Waatea News Column: Dear Labour – keep the Police on a short leash or the people will turn on Jacinda
The Level 2 law, The Covid-19 Public Health Response Bill, was supposed to be an uncontroversial extension of the current legal tools the State are using to enforce the quarantine.
It went as far as stipulating Marae were not commercial premises and that the expectation by Health Enforcement Officers was to treat them as such if investigating quarantine breaches, however, the deep, deep, deep distrust by many Māori of the Police saw this singling out not as a protection but as a threat.
The reality is that warrantless searches of any building, be it a Marae or a home or a business is incredibly concerning.
To date, we have all taken our responsibility to self isolate seriously, and we all accepted this amputation of our civil liberties because of the pandemic, but we were also incredibly clear to the Government that once this threat passed, we wanted ALL our civil liberties to be returned to us.
Allowing warrantless searches is not returning our civil rights to us.
If warrantless searches are required to enforce quarantine, then so be it for the wider good, but the Government must keep the Police on a short leash here. If they start misusing this power and raid peoples homes without warrants for any purpose other than enforcing quarantine, there will be an enormous backlash.
This week we found out the NZ Police were using questionable mass surveillance facial recognition without any permission whatsoever.
The people trust Jacinda, they don’t trust the Police, Labour risk damaging the former with the actions of the latter.
First published on Waatea News.
Yes let’s see how many important heads roll as a consequence of the police illegal actions.
Sadly my guess is none.
okay
i see this from time to time and that is a “can do no wrong ‘ mantra – a blind devotion to Jacinda . now this is not fair to her .
it was government in which she is a part of that passed this egregious law stipping every New Zealander of their human rights .
Police
there’s some good well meaning everyday community policing , of which i can testify to and i think those that have been doing roadblocks and have had police backing from can appreciate also .
and
there are plenty of historically documented police abuses of authority .
so can you trust them
well it may be fair to say sometimes yes and sometimes no .
Hemi +100
No keep your government legislation in line with our democratic rights or people will tell this govt to resign. I see a petition is already underway asking them to step down. The police are a mechanism that responds to enacted laws, they don’t make them. That’s this govts job.
Oh and while we are on the subject so much for MP pay cuts. Whether you like ACT or not this does not look good:
https://www.act.org.nz/parliament_quits_mp_pay_cut_debate_to_go_home_early