Labour leader Chris Hipkins says it is โabsolutely feasibleโ Police Minister Mark Mitchell wasnโt aware of emails about former Deputy Police Commissioner Jevon McSkimming.
He said usual escalation processes to ensure correspondence is seen by the minister or their advisers can be circumvented and โnothing is ever completely foolproofโ.
Look.
I don’t like National.
I don’t like cops.
And I don’t like Mark Mitchell.
But I find it difficult, even with the new knowledge that Mark was aware 3 weeks prior to when he said he was briefed that he ‘knew’ about McSkimmings.
Mark built his entire political career around attacking Coster, if he had any inkling that Coster was covering up a scandal, Mark would have thrown Coster under the bus.
The issue isn’t the he-said-he-said diversion and trying to ping people about what they knew when, the issue is that there isn’t any bloody check and balance to the NZ Police!
Even if we traverse down the line that it was just an affair that went sour, McSkimmings was found to have been watching bestiality and child porn on his official devices, a fact THAT ONLY CAME OUT after the investigation into him about his affair, so this comes back to the total lack of oversight into our Police.
I have been banging on this drum for decades now, the IPCA does not have the funding or investigative powers to monitor and provide oversight to abuse of Police power, until we get serious about that, we are merely glossing over the problem.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, soย if you value having an independent voice โ please donate here.
I suppose maybe Mitchell just hates his family. He certainly does hate humans in general, he might simply be very consistent about it.