Let me be clear.
I am anti-euthanasia. I passionately believe that if this passes, Government’s and State Agencies will not be able to help themselves in promoting Euthanasia to lesson health costs. That’s what Jenny Shipley was secretly trying to do in the 1990s and I sure as hell believe National would use it like that now.
That said, what the NZ Police are doing to Euthanasia campaigners is not only outrageous, but the real reasons behind this weird abuse of power is actually a lot darker.
The Police erected a fake alcohol breath test checkpoint to purposely catch campaigners leaving a Euthanasia meeting and then proceeded to approach some of them afterwards at their home later that day.
Falsifying a checkpoint to catch and tag members of any political group or organisation and then turn up on their doorsteps to intimidate them is extreme and barely within the law.
Which is what the NZ Police are testing out. The incredible search and surveillance powers bestowed upon them retrospectively by John Key for illegally spying on activists added new abilities to actively deceive and effectively entrap activists. This pro-active Policing is clearly something the NZ Police wish to test out.
This is a bloody training exercise.
The Police have selected a low grade activist group with little political clout to test out how far they can actually go with their new powers.
The Police have been trying these tactics out for some time. The Urewera Raids not only used illegal spying techniques (now legal), but they engaged in GCSB level spying equipment and agent provocateurs. They tried it on with the failed Red Devil undercover plant and more recently used ‘Mr Big’ entrapment scams.
Targeting Euthanasia campaigners is a training exercise as our Police State starts flexing its new found muscles.
Remember if the new GCSB and SIS powers go through, they can deputise any agency to share their legal immunity if committing crimes.
where is the Labour Party on this?…or does it support it?
Aw Chooky FFS (for Fiji sake), don’t make this a Labour Party issue.
Ask Maori Party if any of the police stopped OAP Maori at their fake checkpoint ! Is this a racist police checkpoint then?
Ask United Future if any OAP-medicinal cannabis users were stopped? Were any actual medical OAP’s actually caught-and-released?
Ask ACT if any right-winged, blue-rinsed OAP Epsom voters why they were stopped on their way back from a bridge club meeting at the Masonic lodge.
FFS Chooky. It’s a National, NACT disgrace, not a Labour Party – Greens – NZ First issue!
Lay dictatorship where it truly belongs, at the jackbooted heels of John Key, David Seymour, Te Ururoa Flavell/Marama Fox and the guy with the pekinese on his head, who wears bowties.
Sure, NZ First have a better moral high-ground to protest, since JK told JB at a tea-party once that most of WP’s electoral base would be ‘dead soon anyway’….if the teapot tape diaries are to be believed on Wikileaks
JK got the Police to just check which Superannuitants planned to pop their clogs earlier than he and John Banks anticipated.
Once John Key and Bill English know the figures of how many of the EB Lone-Wolf Terrorist Cell (EBLWTC) will commit OAP Seppuku (harakari), the sooner he and the electorate will know how much of a tax cut he can bribe the electorate with (now that the tax cuts have been spent on prisons for the elderly to stop them topping themselves)
Although, using the boys-in-blue, with riot gear, pepper-spray and tasers was a teeny bit OTT.
It’s good to know that the police are an organisation that are above political and tax-cut-related interference in the running of this
dictatorship/Fiji-style dictatorshipersatz democracy.@ WHA LEFT …it is a Labour Party issue!
…or don’t you think they should be an Opposition Party?
…it is also an issue for the Maori Party ( Uncle Tom Party)…and every other political party in New Zealand that stands up for New Zealanders’ human rights
OK, so why did you single out Labour then?
BTW NZ parl is modeled on the Westminster system and the opposition operates under that system. Not ideal I know, but that’s the way it is.
Of course Labour get singled out they are supposedly the opposition party, but I know they will never go back on this legislation after all they have themselves put in legislation around spying and had the law changed after the Urewera scandal and those 80+ people who were illegally spied on. Gutless gutless gutless and no better that key and his mates.
re “OK, so why did you single out Labour then?”
…because Labour is the biggest Opposition party unfortunately…and if it colludes with jonkey Nactional we are stuffed
re “OK, so why did you single out Labour then?”
…should be obvious…it is the biggest Opposition party unfortunately
…and if it colludes with jonkey Nactional on the spy bill , as it looks as if it will, then we are stuffed
You still don’t get it do you Chooky?
Labour didn’t tell the police to set up a fake booze checkpoint to gather intelligence on euthanasia meeting goers, National did.
Which National Party member told the police commissioner to set up a fake booze bus and collect names and addresses of people attending a meeting? Who in the National party signed the warrant?
Which police commissioner or officer ordered a fake booze bus to be set up and garner names and addresses of people attending a meeting? Who gave the order from the Police, to organise a fake booze bus, Intel gathering sting?? Ask the police, then trace back to who signed the order, or coerced the Police’s hands?
I’m sure an OIA will get the truth one way or another.
But I guarantee you one things chooky. NO Labour Party member would have had anything to do with this abuse of democratic power and an OIA will confirm it.
Deliberate Ofuscation?
(Obfuscation is the obscuring of intended meaning in communication, making the message confusing, willfully ambiguous, or harder to understand.)
RE read the Post
I am talking about the new SPY Bill , as are many other commenters here)which is the subject of this Post ie Martyn Bradbury states:
…”Falsifying a checkpoint to catch and tag members of any political group or organisation and then turn up on their doorsteps to intimidate them is extreme and barely within the law.
Which is what the NZ Police are testing out. The incredible search and surveillance powers bestowed upon them retrospectively by John Key for illegally spying on activists added new abilities to actively deceive and effectively entrap activists. This pro-active Policing is clearly something the NZ Police wish to test out.
This is a bloody training exercise.
The Police have selected a low grade activist group with little political clout to test out how far they can actually go with their new powers.
The Police have been trying these tactics out for some time. The Urewera Raids not only used illegal spying techniques (now legal), but they engaged in GCSB level spying equipment and agent provocateurs. They tried it on with the failed Red Devil undercover plant and more recently used ‘Mr Big’ entrapment scams.
Targeting Euthanasia campaigners is a training exercise as our Police State starts flexing its new found muscles.
Remember if the new GCSB and SIS powers go through, they can deputise any agency to share their legal immunity if committing crimes. ..
Agreed. Nicely said WHA LEFT
“It’s good to know that the police are an organisation that are above political and tax-cut-related interference in the running of this dictatorship/ Fiji-style dictatorship ersatz democracy.”
Lol very good joke there 🙂
Where is Labour’s outcry and persistent public condemnation.
Another over reaching “dark ops ” state intervention into ouyr diminishing human civiul rights using the long arm of a authoritarian Government woud you have to agree Martyn.
Im going to double our monthly donation to your voice of free speech Daily blog mate there is nobody else out there like you.
Keep up the great work we are now gearing up to throw this tyrants out of the country as almost every one I speak to is totally feed up with this evil Government with their authoritarian dictatorship of Key/Joyce/English/ Barry/and Bennett.
Onto the tip they will go.
Where is National’s co partner, the Maori party, on this, do they support it? where’s the outcry and persistent public condemnation” the continued silence from them is deafening!
the silence from Labour is also deafening! ( no use hiding behind the Maori Party)
Showing your true colours again Chooky, aqua, with a royal navy trim.
National ordered a fake Police checkpoint
Labour did not.
Jeez, do we have to use Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ with you.
“Four legs good, two legs better”
National ordered a fake Police checkpoint
Labour did not.
@ Chooky? ” Where is Labour on this? ” you ask?
Having tea and scones with yankee doodle psycho jonky – stien of course.
Just like winston ‘red herring’ peters in that fabulous photo of him with that arch fucker don brash sipping coffee dahlings. All nicey – nicey and cuddle smoochums…. While we get ever more anxious, suicide far more often and as the homeless become more homeless, the indebted become more indebted and the high roller Chinese, Brits, Germans and sundry others swarm here to push us further away from our country, all aided and abetted by a cadre of double crossing, cowardly political swine. ( No disrespect to actual swine. )
While we suffer, Labour play sweet snuggles in the Cosy Nook with those whom should be their sworn enemies
At the risk of repeating myself, it’d pay to remember that NZ is a Commonwealth Country and that the Queen, and Crown, is our parent state.
Therefore, where the fuck is the Governor General?
(No disrespect to Maori, even though what I’ve written above could be seen as disrespectful. It’s just that we, as a ‘modern’ country , need to sort out our immediate problems first. Then go back and address the historical cons and scams Maori were subjected to. )
Labour are lost. They will remain so until they take to the streets, and take us with them, to purge us of the scourge that is neo liberalism in all its permutations. But what are they doing instead? They’re fucking around.
Of course the Labour Party supports the active surveillance, they may carefully “deny” this, but in secret, most of them agree with it, as they are already thinking of what powers they may “need” and so desire, when they are back in office, that is “If” they ever will be back in office.
It is the same with the welfare reforms, many in Labour do discretely think, oh, goody, goody, the Nats do the hard work for us, so once we get back in, we will just show a friendlier face about it all, but we will NOT reverse what the Nats brought in.
Labour have a track record of being treacherous, remember 1984 and after, and what also happened on and off over recent years.
I am shocked by this, this meeting was no business of Police. How unbelievable visiting these seniors who attended the meeting and trying to intimidate them
What is really behind this?
With a 65% conclusion rate of robberies in West Auckland, you would truly believe there are more important things for Police to be doing.
The police could not care less about burglaries, as that is stuff they rather leave to the insurance industry to deal with.
The NZ Police has been incorporated into the agendas of John Key and his government a long time ago, go to any meeting of Nat MPs and see them exchange compliments with the police officers attending, protecting them from those in the public, who at times dare “infiltrate” their “public” meetings with tea and scones, and ask real questions.
The police are too mindful of their own vested interest, that is getting their salaries paid, and their entitlements for holidays and so met. All else will not bother many, if not most officers anymore, as they have long given up and seriously beating crime.
Suicide parties are going to be popular soon … for a short time anyway ) http://www.22After.com
Falsifying a checkpoint to catch and tag members of any political group or organisation and then turn up on their doorsteps to intimidate them is extreme and barely within the law.
Next these grey-haired “criminals” will have to wear a picture of Winston Peters on their sleeves and live in a ghetto… come’on Winston where’s your outrage at this?
Before these people lose their teeth to the dictators and their accomplices.
Can’t work out why, if they knew where and when the meeting was taking place, they didn’t just knock on the door and have a chat with the people then and there.
My first thought when I read about this was the police might have been scared this group were planning a mass suicide which wouldn’t reflect well on the police of the government given the national suicide stats at the moment.
Might be off the mark there but hey.
They were at a meeting of Exit International. E.I. are not, nor have they ever been, part of any sort of Jonestown kool aide style mass exit.
Technically they are, of course, discussing and potentially enabling an illegal activity.
But it’s an issue with complex social and moral aspects. And like Homosexual law reform, Recreational Marijuana law reform, and Medical Law reform issues, the Police should show some discretion.
Good points made there!
This is part of the journey on our way to a totalitarian state that masquerades as a democracy while silencing any dissenting concerned voices and protest action through intimidation and strong arm tactics and surveillance.
If the opposition and the select committee dont do their job on these draconian powers and see the danger here then our country and our freedom is dead.
+100 MOSA
Yes, it is utterly disgraceful, and a perversion of police power.
I am with Maryann Street and Iain Lees-Galloway on this one. The state does not own people’s lives.
I would like to see a large public demonstration by euthanasia supporters, very close to a police station. The people (~70% consistently support euthanasia in surveys) need to tell the police, or at least the senior person responsible for this outrage, where to get off.
And good luck to the next time this bill comes up in Parliament
Where are our academics?
Where are our Human Rights activists?
Where are our Ombudsman?
Where are our Police watchdog organizations?
Where are the Opposition party’s?
Where is our media?
Why have we allowed this pseudo New Zealander called John Key to continue on abusing the citizens of this country ?
Why haven’t we dragged him before our courts?
Why isn’t he serving a long sentence in our prisons for subterfuge and treason?
+100…
Here here WK.
Anyone interested in knowing why Police aren’t attending burglaries…?
They must be “busy” somewhere else.
yup…they might be “busy” “somewhere else” actually doing the “burglaries”
…sniffing around minding other peoples’ business(es)
…acting as “thought Police”
On a more pertinent note, Selwyn’s piece that Martyn linked is is a Must Read: http://eveningreport.nz/2016/10/04/editorial-be-aware-and-beware-of-what-you-demand-a-case-against-state-backed-euthanasia/
The rationale voiced by Selwyn was repeated by Alliance Leader, Jim Anderton, when he and Sandra Lee voted against Michael Laws’ “Death with Dignity” Bill. At the time, I heard Jim explain to the Alliance Parliamentary Office that any legalisation of euthenasia would not be safe with a hard-neo-liberal government in place that was cutting Vote Health (and other social services) at the time.
Any legalisation of euthenasia (which I support) must be done in a way that prevents right-wing economic policies from denying or “motivating” some people from “exiting” early.
By the way, I would add Rau Williams’ name to that of James Mckeown. https://fmacskasy.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/bill-english-do-you-remember-colin-morrison/
Dr David Small’s piece is also a MUST read
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/10/26/guest-blog-dr-david-small-nz-spy-agencies-holding-them-to-account-3-part-special-part-3/
Just read stuff on Belgium and Holland and other countries that have legalised knocking people off. Killing mental patients in Holland has increased exponentially – and people are supposed to be of sound mind when they ask for this. Have a look here https://lozierinstitute.org/tag/assisted-suicide/
Death like birth and life is a messy business so be it. Pain constant pain is a separate issue altogether and one that is dealt with and can be dealt with properly ask any doctor or nurse.
Why would anyone think that we could do a better job of it than these other countries is beyond me.
re “Remember if the new GCSB and SIS powers go through, they can deputise any agency to share their legal immunity if committing crimes.”
…wow…does this mean if you find a burglar in your bedroom it might be GCSB or SIS or deputised agency ?…and this burglar has immunity for crimes?…are we just supposed to stay quiet and think of England?
…wow…does this mean that we all need to get guns to protect ourselves from intruders?
…wow…is this why in the USA they strongly protest and protect their individual rights as citizens to have and carry guns in their homes? …so they can protect themselves from the State?
Do New Zealanders really want to go there?….do we really want a Police State?…with jonkey nactional in control?
…all political parties should oppose this!!!!
Well put CHOOKY!!
There is some persistant bleating…. “why isn’t the Labour Party/Greens/somebody? doing something about this?
They are, but they need your help.
Instead of just standing there yelling “somebody do something!” YOU do something.
Tell your local National MPs what you think.
Donate to a party that opposes the bill. There is a lot you can do.
Unless of course you are a troll anyway and you actually like the idea that the police can create a temporary policeman just by touching him and declaring “you are now deputised”.
Stop bleating and start acting, if you are really concerned.
Seeing as most people here do not use their full/real names how do you happen know what they are or are not doing??
And for those who are just venting on the keyboard, well, on this issue all the political parties are being very…discreet. Labour aren’t really wanting anything to do with it, and the Greens are making a point of not campaigning with Euthanasia as a high profile issue, though their ‘on paper’ stand is very good.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/81219380/Legalising-euthanasia-not-a-priority-for-Labour-says-Andrew-Little
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11714762
So I suspect people do not really know what to do, other than send a letter to their local National MPs ‘trash’ bin. Or get a “yes” but “no” letter from their local Labour Party MP.
And I suspect the prospect of coming out publicly in ‘favour’ of Euthanasia..and ending up on a POlice watch list, that’s a serious disincentive for some.
+100 SIOBHAN…and MPs are supposed to take a leadership role for New Zealanders’ human rights…not just dumbly sit on their fat butts and collect their fat salaries
@ Mike…what are you bleating about ?….muddying the waters?
…the Greens and NZF and Mana/Internet have long STRENUOUSLY OPPOSED any extension of spying on New Zealanders, especially by foreigners!
…Labour and the Maori Party do not /or have not yet opposed it …and are therefore in collusion with jonkey nactional with the SPY BILL
It’s high timer the middle classes got a taste of what Nicky Hager and other left-wing “stirrers” have had to put up with over the last few decades.
Pardon me if I struggle to find sympathy for people who probably voted National.
The same thought crossed my mind, Priss. It seems the middle classes don’t “get” fascism unless it’s dressed in nazi gear and sporting swastikas and a big f@@@@@g sign on their backs”I am a nazi fascist”. Too busy with reality tv to to see the real reality around them.
Jeez, a little presumptuous don’t you think?.
Some National supporters out their are probably muttering away to themselves about how we could do with more old middle class Lefties, probably ex school teachers, wanting to kill themselves.
Maybe it would help if you could put a ‘face’ to the story…….
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/85307936/police-seize-voluntary-euthanasia-advocates-helium-balloon-kit
We could seriously do with a bit less ‘Divide and Sink’ on the Left, that’s for sure.
Well put CHOOKY!!
Old ladies and men, facing deteriorating health of their own, or of their loved ones, are seriously looking at the last resort kind of action, which may avoid endless pain and suffering for them, that can last for years, hence they consider voluntary euthanasia. Even some younger people may consider such actions, should they suffer terminal cancers, serious accident consequences and whatever illness from which they will never recover.
So the cops think this is stuff for them to take a closer look at, do they?
Indeed, it looks very strange and suspicious, but I do not think it is a training exercise or something similar, they are serious, some sicko cops up the ranks is serious, to try this one out.
They have though harassed leftist, environmentalist and some other activists for years before, why is the MSM suddenly getting so upset about this, perhaps because it affects elderly?
Maybe so, but the very idea that the police get involved in such surveillance and harassment, that is what people should already have been getting angry about for decades, but they do not. Most seem to have no problem with fringe groups getting harassed, as usual, and that is, because the “silent majority” still acts like a mob, as they always have.
With old ladies getting harassed though, some start to think, oh, this may just go a “little bit too far”.
Most New Zealanders have a poor view of the law and of human rights, it shows in the treatment of beneficiaries, of underpaid migrant workers, in the harassment of minorities in general. When it affects old ladies in rest homes and so, then they may suddenly realise, they may be next.
Will this make any difference in future? I do not think so, once the police lay off doing this to old ladies, they will continue harassing others, as they always do, and nobody will care all that much.
I fear this could be a warm up police exercise of what is to come very soon!
Next it will be breaking the law for three or more people to congregate in a private home, constituting an illegal meeting, thereby becoming a threat to the nation, requiring police intervention!
Been done before, so I wouldn’t put it past this scurrilous lot of scoundrels in government fraudulently disguised as the peoples’ representatives, to revisit and play out the darkest of history once more, in the name of the nation’s security!
Now where is the Opposition on this? Bit disheartening there is nothing from Labour on its position re this issue yet!
+100 Mary_A
Kiwi’s are in #DreamWorld, being dumbed down to a box of hammers, meanwhile #Endace has sold spy tools to Morocco tourturers & GCHQ, then Endace is sold, Kiwi tax payers have been ripped off 11.1 million dollars R&D, why hasn’nt Joyce demanded the dosh back.
The Natzis pick on elderly activists to distact, then splash their dreamworld dumb down crash, job done, nothing to see here, move on, so we can pass the intell surviellance unholy union.
So I heard and saw the news conference, well timed before the night news. This is cops in damage control, friends, they are trying to cover up and pretend it was all for valid reasons, to do what they did. Of course, some talk about not being able to say more, to not prejudice persons and so, that was to be expected.
When do the fricking MSM ever do their fricking jobs, I ask?
Do they still do some investigations and more, or are they now just sitting to hear media conferences and read press releases. The BS could never stink stronger in this, where the hell are you fucking useless journos, if there are any left of such species???
[…] As TDB noted yesterday, this obscene abuse of power is actually a flexing of new Police muscle with the cops trying out new pro-active policing against activist groups. […]
“Falsifying a checkpoint to catch and tag members of any political group or organisation and then turn up on their doorsteps to intimidate them is extreme and barely within the law”.
People have the common law right to liberty. The checkpoint wasn’t lawful because legislation depends on sovereignty and the Parliament of NZ isn’t sovereign. But even if Parliament was sovereign it wouldn’t be lawful because common law is only abrogated by remedial legislation, and such legislation must provide a remedy for a mischief at common law. The remedy provided by the Land Transport Act relates to road safety, not to arbitrary questioning.
“Statutes are also either declaratory of the common law, or remedial of some defects therein.
….
There are three points to be considered in the construction of all remedial statutes; the old law, the mischief, and the remedy: that is, how the common law stood at the making of the act; what the mischief was, for which the common law did not provide; and what remedy the parliament has provided to cure this mischief. And it is the business of the judges so to construe the act, as to suppress the mischief and advance the remedy.”
Blackstone’s Commentaries, introduction section iii
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