Is New Zealand a police state...you decide



A Police State, yes or no..



Every now and then something happens that leads one to consider carefully what is happening to our communities, our country and our democratic processes. I firmly believe that the message below from Author Anne Hunt of Foxton is worthy of wide public exposure because it exposes the widening gap between the powers that exist and the use of those powers in a context that leads to both the mistrust and misuse of those powers. What Anne Hunt has written is in fact an open letter to Labour MP and ex-minister of Police Annette King who just yesterday made a public statement which included the words “We don’t want to live in an police state, do we”, quote ends. It is at least in my mind a worthy letter.

From: Anne Hunt
Sent: Monday, 26 March 2012 8:30 a.m.
Subject: David Collins/police state
Please circulate urgently...

“No, Annette King, you are wrong - we do live in a police state.

You know me well, Annette, because we worked together on Foxton’s tourist development back in the 1980’s.

I am not only a Horowhenua District Councillor; I am also the author of a number of books, including Broken Silence which the Courts tried to ban.



Phil Taueki. 



Last night, the police visited my home trying to find my partner, Phil Taueki, because there is a warrant out for his arrest.

This evening, I myself risk arrest if I turn up to deliver the chairman’s report at the AGM of a literacy organisation of which I am the duly-elected chairperson.

Mr Taueki and I have been actively trying to get Lake Horowhenua cleaned up after years of neglect by the Lake Domain Board responsible for looking after the lake which is owned in fee simple estate by Mr Taueki’s iwi, Mua-Upoko. Mr Taueki is a direct descendent of a Treaty signatory.

In 1905 when the Crown seized control of the lake, it was in pristine condition and a bountiful kai basket. The Crown neither leases the property, nor has it paid the owners any compensation for the use of the property as a public recreation reserve.

These days it is so polluted that a NIWA scientist recently claimed that it so toxic a mouthful could be enough to kill a child. The introduction of a single weed would cause irreversible damage.

Levin’s stormwater drains into the lake, and the town’s wastewater system periodically overflows into the lake. The council has no resource consent for the stormwater, and the wastewater one expired in 2008. An application for renewal has been placed on hold by Horizons.

The mayor frequently calls on me to resign from council, and I am excluded from even being notified of meetings I have a right to attend.

The mayor has trespassed Mr Taueki from the council building.

The mayor gave evidence on oath about a Lake Accord, even though at least two of the key stakeholders (the Horowhenua District Council and the Lake Trustees) have never discussed this accord, let alone sanctioned it.

The reason for the warrant for Mr Taueki’s arrest is that he wanted to check whether a building on his land had toilets. On oath in the

Maori Land Court

last week, Mr Taueki had said there were no toilets in the Rowing Club building, but the Mayor testified on oath that there were.  As a member of the Lake Domain Board since 2004, the Mayor has supported the continued occupation of this building by the Rowing Club.

There are no toilet facilities in the Rowing Club.

Following this inspection, Mr Taueki left for a meeting, but his companion who was taking photographs for a forthcoming court case, was arrested by the police on a charge of burglary. His camera was confiscated, and as there was an image of Mr Taueki in this building, the police have issued a warrant for his arrest on a technical breach of his bail conditions.

The last time he was arrested for a breach of his bail conditions had been on Armistice Day when he was attending a ceremony at the Foxton RSA, where he is a member. Five police officers arrived, and in the presence of the Mayor and MP Nathan Guy, he was led away in handcuffs. He has yet to be charged with any offence, and is unlikely to be, because he was not in breach of his bail, as the police claimed. All the police will say now, is that they were acting under instructions.

It is easy to trace where those instructions came from.

Ironically, the Rowing Club member who called the police last Friday claimed he was an owner of the building. When told by a Lake Trustee that the

Maori Land Court

had just established that Mua-Upoko owned this building and that their lease had expired in 2007, he threatened to burn it down.

This threat was made in the presence of police officers who couldn’t be bothered recording this comment until the Lake Trustee asked that it be recorded.

By contrast, it has become common knowledge that anybody wanting to use the lake without the required permit or ignore the by-laws need only to mention the word ‘Taueki’ for the police to come rushing down in full force to arrest him, throw him into jail and prolong his bail conditions.

It is not unusual for the arrest to be no more than an excuse to remove Mr Taueki from the lake, so that people can launch unwashed boats onto the lake with impunity, defecate on his land due to the lack of toilet facilities and use motorised boats which are prohibited except for rescue purposes.

Annette, you may well remember the book I wrote back in the 1980’s entitled The Foxton Murder.

I have studied Mr Taueki’s cases. They are a travesty of justice.

I hold in safekeeping court documents that would disturb anybody who has any rudimentary knowledge of police procedures.

I became Mr Taueki’s McKenzie friend when he faced a charge of wilful trespass, after four police raided his home at 1am on a cold wintry morning and ejected him from his home without allowing him to gather up his belongings or make arrangements for the welfare of his elderly dogs. He protested that the trespass charge was unlawful, and the Judge agreed, tossing out the charge before we’d even finishing examining the prosecution’s first witness.

But for those eight weeks before the case came to trial, he was denied the right to return to his home.

The current bail conditions relate to allegations from the same complainant, and again Mr Taueki risks arrest standing on his own land or visiting his family urupa when his beloved Mum was buried last October.

Annette, you claim we don’t live in a police state.

You are wrong!

I am now anxiously awaiting a phone call to advise that Mr Taueki has been apprehended by the police and in jail, where he will no longer be able to upset the authorities by exposing the injustices his family have incurred over the past century or so. 

You can contact Anne Hunt at annehunt@inspire.net.nz