2004

Summary I am strongly opposed to this Bill, and I urge the Select Committee to reject it. The Bill violates the right of Members of Parliament to free speech and the freedom of political association. These are fundamental human rights guaranteed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights. The Bill violates...

No self-respecting country sells its passports to rich people who don’t even live there, which is why it was so bad to grant NZ citizenship to the American multi-billionaire Peter Thiel.

I recommend the Select Committee not proceed with this Bill in its present form. Overall it puts New Zealanders in a worse situation than in already existing legislation, in relation to both their personal privacy and their right to untrammeled freedom of expression.

Main Point The NZ Intelligence and Security Bill unnecessarily allows for greater surveillance of New Zealanders by our intelligence services and intrudes further on our privacy. The definition of national security is so broad that it could enable even more surveillance of legitimate political dissenters by the intelligence services than...

New Zealanders should ask themselves: do they want our GCSB providing vital intelligence information to torturers and murderers? Because this is exactly what the GCSB has been doing.

Once again National and Labour have succumbed to the “law and order” brigade enabling the passage of a Bill imprisoning people for crimes they might commit in the future.

Predicting the prospects for a party that hasn’t yet been launched is a risky business, but the Internet Party has certain things running in its favour:

December 1st is a special day for West Papuans because on that day, back in 1961, the Morning Star flag was raised for the first time. The then Dutch colonists were sympathetic, because they had put West Papua on the road to independence. However the hopes for a free West Papua were dashed after Indonesia troops invaded the country.

A French colony in Polynesia is an anachronism in 21st century, and surely New Zealand should support a considered process of self-determination.

By Keith Locke (The following article was published in the May 2012 issue of Peace Researcher, the journal of the Anti-Bases Campaign. To see the other interesting articles in Peace Researcher go to http://www.converge.org.nz/abc.) One of my missions during 12 years in Parliament was to make our intelligence services more accountable....