Public Records Act: Warning amendments could result in loss of vital evidence
Record keepers are warning an amendment bill before Parliament will usher in the destruction or loss of vital public evidence such as from military operations overseas.
They also voiced alarm at a parliamentary select committee on Wednesday morning that public records could be privatised, citing the historical case of Ministry of Works records sold years ago to an engineering company, and no longer accessible to people.
Former chief archivist Richard Foy told MPs that three amendments in particular would weaken the Public Records Act and create loopholes.
Their most urgent worry was the move to let an agency such as the Defence Force get an exemption if it was in a multinational force that did its own record keeping, Foy, president of the Archives and Records Association of NZ, said.
“We think that allowing such exemptions risk creating the conditions for unauthorised destruction and loss of evidence.
“So accountability does not stop at the border. We don’t think the Public Records Act should either.”
This is being pushed by ACT and the worst part about it is the pretence that this is somehow a response to the terrible failure during Operation Burnham, the SAS revenge attack that killed Afghan civilians is a terribly flawed raid.
This new law will allow those NZ war crimes to go unseen and at a time when we are becoming more embroiled with allies who are committing war crimes!
Look at this outrageous development when it comes to the genocide in Gaza…
Rocket Lab is launching a series of satellites from Māhia for US based BlackSky Technology. BlackSky sends ground information to the Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza.
Knowing this, the Minister for Space, Judith Collins, has approved these launches.
Advice to Collins, just disclosed under the Official Information Act, was that no end users of BlackSky’s satellites have ‘been accused of an internationally unlawful act’, and so New Zealand is not breaching international law by approving the satellites.
However, Israel was a known customer of BlackSky.
PSNA Co-Chair Maher Nazzal says the line of dots are joined between Collins’ pen and ‘opening the ‘Gates of Hell’ on Gaza’, as Israeli war minister Israel Katz has just called it.
“Whatever the evidence against Israel was in late 2023, when Collins approved the launches, it is now overwhelming that Israel is violating international humanitarian law at every turn.”
“The International Association of Genocide Scholars has just agreed with the UN in saying Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
“Israel is openly at this very moment purging nearly a million people out of Gaza City, to reoccupy Gaza with Jewish-only settlements and Trump casinos.”
“The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification earlier this month declared a famine in Gaza City, which is spreading south.”
“Israel is doing to Gaza, on the same scale and duration, what the Nazi Wehrmacht did to the besieged Russians in Leningrad in the Second World War.”
“New Zealand Space Agency documents show officials flagging Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, but denying that any end users of BlackSky’s satellites are accused of international crimes and advising Judith Collins to approve the launches.
“Judith Collins has now told Parliament that she had no evidence of a contract between BlackSky and Israel in December 2023. But the point is, we all now know the contract exists.”
Nazzal says whatever the government knew, or chose to know, when Collins approved the satellites currently in orbit, it must cancel the two remaining scheduled launches.
“Or it must provide verifiable assurances that none of the Māhia launched satellites are, and will not be, collecting data to spy on Gaza for Israel.
“The government can’t hide behind continuing fantasies that it doesn’t even need to consider whether these launches should stop, because it can pretend the contract between BlackSky and Israel does not exist.”
“Israel’s war crimes in Gaza are undeniable. Israel now no longer tries to hide what it is doing.”
“The government can’t say it doesn’t know the real death toll, the absolute devastation and the end goal of Gaza purged of Palestinians. Judith Collins just needs to turn her TV on.”
…so let me get this completely fucking straight.
We are removing requirements to keep records of war crimes in multinational deployments AT THE SAME TIME as we are helping launch spy satellites for Israel being used in war crimes?
Look.
I get you hate Jacinda, and you hate da maoris, and you hate da Trans and you hate vaccines.
Lovely.
But you can’t honestly believe closing our eyes to evidence of war crimes while we are helping those allies who are currently committing war crimes is anything short of an abomination?
How much must you hate the Trans community for this to be acceptable Kiwi?
Wow Kiwi. You have fallen so far.
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