Yay – the Greens realised the terror bill wasn’t for identity politics grandstanding and actually had serious civil rights implications for all…
Greens to back anti-terrorism bill, say National’s ‘blackmail’ has failed
The Government’s anti-terrorism bill looks set to pass as the Green Party has swung in behind it, leaving National’s demands in limbo.
The Terrorism Suppression Bill was set to be introduced this week, but it was delayed after the Government lacked the numbers for the bill to pass; the Greens called it too tough while National had called it too weak.
Justice Minister Andrew Little and National leader Simon Bridges blamed each other over the failure to negotiate bipartisan consensus, which is common on national security issues.
But the impasse has been broken by the Green Party, which said it would now support the bill after the Government agreed to make changes.
…yay, the Greens fixed a problem they started! It’s fantastic that they realised their Identity Politics tantrum was actually eclipsing some genuine civil liberty concerns…
The Prime Minister is rejecting a Green MP’s description of a law that would impose restrictions on returning New Zealanders involved in terrorism as “dog-whistling”.
Ghahraman is worried that the legislation employs foreign nations’ definitions of what terror is. She said countries like Iran – where she was born – consider feminists and political activists as terrorists.
“We are literally doubling down on oppression that foreign nations might be employing to define dissidence as terrorists, and we’re not employing New Zealand law in this… There is no place for it.”
Ghahraman said what’s “frightening” about the new law is that New Zealand would be relying on evidence collected by “foreign agencies that may have employed torture and we know that’s not going to be reliable information”.
“We know that they may be relying on convictions that are completely unsafe, or are actually targeted at political dissidence rather than actual terrorists.”
Ghahraman said the proposed law panders to “that tough on crime, war on terror language that especially in a post-Christchurch New Zealand has no place here”.
“We know that it will rile up fear and anxiety about something that isn’t a problem… We do need terrorism to be a crime, but we need to try it in appropriate circumstances.”
…unfortunately, once we strip out all the identity politics virtue signalling, we still have legislation that completely misses the criticism of the proposed law…
like with anything the bloody Government suggests, it’s not until you have a deep dive into the fine print that you start seeing a law that has a terribly large amount of worrying holes in it.
So you will be guilty of future terror acts that you don’t know anything about and it seems to rely on lots of secret evidence that you as the accused won’t be able to challenge.
Worst of all, the evidential standards for this are, let’s say, woeful…
…balance of probabilities? That’s the evidential threshold we are seriously considering here? The same evidential threshold in civil disputes?
The changes the Greens have managed to get Labour to adopt are great, but surely the fact the entire thing hangs on the evidential threshold of balance of probabilities is the true civil rights issue here?
If that problem isn’t resolved all the safeguards to not target feminists fleeing Iran are meaningless.
Depends what the punishment is I guess. If you’re just sticking people in jail for future crimes then that’s a bit woke. But if the punishment is rehabilitation and deradicalisation then I suppose we have something to discuss.
Yep Martyn,
Greens would see the stance on this one would cost them votes so they capitulated as expected.
I hope they now join the ‘save the planet/climate change/extinction-rebellion campaign to show labour how to wake up and our past prowess at getting seriously involved about our environment and climate change again.
Labour – (expecially Jacinda) are all sleeping on the job here.
There’s probably more potential for The Greens in soft power plays than hard power plays.
Arm-twisted Greens have become another party one can no longer vote for. Weak, weak, Golriz.
The “war on terror” means a war on anything a government doesn’t like. Good on GG and the Greens.
So far New Zealand has produced 3 terrorists in recent times. That’s according to Andrew Little. I don’t like terrorists.
who is writing these laws? are these worrying holes an unintentional oversight or is something more malicious going on? If its the former then someone more competent should be writing them. If its the latter then we have bigger problems than terrorism.
Ghahraman is a hypocrite, vocal when warrantless searches were proposed for gang members, silent when the same is proposed for firearms licence holders
So you’ve discovered hypocrisy and gun ownership amongst other things. Delicious
What are we talking about here, and what have the Greens agreed to?
Nothing will change that fact that police control orders, “re-education” and “rehabilitation”, call it what you like are inimical to a free society. Not only that, but they don’t work.
This is very basic, and very simple. There is no way that this bad legislation can be redeemed. Anyone who wanted a free society would scrap it.
But this government of Jacinda Ardern does not want a free society.
It wants a police state and is hell bent on getting it. If the Green Party goes along with that, then so be it.
We must resist evil wherever it rears its ugly head. That means outright defiance of the British Crown as it compromises, undermines and seeks to defeat the rule of law and democratic conventions.
No excuses Martyn. No suggesting that a few little changes here and there will make this bill less dangerous or more acceptable. No congratulations for the Green Party when it conspires with the Crown to prune back the rights and freedoms of the people.
Yep, well said.
Totally agree. How anyone can applaud this capitulation by the Greens is beyond me. I have yet to see any law introduced as a response to the war on terror that existing law could not deal with. Its all used as an excuse to tighten the screws on any type of dissent. These are all the kinds of laws that allow and condone the types of action taken against Julian Assange. Cheerleading this is pretty disillusioning from this blog.
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-greens-should-not-support-tyranny.html?m=1
I agree with Sue Bradford and Catherine Delahunty on this:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/401795/former-green-mps-unhappy-with-party-s-terrorism-supression-bill-support
Welcome to NZ police state. This is nothing to cheer about but thanks again for reminding me not to vote for any of this lot.
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