Waatea News Column: Unlocked doors & blind spots: what ANZAC Day criticism of the NZ Police seems to miss
There was much anguish made about the NZ Police decision to shut down and limit ANZAC Day events this year. Many felt that it was capitulating to the white supremacist who had committed the Christchurch atrocity and others felt we should not in any way shape or form change who were are or what we do because such acquiescence gives terrorists what they want.
With ANZAC Day considered one of our most solemn of public events, there was real resentment and criticism thrown at the Police.
I think that criticism was terribly misplaced for two reasons.
The first is that this horrific event in Christchurch was utterly missed by not only the NZ Police, but by every branch of the NZ Intelligence apparatus. the SIS (Secret Intelligence Services), the GCSB (Government Communications Security Bureau), the NSG (National Security Group), the CNSN (Cabinet National Security Committee), the ODESC (Officials’ Committee for Domestic and External Security Coordination), the SIB (Security and Intelligence Board), the CTCC (Counter-Terrorism Coordinating Committee), the NICC ( National Intelligence Coordination Committee) the IAD (Intelligence and Assessments Directorate), the NRU (National Risk Unit) and the NSPD (National Security Policy Directorate).
NONE of them saw a white supremacist plotting a terror attack for two years because those agencies saw Muslims, Environmentalists, Māori and social justice activists as the threat, the NZ Police could not guarantee safety at ANZAC Day because their own blind spots didn’t see the threat.
The second reason why many ANZAC Day events had to be closed was because of grotesque incompetence. The Police last week had 11 guns stolen from a Police Station that didn’t even bother locking its own door.
Did we really want the possibility of a second terror attack on our most solemn of days by relying on a Police force that didn’t see the first one coming and can’t do simple things like lock doors at Police stations?
Yes we felt frustrated by ANZAC Day cancellations, but until the Police Force can look vaguely competent, this is the new reality.
First published on Waatea News
L0L0L0L0L !
Good one, Bradbury.
The incompetent NZ Police force.
Remember Arthur Allan Thomas and the planted bullets ?
Says it all.
10 years of an innocent mans life wasted because of corruption.
And to think those criminals masquerading as ‘police’ died peacefully in their beds after presenting false evidence which led to the sentencing of that man to 10 years in prison.
The NZ Police.
They have now become a joke.
ANZAC DAY must be abolished as the nation needs something better to mold into together, or else it will end in civil war or worse even.
Australians deport Kiwis for bizarre reasons, offer NO social services for those that work and slave there, and treat us like the little dumb shit brother or sister, so why do we bother serving them up this crap Anzac solidarity, which never existed. We were fired up by arrogant pommy generals and so at Gallipoli to serve a war purpose not our people.
NO NZer died for their country and freedom, they died for a corrupt and arrogant Empire and the corporate interests operating under their law.