In 1962 Bob Dylan released his famous Blowin’ in the Wind, a protest song that uses a series of rhetorical questions to challenge war, oppression and human inaction on social issues like racism and freedom.

Young Bob Dylan’s lyrics applicable to today’s genocide of Gaza Palestinians

It was released in the context of the American civil rights movement. But it is equally applicable to Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza for over two years.

While the lyrics appear ambiguous, the implication is that the answers to Dylan’s provocative questions are either self-obvious, but ignored, or so elusive they can never be grasped. Below is part of the lyrics:

Yes, and how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

If “some people” in the first line is replaced with “Palestinian victims of genocide”, “man turn his head” in the third line replaced “government turn its head”, and “he just doesn’t see” in the fourth line replaced with “it chooses not to see”, then with allowances for clunkiness, there is an unambiguous message; nothing elusive about it at all.

The message of Dylan’s song is relevant to New Zealand’s National-ACT-NZ First government’s pro-Israeli occupation approach to this genocide.

Due process smokescreen

The official Palestinian death rate in Gaza due to the genocidal Israeli war in the 18-months from October 2023 through to March 2025 was over 50,300 (the majority were women, children, and the elderly). This figure is an underestimate because it is limited to known bodies.

Israeli military’s Gaza legacy

In marked contrast, Israeli’s military filed just three criminal indictments for all Gaza-related offenses.

This is according to ‘freedom of information’ material obtained by Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, between January 2024 and April 2025. Only one of the indictments resulted in a conviction, while the two other cases are still pending.

In the context of genocide this information reveals an appalling story. When cases enter the system, they remain there indefinitely under review with no visible endpoint. Investigations are rare and almost never conclude.

In other words, the system is a deliberate smokescreen to give the impression of due process while allowing the criminal genocide to continue unhindered.

What the government should have done

This reinforces how abysmal the response of the National-ACT-NZ First coalition government has been.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s government supports right of Israel to ‘defend itself’ but opposes same right for Palestinians

While, on the one hand, the coalition government supports the right of Israel to ‘defend itself’, not only does it not extend the same right to Palestinians but it allows accepts that Israeli ‘defence’ includes ethnic cleansing through genocide.

If the government were committed to the unambiguous “blowin’ in the wind” message it would have undertaken the following:

1. Sanctioned Israeli Defence Force visitors.
2. Closed the Israel Embassy.
3. Introduced trade and bilateral sanctions against Israel.
4. Advocated suspending Israel from the United Nations.
5. Recognised the right of Palestinians to their own independent state of Palestine.

Brave doctor speaks truth to power

Speaking truth to power is non-violent bravery against genocide

‘Speaking truth to power’ is a non-violent political tactic of Quaker origin. Historically it is used by ‘dissidents’ against the actions and propaganda of oppressive or authoritarian governments.

Dr Nada Abu Alrub, an Arab–Australian doctor, talks truth to power from her recent humanitarian mission to Gaza. She recorded “absolutely horrific scenes” of the genocide with ‘Palestine will be free’ (10 November).

Dr Nada Abu Alrub likens providing medical care in Gaza to working in a butchery

She has been working in an environment that she describes as resembling butcheries rather than hospitals. Along with health professionals, hospitals have been among the primary targets of this barbarism.

Gaza – about the same size as the Kapiti Coast but in devastating ruin due to genocide

Consider this Gaza reality:

• 25 out of 38 hospitals are now out of service;
• The Israeli military has killed over 1,700 medical staff (including doctors and nurses);
• 103 out of 157 primary healthcare centres have been destroyed (54 are operating partially);
• 55% of medicines and 66% of medical consumables are out of stock; and
• several high-profile doctors have been murdered and many remain incarcerated in Israeli dungeons where rape and torture have been reported.

In her own words

In her own reported words first expressed in September Dr Abu Alrub affirms that:

We are hardly surviving and hardly able to help anyone. There’s no equipment. They’re down to the very basics, running out of working scissors. There’s no soap in the theatre rooms to scrub in, no gloves — nothing at all.

And the things that we saw as we were outside and we were crying and sad — it doesn’t come to 1 percent of what’s actually happening on the ground because most of the things they don’t get captured or advertised or put on media.

How can you destroy a complete land with its people and that will be okay? How can you eradicate complete families and their extensions and call that okay? she added. How can you get away with doing that?

This horror is vividly and heartbreakingly described by her in an 11-minute video: Genocide through a doctor’s eyes. It is a must watch but make sure there are tissues accessible.

“How can you get away with doing that?”

The final above reported sentence from this brave Palestinian-Australian doctor is “How can you get away with doing that?” If this isn’t truth speaking to genocidal power I don’t know what is.

Winston Peters and his government colleagues need to demonstrate a fraction of Dr Abu Alrub’s courage and act accordingly

Foreign Minister Winston Peters, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his other government colleagues, need to have the conviction and courage to listen and watch what this courageous doctor has experienced and is now revealing.

Then they should recognise that, to paraphrase her, no-one should get away with this and act accordingly as discussed above. All it would require is a fraction of the conviction and courage of Dr Nada Abu Alrub.

Ian Powell was Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, the professional union representing senior doctors and dentists in New Zealand, for over 30 years, until December 2019. He is now a health systems, labour market, and political commentator living in the small river estuary community of Otaihanga (the place by the tide). First published at Political Bytes

After World War II, many Palestinians opened their homes to Jewish refugees. But, in a few short years, Zionist militias expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the Nakba, or ‘Catastrophe’. Since then, the United States has used its Security Council veto to shield Israel from accountability for its brutal occupation, its continued annexation of Palestinian lands, and the routine killing of Palestinian civilians. Since October 2023 alone, Washington has blocked six attempts to stop the bombardment of Gaza, and even launched a political war against the International Criminal Court for daring to investigate the ethnic cleansing of a land continously inhabited for nearly 6,000 years. Gazans are Canaanites, and genetically more jewish than Israelis. But that has not saved them, because last week, the international system crossed a line. The UN Security Council passed a resolution that did not restrain Israel’s campaign. It ratified it.

A resolution drafted in Washington, modelled on the Trump–Kushner “plan,” (admitted by Steve Witkoff on 60 Minutes to have been planned for over two years) has now become international policy.

This was not diplomacy.
It was the formal recognition that international law no longer restrains empire.

The mask is gone.
The velvet glove is gone.
What remains is power.

What the Resolution Actually Does

The measure lays the foundations for a long-term foreign administration of Gaza:

An externally controlled “stabilisation force”

Governance outsourced to a foreign-appointed board

Reconstruction funds withheld from areas deemed politically disobedient

Annexation and settlement expansion left intact.

This is not a peace plan.
It is a property and security blueprint designed for investors, not for the people who live there.

Russia and China allowed it to pass. They abstained, despite having veto power. Their reasons seem transparent Realpolitik
Millions of Russian citizens are Israelis. Russia has strong trading relations with Israel, and Russia seeks leverage over the US in Ukraine and the Caucasus.
China is under US economic and military pressure in the Pacific.

The rights of Palestinians were thus sacrificed to larger deals, presumably.

And the United States made the threat explicit: alternative proposals would come with “real human costs.” Only a world where suffering is a bargaining chip makes such a warning meaningful.

The Return of an Old Crime

Even now, during the so-called ceasefire, Palestinians continue to die from bombardment, starvation, exposure and disease. Israeli ministers say openly:

“There will be no Palestinian state.”

“The solution is voluntary emigration.”

When a population is bombed, starved, denied shelter, raped, murdered, and told to leave, this has a name: ethnic cleansing. The Security Council did not stop it.
It gave it a management structure.

This is the most serious collapse of international law since the Iraq invasion. But unlike Iraq, this time every major power is complicit:

The Geneva Conventions have become optional.

Humanitarian law applies only where geopolitics permit it.

The ICC is threatened when it investigates the powerful.

The “rules-based order” has become a deals-based order.

And this is where New Zealand should feel the chill. Because we have lost our sovereignty and strength. We have been chumped, but havent noticed much

Why This Matters for New Zealand

Small nations rely on law.
When law collapses, only power remains. And New Zealand has spent forty years surrendering the tools of power that protect sovereignty:

1. We no longer control our own credit or investment capacity.
   Treasury has chosen private debt dependence over sovereign development, ensuring foreign creditors decide our economic future.
2. Our political system has become porous to foreign capital and lobbying.
   Through consultants, private equity, think tanks, and “strategic partnerships,” influence now flows directly into policymaking.
3. Our foreign policy still treats the US-led order as lawful and stable—even as that order openly discards law when it becomes inconvenient.
4. Our institutions have been hollowed by 40 years of neoliberal capture, leaving us exposed, indebted, and strategically naïve.

The lesson of Palestine is not only moral.
It is structural:

A nation without sovereignty is meat on the table of empire.

This is not melodrama.
It is the logic now openly governing the world.

New Zealand at the Crossroads

We once had the courage to stand for nuclear disarmament, against apartheid, and for an independent foreign policy. We were respected because we respected law—even when powerful states did not.

But today:

ethnic cleansing is tolerated, private wealth writes foreign policy, human rights are bargaining chips, and corruption is the operating system of global power.

If we want to survive with dignity:

1. We must restore our economic sovereignty.

This begins with reforming the Public Finance Act so New Zealand can again use public credit to build its own future.

2. We must reclaim moral clarity.

The Magna Carta is still black letter law in New Zealand. Section 29 of the Magna Carta remains in our law for a reason: the powerful may not destroy the weak without lawful cause.

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3. We must speak truth internationally.

Not because it is fashionable, but because small nations survive only when law survives.

When law dies abroad, corruption grows at home.
And when the weak are abandoned abroad, it is always the small nations who learn, too late, that they have been preparing their own destruction.

Palestine will not be free.
That much is now clear.

But New Zealand still can be, if we reclaim our sovereignty before we are enslaved.

If we do not wake from our slumber, conquest and destruction may be our destiny too.

Tadhg Stopford is a historian and teacher. Support change by purchasing your CBD hemp CBG at www.tigerdrops.co.nz 

I run several companies involved in technology and telecommunications in New Zealand. I am therefore subject to certain lawful intercept powers on our network – which have continually expanded over the years

NZ joining the Budapest Convention seems to further extend a lot of those powers, and I’ve been trying to understand exactly what that means for Kiwis and myself, however not being a lawyer, it gave me a headache.

What’s happening?

On 1 December 2025 New Zealand will formally accede to the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime (the “Budapest Convention”) — a treaty supposedly designed to make cross-border cooperation on online crime faster and more predictable. That sounds sensible: cybercrime is real, harms are real, and international cooperation can help catch serious offenders. But as with most trade-offs, the real question is what we give up to gain that capability, who gets access to what data, and whether the public had enough time to properly weigh the risks.

Below I’ll briefly explain what changed in New Zealand law to make accession possible, what the most significant risks are, which parts of sovereignty and civil liberties are most exposed, and whether the public had adequate time and tools to scrutinise this change.

What the government actually changed (the legal headlines)

To meet the Convention’s requirements, Parliament passed the Budapest Convention and Related Matters Legislation Amendment Act 2025, which amends four key statutes so New Zealand can exchange evidence, assist foreign investigations, and align cybercrime offences with other parties.

The practical amendments of note are:

• Search and Surveillance Act 2012 — a new regime of Preservation Directions was added so police (and foreign partners) can require providers to preserve records and data that are likely to be lost or altered; some Preservation Directions can be renewed and foreign-requested directions are possible. There are new offences for failing to comply and rules that prohibit revealing that a preservation direction was issued. The Act does allow for judicial review in some circumstances, but the emphasis is on secrecy to avoid tipping off suspects. New Zealand Legislation
• Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 1992 (MACMA) — broadened so NZ can supply assistance (and receive requests) for a wider range of investigative powers, including production orders and surveillance device warrants in support of overseas investigations. Bills
• Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Act 2013 — terminology and definitions updated (e.g., ‘call associated data’ replaced by the broader term ‘traffic data’) to align with the Convention’s language and powers. New Zealand Legislation
• Crimes Act 1961 — new offences were added targeting the design, creation and possession of certain cyber tools (code that facilitates cybercrime), and some older provisions (like s.251) were repealed to make the statute consistent with the Convention’s offence framework. New Zealand Legislation

The government’s stated aim — and the most visible argument for accession — is improved operational cooperation with partners to tackle transnational cybercrime. Ministers and officials point to better information-sharing, faster preservation of evidence, and stronger mutual legal assistance as net positives for public safety. The Beehive

The headline risks (short version)

1. Secrecy and “gag” powers — Preservation Directions explicitly prohibit disclosure, which is intended to prevent tipping off suspects. But that same secrecy means affected providers and potentially affected New Zealanders may have little ability to challenge or even know about actions taken that touch their data. New Zealand Legislation
2. Foreign-driven requests — tougher obligations to assist foreign law enforcement can mean NZ agencies must act on requests from jurisdictions with very different human-rights records or standards of due process. The treaty simplifies requests; the worry is it can also accelerate foreign access to NZ data. Portal
3. Expansion of police powers at home — the new preservation and production tools strengthen prosecutorial reach; critics argue the changes could expand surveillance in subtle ways beyond what Parliament intended. Transparency International New Zealand
4. Data sovereignty and private-sector burden — ISPs, cloud providers and platform hosts face new obligations to preserve and hand over data on demand; for smaller Kiwi businesses this is extra legal/operational cost and potentially a reputational hit. The Beehive

Sovereignty concerns — are we handing powers to foreign states?

Accession creates faster, more routinised channels for overseas investigators to ask New Zealand for help and for NZ to ask others for help. That’s the whole point of the Budapest Convention: to make cross-border digital evidence exchange practical.

But “practical” has consequences:

• The Mutual Assistance changes mean foreign agencies can ask for production orders or surveillance evidence using streamlined processes. New Zealand must implement those requests into domestic law to comply. In effect, NZ accepts a legal framework that makes it easier for foreign law enforcement to obtain NZ data — even if the requesting country’s standards for surveillance, trial rights, or privacy protections are lower than New Zealand’s. The practical risk: NZ could become a conduit for foreign interests to access locally held data with less robust protections than we’d prefer. Bills
• The preservation direction tool lets authorities require providers to keep, and in some cases produce, data that could otherwise be volatile or ephemeral (metadata, logs, ephemeral messages). Because the process is secret and can be foreign-initiated and renewed, it hands authorities — not courts or public scrutiny — the initial leverage, which changes the balance between sovereign control and international cooperation. New Zealand Legislation

All of which adds up to a type of shared operational sovereignty: you remain sovereign, but you agree to let partner states press domestic actors to preserve and produce evidence under a shared rulebook. For many investigators that’s exactly what they want; for many civil liberties advocates that’s exactly what worries them. Portal

Civil liberties and due-process concerns (the nitty-gritty)

• Gagging and non-disclosure (s.79Q) prevents providers from telling customers they have been the subject of a preservation direction. That’s operationally useful to preserve evidence — but it means people often do not learn their data was involved in an investigation unless charges are laid and material is disclosed later. This affects rights of defence and can interfere with transparency. New Zealand Legislation
• Criminal liability for non-complying providers (s.79O) raises the stakes for intermediaries, who might otherwise refuse or question a direction. For smaller providers with limited legal teams, the choice is stark: comply and preserve, or refuse and risk prosecution. That dynamic incentivises rapid compliance — which, in a world of aggressive foreign demands, can become a “rubber stamp” risk. New Zealand Legislation
• Broadened offences under the Crimes Act mean that possessing or producing particular kinds of software could be criminalised. While aimed at malware authors and cybercriminal toolmakers, drafting can be blunt: code has legitimate uses (research, security testing), and offences with wide wording can chill defensive security research. The Law Society and others urged careful drafting and safeguards. New Zealand Law Society

Was there enough public debate?

You tell me: the government agreed in principle years ago (2020), consulted in 2020, and only in 2024–25 moved to finalise legislation and assent. The consultation materials and select-committee processes are available, and many legal and civil society groups made submissions (Law Society, Transparency NZ, privacy groups). But there are two honest critiques:

1. Timing and technical density — the subject is deeply technical and legal. A lot of the substantive change was tucked into a technical amendment bill and debated in the usual parliamentary timetable. For the average Kiwi the details of preservation directions and mutual assistance are not easy reading, and many people only learned about them once the media or advocacy groups highlighted risks. The select committee hearings included submissions, but the wider public arguably did not have an accessible, national conversation about the trade-offs. Citizen Space
2. Speed to adoption — accession on 1 December 2025 comes after a long policy process, but the final legislative window between assent (mid-2025) and accession (Dec 2025) is short. That compressed period leaves little time for newly elected or engaged citizens to influence detail or demand stronger safeguards before the treaty takes effect. Critics (including Transparency NZ) have said the government should have “made haste slowly” and ensured stronger public scrutiny. Transparency International New Zealand

So: yes there was formal consultation and parliamentary scrutiny, and submissions from Law Society and other bodies are on record — but was it enough in democratic terms? Many privacy and civil-liberties advocates say no. New Zealand Law Society

Where the safeguards are — and where I’d like better ones

Safeguards included in the new law and governance notes:

• Judicial and administrative review routes exist in places: people subject to a preservation direction can apply for review in limited circumstances. That’s not nothing — but in practice review happens after preservation and in secrecy regimes, so remedies can be delayed. New Zealand Legislation
• Parliamentary oversight and reporting — the select-committee reports and official documents provide a paper trail. That transparency is valuable for accountability, but it relies on activists and journalists to keep this in public view. Select Committees

What I’d like to see strengthened (and what civil-society groups recommended):

1. Sunset and review clauses — make the new powers subject to scheduled independent review (e.g., 24 months) with public reporting.
2. Stronger judicial oversight — require shorter timeframes for judicial review and consider warrant-level authorisation before some preservation actions.
3. Clearer limits for foreign requests — stronger tests before NZ acts on foreign requests (human-rights filters, notice thresholds, express prohibition if requesting jurisdiction lacks basic safeguards).
4. Safe harbour for legitimate security research — carve-outs so defensive security researchers and incident responders aren’t at risk for possessing dual-use code.
5. Robust transparency reporting — public, regular statistics about foreign requests, preservation directions issued, refusals, and prosecutions (with anonymity protections where justified). New Zealand Law Society

So — should we panic?

The Budapest Convention is, by design, a cooperative mechanism for nations to fight serious crime. There may be benefits: faster investigations, shared expertise, and a normative framework that aligns laws and helps evidence move across borders. New Zealand’s justice system, courts and institutions are strong, and the stated intention is to use these powers against serious offending. Portal

But it would be naive to pretend there are no trade-offs. The new preservation powers, non-disclosure requirements, and the streamlined mutual assistance channel are tools that can be used well — or misused. The protection of privacy, due process and free expression depends on how those tools are governed in practice, not just on whether Parliament nodded the bill through.

What you can do (if you care)

• Ask your MP what transparency and review mechanisms they will insist on after accession. Demand statistics on foreign preservation requests and outcomes.
• Support calls for independent review (civil-society groups like the Law Society and Transparency NZ made substantive submissions; amplify them). New Zealand Law Society
• If you’re in tech: lobby for explicit carve-outs for incident responders and security researchers.
• Stay informed: read the Justice Ministry and select-committee papers (they’re public) and follow reporting on how the powers are used.

Selected sources & documents I used

• Budapest Convention and Related Matters Legislation Amendment Act 2025 (full text). New Zealand Legislation
• Search and Surveillance Act 2012 — new Preservation Directions provisions (subparts inserted 1 Oct 2025). New Zealand Legislation
• NZ Ministry of Justice: Cybercrime policy and implementation materials. Ministry of Justice
• Beehive (Ministerial) release: New Zealand joins fight against cybercrime (24 Jul 2025). The Beehive
• Law Society submission on the Budapest Convention (November 2024). New Zealand Law Society
• Transparency International NZ commentary — Make haste slowly: the Budapest Convention (Aug 2025). Transparency International New Zealand
• Select committee / Cabinet papers on accession and consultation (DPMC / Cabinet papers 2020–2025)

   

**Usually I try and write all my blog posts myself, without any help from A.I, however in this case I needed much help to analyse the various pieces of legislation and summarise the findings, sorry.

Seeby Woodhouse is a NZ tech entrepreneur, CEO of Voyager and posts on Substack.