David, was the threat imminent? My experiences wrt to violence is that they get there damned fast. And they judge it on many factors – how serious does it really sound, are weapons involved, is it a big mismatch (ie group on one, man on woman, adult on child) and are there people there already? The more serious the faster. Sure, when some guy says he’s gonna bash you you fear for your life, but I think they get there a lot faster when the yelling gets louder, blows are heard etc…otherwise we’d need 10 times as many cops – violence is like that – threats are far more common than action, and action requires immediate action – threats can wait sometimes.

And again I ask – who you gonna call anyway? What was your instinct?

I’ll assume that you were suffering from delirium tremens when you were typing that, which might explain the spelling.

That aside, yours is one of the most stupid arguments I have ever heard. Public servants are supposed to carry out their duties without fear or favour.

Note, too, that Police and Defence personnel pledge an oath of allegience to the Crown (that is, the institution of state) – NOT the Government (that is, the elected, and transient, personalities who govern us).

Cadmus, please read this s-l-o-w-l-y.

When those who govern us are above the law, we are in very dire straits. Revolutions have started over that very issue.

A final point: I remember a comment Mike Moore (the former PM, not that Fahrenheit 911 nutcase) made in a speech about the linkages between gangs and organised crime in 1997: “If our Police ever become corrupt, we will have lost something far more precious than we could ever imagine. And once we have lost it, it will be gone forever.”

Cadmus – don’t ever complain if you are convicted, or suffer disadvantage in any way, on the basis of false information from the Police, or supplied to the Police. You have been warned.

I see NOTHING, I see NOTHING!

I really expect a little more from our police force, and I am very disappointed in them. One of the consequences of this decision, is that the hard-working frontline staff will once again wonder who the hell is running the force.

Well, I’ve learned from experience that the only reason to call the police the next time my home gets turned over is for insurance purposes.

And I sure don’t think it’s anti-Police to wonder why it never seems to be “in the public interest” to prosecute Government ministers despite determining there’s a primae facie case to answer… and Roger Carson did not like being asked that very question by Mary Wilson on Checkpoint last night.

If my experiences are anything to go on, next time you really actually need them for something important your respect will bounce back pretty fast.

Who you gonna call?

In this case the Police would have to be very careful. As Graham Millar said the police had a prima facie case against Labour, sure, but could the Police prove it beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law? I think not. It would look like the Police are biting the hand that feeds them if they lost, which seemed on the cards. It could also be said the Police are in the pocket of the Right if they did take Labour to Court, but let off National. The Police would have to weigh it all up. If certtain Police took a case against Labour & Lost the chance of promotion for those officers would be next to nil, while the govt are still in office. We are told the Police Commisioner is totally independent, but at the end of the day he is a govt appointment, so who’s side is he on? I would have no doubt the police would take action if they had what you might say all the evidence in the bag, and the case could be proved beyond any scrap of doubt. But no, they didn’t have a water tight case, and were not prepared to go against their political masters with what evidence they did have.
Also the NZ Police want to be seen as having a good Public image, meaning the working masses will support them, elsewhere the Police couldn’t give 2 stuffs about what their public image is as long as they have govt backing. The NZ Police are also not taking on one MP, who say got caught Drinking over the limit and they let off, sure the public would be screaming and the talkback lines running red hot, if that ever happened.

The Police if they did proceed were taking on the Govt of the Day plus the entire Labour Party support base. It was stacked against the police if they didn’t have an open and shut case. And they new it. I wouldn’t care if National were in power and this happened. I believe the outcome would be the same.
Also if a situation such as above was taken to court it could cause elements in society, maybe leftwing supporters to start trouble around the country, that would also be one of the things the Police wouldn’t want. We only have to look at France to see that if enough fuel is added to the fire public law and order could be out of control in certain areas.
In my view the Police took the sensible option, by not having a water tight case against the Labour Party, and let them off with a warning.

As I said before this is were National or any opposition should instead of going out trying to take out opposition MP’s. They instead look at putting new legislation in place concerning election spending, but time will tell.

prima facie case

I’ll accept that it was an excessive bit of rhetoric that is not worth repeating.

I’m not going to censure the vast majority of insults on this site because I have a life, but there is a line and Logix stepped well over it with that remark. I am not banning on this occassion as he also contributes well to most debates.

And on several occassions I have warned posters about overly personal comments on Helen Clark etc. As I say there is a line which I will enforce.

Couldn’t agree with you more. The rules will always get bent unless there is an across the board willingness to observe the spirit of them. That is fundamental point that is often overlooked. Now while we are on the same wavelength here, how about explaining how National managed such a dramatically longer and more intensive campaign on the back of the numbers they reported? Of course there is game-playing going on here.

Now clearly some of National’s supporters would like no rules at all, in the expectation that they would have the backing of limitless amounts of business-friendly money to buy whatever elections they like….much as the US model. Of course holding to that line, while accusing Labour of stealing elections is a desperately transparent hypocrisy….so I have to assume that someone from the right-wing side is willing to propose a sane starting point to the discussion.

The rules will be observed in both letter and spirit, if they are seen to be both fair in principle to all parties, transparent and predicable in action, and enforceable if broken. The current arrangement is not.

Maybe governments over the years have arranged this in part to ensurethey have a slush fund for cheating in elections. But regardless of that it should have been used for less corrupt purposes.

> that the rules around electoral spending in the country urgently require fixing up.

It doesnt matter how tightly you define the rules there will always be ways around it unless it is based on the spirit of the law not the letter. BUT that is a different issue – from the police comments it would seem labour breached the law so even if there are holes labour didn’t use them. so what we need now is just enforcement

spending money that should have gone on hospitals and schools on campaigning.

You do your case no good whatsoever by ignoring the elementary fact that the monies in question were already allocated to promote Government policy. There can be no sense in which schools or hospitals were robbed, that claim merely obscures the real point…that the rules around electoral spending in the country urgently require fixing up. There are any number of ways in which the current system could be abused and putting in place constructive legislation to fairly address the loopholes and “inappropriate practices” demands some clear-headed cross-party co-operative thinking….not the kind of hyperbolic venom being spat out here.

It would have been much smarter to have allowed a prosecution to proceed and to have arranged for some pet judge to have seen it off. At least there would have been some semblance of process.

DPF is right. This will make for one of the defining issues in Labour’s eventual defeat.

It is WRONG! Whether or not the Police are gutless little puppets of the government, or the law is unclear – it is wrong.

Had this happened in East Timor or any country where NZ might send election monitors we would have said it was an inappropriate practice – it is something Mugabe should be proud of. I don’t care if National, Labour or Libertarianz did it – it is disgustingly wrong and anyone in Labour defending it should look in the mirror and think how they would feel if any other party did it.

There isn’t a word for how hypocritical it is.

I look forward to reading Investigate when it comes out, how much longer can there be one law for Liar-bor and one for the rest of us.

Cadmus is only celebrating because he is relieved, even he was worried about it, why else is he celebrating along with his low life associates?

I’m not saying the police are corrupt in a banana-republic sense, but on every major politically sensitive case I can recall since 1992 they’ve folded.

Ultimately, democracies fail when rot like this sets in. If we can’t hold the lawmakers accountable under the law, then voting becomes meaningless – the kind of empty exercise that inspires things like the Boston Tea Party.

Cheap shot really. The nexus between the police and the political is a fraught one in every nation on earth. How much more raw material do you think you might have to work with if you resided in Australia, or the US, or Zimbabwe?

Many years ago I was told the name of a National Cabinet Minister allegedly involved in protecting the importation of hard drugs via fishing boats so I’m not kidding myself that corruption is impossible and never happens here in NZ. Nor am I suggesting that it isn’t a fair target for exposure and prosecution wherever possible….yet at the same time it is the nature of our relatively small political community that it is impossible to keep secrets, and by and large really bad secrets are a terrible liability that eventually catch up with their owners.

The reality is that there are no perfect people, and if all you fill your nostrils with is stench…then you miss the gleaming white teeth.

As a police reporter for 15 or so years I once would have agreed with your suggestion that there is no corruption.

But I still have good links into the force, and I know there is.

Some concrete examples from my own career: During Winebox investigation when I was at TV3 we found some senior business figures allegedly involved in laundering serious drug money.

We took info to a police detective inspector who conceded police knew of this, but it was worth more than their jobs to investigate the men…”Wellington would shut it down” he told me.

My stomach sank to the floor. Then later, after the High Court and Court of Appeal and Privy Council had all ruled on the illegality of the Winebox deals, and Crown Prosecutor Simon Moore had issued a legal opinion expressing the belief there was a prima facie criminal case against certain named businessmen and their staff, I put all of that information including the court rulings and the documents in front of police national headquarters.

PNHQ refused to even investigate the complaint or the documents, nor that of another lawyer.

Yes, there is corruption at National Headquarters level.

You are living in cloud cuckoo land if you believe otherwise.