WAATEA NEWS COLUMN – Police shouldn’t gain mass surveillance powers over Maori youth (again)
Two major expansions of police power are moving quietly through New Zealand’s political system — expanded authority to stop protests and broader powers to engage with underage youth — and critics warn Māori communities are once again likely to feel the sharpest edge of those powers.
This hard right Government with its anti-Māori, anti-Treaty, anti-beneficiary, anti-disabled, anti-worker, anti-renter and anti-environmental agenda is a never ending scrum of legislative change that is occurring sometimes blatantly and sometimes quietly in the background, and it’s very difficult to keep track of all the moving parts.
I appreciate everyone is busy, but there are two issues being quietly pushed by the NZ Police that demand attention. They are attempting to gain the ability to interview underage youth and the Policing Amendment Bill which will give Police powers to shut down protests based on nebulous safety reasons.
The NZ Law Society have voiced concerns about these new powers citing legitimate concerns about Police abusing them.
Why Māori communities are deeply wary of expanded police powers
The powers to film and interview underage people in public are attached to the new move on powers for the homeless which makes it insult to injury that the Police are trying to slip this new power into controversial legislation in the first place.
How will legally being able to film and interview teenagers help the homeless exactly?
Police argue the check and balance to this power is the Police Commissioner and IPCA which really means the Police will try it on and see if they get pulled back by either of these after the fact.
Both of these issues impact Māori enormously.
We found out in 2020 that the Police were illegally taking photos and intelligence from underage Māori via interviews off the street and this move to give Police new powers to shut down protest could easily be used against Māori when they protest!
Protest rights and civil liberties are not optional extras
This is a democracy, not a police state, we have rights so that the State can’t trample on the individual and the right to protest is entrenched in our values.
Let’s be clear, children should always have a lawyer or guardian present when being interviewed by Police and Police can’t be the arbitrators of whether or not a protest is legal!
Allowing Police to interview underage teens without a lawyer and giving the Police powers to shut down any protest they like are issues that demand far more attention from the media than they are currently being given.
