Why Brooke Van Velden’s frisk and search of Public Service over DJ is culture war bigotry
A high-ranking public servant is in hot water with the Minister of Internal Affairs for messaging international DJ Fred Again to help him get a passport for a friend.
The celebrity – who just played three sold-out shows – posted a plea on Instagram for someone to help expedite a passport for Wellington DJ Tessa Hills, whose stage name is MESSIE, so she could tour with him to Australia.
He tagged the official Parliament account, begging: “Please please can anybody help us with this!”
Fred Again later shared a screenshot of a private message from the deputy chief executive of the Department of Internal Affairs Maria Robertson.
Robertson said in the message: “My son got in touch with Tessa after seeing your post, Tessa got in touch with us, she’s made her application and we are sorting it with her. We love your music and we are thrilled you are backing one of our own to support your gig.”
But the Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden has sought assurances from the passport office and the department about the chain of events that led to the passport approval to ensure that all proper processes were followed.
Van Velden was also concerned that a citizen’s privacy could have been breached because details of a passport application were shared publicly.
“Every citizen should have the same rights, no matter how famous they are or what their status is in our community,” she said.
Isn’t this a case of the Public Service actually working and doing its job?
ACT hate it for culture war reasons simply because liberals on Twitter like this DJ and ACT are so trigger happy on using social media to launch their next culture war attack that they are in a constant state of Right Wing Outrage.
Brooke isn’t reacting because she actually believes there is bias in the Public Service, she is reacting because redneck fuckwits on Twitter saw the communications and went into a snowflake meltdown because a DJ liberals like had some perceived help.
The pettiness of Brooke’s investigation shows how hostile ACT are to any form of Government.
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Agree with you 100% Martyn.
Act playacting. Pretending they believe in universalism not rich first.
Silly question but how long does it take to get a passport issued these days? You know for like normal people?
A little over a week, usually, unless you pay for expedited processing (in which case you may or may not have to follow up with the ministry daily to make sure they haven’t decided that you didn’t fill something in right but not to actually contact you about it).
This case certainly doesn’t particularly bother me. If it was one of Act’s leaders who wanted to expedite a passport for a young sexually vulnerable surfer, or Peter Thiel wanting to get his best blood boy a passport, you’d better believe they’d be making sure it got moved along outside the normal processes.
They actually do emergency passports for things like funerals so any comparison with standard waiting times is irrelevant.
I thought act hate red tape or is it only when it suit them