Keith Locke

The less accountable a public agency is, the more likely it is to become a law unto itself. This is true for the Security Intelligence Service. Only the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security is empowered to check what the SIS actually does, and to date it has been a pretty toothless watchdog.

I sighed when I read the Sunday Star-Times front page headline: “People-smugglers bid to sail first boat to NZ”. Here we go again, I thought. Another scare story playing to racists and those among us who are prejudiced against asylum seekers.

You would think there is a strong enough argument for an independent international inquiry. But not for our Foreign Minister Murray McCully. While visiting Auckland this month, the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister GL Peiris made a point of thanking Mr McCully for refusing to co-sponsor the UN Human Rights Council resolution.

A lot of official Japanese communications must be picked up by Waihopai’s dishes, given the communications satellites Waihopai targets are geostationary over the Pacific equator near Japan. When passed on to the NSA this Japanese information would be used to serve US interests, not New Zealand’s.

There is growing pressure to erode our right not to be punished or detained for crimes we haven’t yet committed.

It’s been a long time coming. Electrifying Auckland suburban rail has been talked about ever since Christchurch (1929-1970) and Wellington (1939 to the present) electrified their suburban rail.

The drone killing of an (unnamed) New Zealander in Yemen should prompt us to look at the ethics of this practice.

In 1996 and 2002 the people’s perception of how well the two main left-of-centre parties could work together was a big factor in their subsequent electoral fortunes.

We have to defend Kim Dotcom against efforts to associate him with Nazism simply because he possesses a copy of Mein Kampf.