609e6eb823e6
as one commenter says….
“Seems to me she is just saying, “I am important. I am ritch. I will do what I like. If I have to get people out of bed in the middle of the night to serve me then they had better jump to my command””
Life fueled by her sense of entitlement.
The political right are always fond of law and order enforcement, as long as it targets the political left. When their own privacy gets invaded that is different, of course.
Even when the state apparatus of spying and invading their privacy does catch up with them, I don’t think they’ll see it.
Dunne missed the point. I guess Boag will too.
Boag: “Er, well, I was annoyed because I haven’t had a drink for twenty years. And every time I get stopped on the way to golf early on a Saturday morning, I think, it’s a complete waste of your time.”
And how on earth is a cop to know that?? Telepathy??
For all the police know, she could be high on drugs or off her face on too many gin & tonics.
Stupid, stupid woman.
Ms Boag is not a political commentator as many of her media hosts claim; she is an apologist/propagandist for the right.
Increasingly of late a somewhat hysterical, even bullying proponent for her cause, but seldom does she add anything of substance to a debate.
I wish the media would pension her off.
Interesting too, how chummy and on-song she is when heard in tandem with that one-time proud socialist, Brian Edwards. Perhaps, with regard to the latter, the old saying has some truth to it: you’re only a socialist until you get a few bob in your pocket!
I have noticed that whenever Michelle Boag is on a panel, whether on TV or radio, she dominates by talking over other panellists and using the typical right-wing strategy of voicing opinion as fact and trying to sound like the voice of reason, when in reality, she is espousing fascist ideology.
It is typical of a right winger to expect to be exempted from rules that they want everyone else to follow. This kind of double-standard mentality underpins other right wing practices, such as:
– Evading and avoiding tax yet using taxpayer funded ACC, education, hospitals, infrastructure, etc.
– Criticising beneficiaries yet receiving Working for Families and rents from investment properties that are largely taxpayer subisidised through tenants receiving the Accommodation Supplement.
– Denying child poverty and not wanting to help impoverished children, yet expecting taxpayer funded support if something adverse happens to them e.g. ACC if they have an injury.
These are just a few examples. Frank, I’m sure your astute readers could think of many more.
Boag is both narcissistic and hypocritical. She believes that she is a special case who is above the law. She also supports a Government that implements draconian laws that impinge on everyone’s freedoms, yet she objects to these laws being applied to her.
By the way, we’ll know if you’ve read Frank’s article and these comments Michelle, because you’ll come across as even more aggressive and domineering than usual on whatever panel you appear on next.
I am less concerned about checkpoints for drink drivers and more for the aggressive manner with which some are carrying out this duty. My husband was under the limit and was given a 10 minute lecture on drink driving – note again he was under the limit so not actually committing an offence. A clients’ daughter had not drunk anything but was interrogated over had she come from after work drinks – she hadn’t but had to repeat several times.
Good article Frank and yet another good reason why I gave up watching Q&A and all the other lovey talkfests, why they continue to drag out the same tired old hacks (left & right) is beyond me, these people had their day in the sun some time ago and should be put out to pasture immediately their self serving diatribes interest me about as much as some over entitled woman’s sad & tragic story about getting pulled up by the cops- oh the humanity
That said thanks for watching this tripe so I don’t have to
I take it then, that unless she is a voluntary tea teetotaler, or has converted to Mormonism or something similar, Michelle Boag may have had some “issues” with alcohol in the past, so she was forced to stay well clear of it.
Apart from that, yes, what a hypocrite, going on about feeling harassed by police stopping her to check her breath alcohol limit. If that is harassment, what do people say that were locked up for vague or unjustified suspicions during the Tohoe raids, what about those that are as investigative journalists harassed by police, what about those that are surveilled and have their meta data collected (most of us), what about others who may be “suspects” merely for the “wrong” colour of their skin.
What a bigoted, hypocritical and arrogant woman this is, Michelle Boag. It makes me sick that we have her, same as that Pagani woman from the supposed “left”, get invited again, and again, and again, by TV programs and radio stations, to tell us what they think, and what they think we should be thinking about.
Flush them down the toilet of history, please, we need something of substance to talk and write about, not this BS.
Looks like the fascist sycophants are at it again, with most comments that previously had all thumbs up now down-voted twice. Come on you two, it’s pathetically obvious what you’re doing. Get a life.
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