Either way, I’m sure you know better what I base my vote on than I do.

If you want to make sure an issue which is important to you gets discussed, start a blog. Write letters. Heck, if you insist on it being discussed here, write a guest post.

Do not fucking well demand that people dedicate time to your chosen theme when and where you insist and then claim that objection to your rudeness is avoidance.

Please, please reply with something like “your continued evasion of the issue is very telling, young Padawan”, just for bonus smarm points.

If people are really influenced in their voting on, if the ABs win or lose. How much more would people be influenced by xenophobia, racism, fear of the other, law and order, secretive terrorist conspiracies in the Urerewas, necessitating New Zealand”s largest ever secret police operation, costing more than $2million and lasting for more than year.

All these themes will be played out during these hearings, and during the elections.

Do Labour supporters think this will this have an effect on the elections, or not?

Are Labour people crossing their fingers that this will all blow over and they won’t have to take a stand?

If it does become an election issue, where will the Labour Party stand?

Will Labour stand with the Greens the Maori Party the unions and the protest movement or with Howard Broad and the Nacts?

Does anyone else think that the elephant in the front room may have moved in its relatives?

As the saying goes;

“Silence Gives Consent”

If you aren’t capable of reading and understanding the post and the rest of the thread then I’d suspect your emotions and mood probably play a huge part in your decision making.

In the past I have emailed the PM’s office on this issue (and others) when Helen Clark was P.M. and got the standard stock answer, something along the lines of if you have raised any new issue in your correspondence it will be passed on to the P.M.

But I have not tried contacting the Labour Party blogsite. But am prepared to give it a go. Hopefully, – it would be nice to get some real correspondence going.

Wish me all the best.

But the essential argument is – do you really want the politicians to have direct operational control over the police. Bearing in mind some of the dickhead police ministers I’ve seen (like John Banks) and the track record of politically sensitive police forces offshore, I don’t.

What I want is some mechanism for the police to get some effective feedback on their charging performance given by the courts. That is what they currently don’t have. There appears to be little or no incentive for police not to charge people even when they have insufficient evidence to make a charge go to a conviction. There is no effective retribution, recompense, or anything else that teaches police what is worth while charging for or not.

That is a ridiculous state of affairs in any organization. It is authority without responsibility and provides no opportunity for the police as an organization to learn. That is why the status hearings in court seem to drag on forever – the police frequently seem to be unable to put a case together. Using charges that aren’t capable of gaining a conviction just clogs the courts.

You’d think that by now the police would have realized this themselves and taken steps to ensure efficiencies. However the police have a rather archaic internal management structure in NZ and a promotional policy that seems to focus on charges rather than convictions. It will take time to change and it looks like the pressure will have to come from the public outside. But getting wound up about politicians isn’t useful. They don’t have sufficient leverage. We need to work directly on the police – largely ignoring their covering screen of politicians.

Use the net, not only when people get charged – but when they fail to get convicted. That is a direct waste of our polices scarce resources, and a total waste of time for the courts.

However I disagree with you that politically sensitive campaigns carried out by the police, are matters that political party’s, particularly major ones, should steer clear from.

In notice that the right wing bloggers don’t hesitate to comment on such things. Cheering on the police abusing due process by illegally arresting protesters during the tennis open for instance.

The question I would like answered is, will the Labour Party during this upcoming election still be trying to cling to this argument of neutrality, if it becomes an election issue? Or in contrast stand with the protesters, the Greens, the Maori Party, Tuhoi and the NDU and other unions? And risk being seen by the electorate as standing with the police and the Nacts? Who I don’t think will feel bound from expressing any feelings far from those of neutrality.

That this whole case could descend into farce is the best that could happen, (even though this would be used against the Labour Government of the day which endorsed the whole affair).

To think that the right will not try to make political capital out of this in election year would be a mistake,

As I said, the best that could happen, is, if it all descends into a Keystone Kops like farce. The worse that could happen (and this is my fear) is that this rightward trajectory of the state will be defended by the right, through the media by exploiting War-On-Terror hysteria, with promises to strengthen legislation to further curb civil rights, and freedom of association and assembly.

I disagree with you that it will be in Right’s interest to stay well clear of this issue, because it feeds into the Right’s whole, law and order, get tough on crime, hang ‘im high, xenophobic, war on terror, schtick. All with the side dish of diverting the whole electorate’s gaze from what should be of real concern in this coming election, jobs, the economy, welfare, health, the environment.

These matters could all have serious implications for Labour’s re-election chances.

By saying that both major party’s will shy away from the stench of police stupidity (apart from being an adhominem statement) could be seen as a major avoidance of responsibility by the electorate. After all parliament is the place where any issues can be aired without fear or favour. Maybe what should be raised in parliament is why senior police seem to be beyond democratic accountability to the point of making up policy.

I humbly put that questions that Labour may need to consider on this issue are:

Should Labour condemn the timing of these hearings for an election year? (and even possibly election month.)

Should Labour consider supporting the call from the rest of the left to drop the charges as unjust and politically motivated?

Should Labour consider calling (in parliament) for these cases to be taken from the High Court and returned to the District Courts where they should be heard?

If this was done, as well as imposing a lot less unnecessary disruption, travel and living away expense, most of the cases would be dropped anyway, because a lot of the police evidence is based on taped conversations with, identity protected, police paid informers and provocateurs who were actively trying to get people to make inflammatory comments. (Most of this sort of evidence has been ruled inadmissible anyway).

Other police evidence of firearms breaches involved charging people for being present in a room where an unlicensed firearm was present. Some of those people never even touched the gun let alone fired it.

Iprent I would like you to consider my opinion this is not the result of a few rogue elements in the police, or as you put it “cowboy elements of the police being their usual dickhead selves”. (Which I feel is being narrow and unfair to the rank and file police officers). But is being driven by senior police commanders with political axes to grind.
(Need I mention senior officers who spend a large part of their year being wined and dined and flattered in Washington by the FBI and CIA, instead of doing their jobs here. And whom seem to think their mandate comes from Washington.)

In the effect that the whole matter goes sour for the Crown, will Labour consider promising to call an enquiry into the whole affair, to hold those responsible for this debacle accountable? (whether rogue cowboys, or senior commanders), Or will Labour be prepared to leave these people in their (possibly) leading roles to carry on their political agendas inside the police force, to victimise legitimate left wing activists and skew the whole political landscape to the right?

As the famous anti-nazi slogan goes.

“Silence Gives Consent”.

In my opinion Labour’s reliance on silence in the face of these events, particularly in an election, when the Right will be tempted to make it the only topic of media debate, could be a serious moral and tactical error.

While I have no doubt the idea has been raised in the board room, I suspect the financial controller’s logic prevailed in that it would cheaper in the long run to pay off a few key politicians and ensure the Greens never get into Cabinet. Thus, we have a Green Party, the semblance of democracy but no Green voice at the table, and a government sending Kiwi’s off, each armed with a new machine gun, to fight corporate wars.

I’m not saying voting is akin to an impulse purchase while waiting in line at the checkout – its more like the decision on what sort of car to buy.

L