Parliament is in the process of passing the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill. It would allow the Police to take DNA samples when they arrest anyone.
I can see the possibilities for better crime prevention in this proposal. But I’m troubled by the lack of any checks and balances in the Bill. A similar English law was set aside by the European Cout of Human Rights on that ground, and the Attorney-General has certified that the NZ Bill breaches the NZ Bill of Rights Act.
I put an amendment up tonight, further to a Labour caucus resolution, that would have required the Police to get a warrant before taking DNA. I reasoned that if they need a warrant to search a building they should need one to apply literal physical compulsion to a person. They don’t have problems finding a JP to grant these warrants so I don’t think getting one to take a DNA sample would be an administrative problem. And we’d have Bill of Rights compliant legislation.
The Greens, Progressives and Maori Party voted with Labour for the amendment. Peter Dunne voted against. So did ACT (so much for being “the liberal party”). And so did the Nats, without really bothering to say why. I guess they think it will play well out in talkbackland.
The Nats adjourned the House before we got to my other amendment – a requirement that Parliament review the operation of the law within 5 years. But it looks like they’ll vote that one down too when we get to it next week. I hope I can be in the House for it. But instead I’ll probably be in the Finance and Expenditure Committee, working through what is becoming pretty much a universally-condemned Emissions Trading Amendment Bill. Sigh.
Not a good day for civil liberties.
Three words.
Electoral Finance Act.
Charles, that amendment simply cannot work. Auckland Central Police can put upwards of 150 people through the cells on a busy weekend night. You can’t race off to a JP everytime in that situation and you cannot do it after the event as half of them don’t turn up and give false addresses etc. I actually share your concern, (as an ACT member), but that amendment wouldn’t work.
The other problem is the huge administrative workload on the ESR for things like this. It’s fine in principle but analysing and dealing with all those samples is costly. And unless defence lawyers are properly funded to challenge the inherent greater use of DNA evidence it becomes constitutionally improper.
@Gooner, thanks for those comments. Fair point – I guess we’d have to find a couple of keen duty JPs who’d be willing to be on hand over weekends at Auckland Central. At less busy centres, presumably it will be ok to rely on those already on call for search etc warrants. They manage overseas. I reckon we could too.
I assume your point about ESR is a general objection to the Bill, rather than to my amendment, since having the taking of samples subject to supervision won’t make a difference to the volume taken.
I don’t think it’s right that they just take DNA samples.
Charles, what happened to the storage of DNA samples take at birth and stored in Auckland Hospital I think, how are those samples treated? that came in in 1981 or something I think. So why wouldn’t the amendment work? A warrant can be obtained for search of premises- as you point out – which is a lesser level of investigation than I imagine would be the purpose of the DNA sample search wouldn’t it?
This isn’t a requirement for DNA sampling of anyone charged because that in itself is an encroachment of Human Rights protections? Isn’t that what contributed to the downfall of the Euro version of this law?
I think there’s still meritorious argument to be had for your amendment, this is too much power for an unwarranted officer to exert and I don’t imagine the Police Commissioner will be looking forward to the potential litigation.
Can you explain a bit more??
Yeah, this does disgust me. But what else can we expect in New Zealand?
Not like Labour cared much for civil liberties when it was in Government. Do you know (for example) how many rights are stripped of citizens under your Immigration Act? The stripping of rights of non-permanent residents under that act is almost absolute. All so you can prevent another Zaoui (who was determined to be a bona fide refugee). Human rights concerns were devalued immensely under your Government.
You participated wholesale in the lawandorder auction. Phil Goff was a key participant. Garth McVicar and his lynchmob had to be fed. So what else can we expect? The country is primed for blood, fed by a puerile media.
The Tories are always like this. I’m hardly disappointed in them.
You hypocrites annoy me. You’ll say nice things for the entire duration of your opposition, and then when you’re in Government, you’ll throw away our rights. Mr Chauvel, you are deluded if you think that you were much better.
I applaud Labour’s standing up for civil liberties here, but also have to agree with most of what George D says.
Another reason to be wary of increased use of DNA sampling is that studies show juries are unreasonably swayed by DNA evidence. They think it’s magic like CSI.
Increased use of DNA sampling will mean that the prosecution is more likely to get a conviction whether the person is guilty or not.
Interesting points George D.
Let’s not forget that Mr Cosgrove is Labour’s law and order spokesman. I don’t think it’s fair to say that he ever goes for cheap headlines or panders to the get tough on crime crowd?
Yes Charles, in terms of the other points my objection is general. I would be out of line in my party I guess as I was with the gang patch bill.
Absolutely agree George D. The hypocrisy from Labour is rank. One should remember Labour’s assault on civil liberties with the Terrorism suppression act. Labour and National both disgust me with their contempt for the liberty of New Zealanders.
George D, non-citizens don’t have the relevant quality of citizenship to have ‘civil liberties’. I don’t mean to suggest that some of what they are subject to is necessarily desirable.
Their ‘rights’ aren’t ’stripped’ when they enter the country, they forgo the ‘rights’ they had in their own country of citizenship when they came here, in place of the ‘rights’ we are willing to offer them. This is a good thing. Not necessarily the content of the ‘rights’ we do offer, but the practice. For instance, in Afganistan men have the ‘right’ or ‘civil liberty’ to rape their wives. Are we going to say ’sure, you can do that here, no probs mate!’.
And in many cases we have good reasons to be apprehensive about immigrants, and only offer them subordinate rights to those of citizens. This is (partially) justified by the threat of things like novel strains of diseases, the increased threat of terror (vague/weak), and the protection of the rights and liberties of our own citizens. Yes this does effectively (and unfortunately) constitute racism, but that’s what the plurality of nation-states is all about. I don’t desire it to be this way, and again, I’ll reiterate that the content of the bill is not necessarily desirable. But ‘civil rights and liberties’ are only contingent the way the world works.
So yeah, that charge of hypocrisy doesn’t hold.
On Charles’ amendments: this seems the most basic way of making the bill manageable and palatable. I think the lack of available JP’s is a problem, but that said: it means police have to prioritize who they will get warrants for; and that is a great thing frankly. If it means minor offenders have an increased likelihood of retaining their bodily integrity; GREAT! And the high-priority offenders will still be handled. So I see no problem whatsoever.
Zaahk, I like to think that as a civilised country New Zealand bestows certain basic rights on people as a matter of personhood, not as a matter of citizenship. A few years ago I would have told you that Labour agrees with me.
Labour is so fundamentally on the wrong side of human rights groups in this country that half-hearted salves like this are genuinely surprising. Even today, Labour is standing up for an incredibly intrusive surveillance bill. As I already know people who are surveilled on the basis of being political activists under existing laws that Labour supported and introduced, I have no doubt whatsoever that this law that Labour is supporting will be used in exactly the same ways. (I could produce dozens of links, but I’d fall foul of the spam filters.)
@George D – Thanks for that, I think it’s terrible and it does go too far! Taking away a person’s right to remain silent is a pretty frightening prospect.
“Instead of being restricted to certain types of serious crime, enforcement officers will be able to apply for surveillance device warrants on the same basis as search warrants,” – That’s pretty awful in my book.
I hope lots of safe guards are put in place or the matter is dropped, because the changes proposed seem pretty disgraceful to me.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing; I was trying to point the distinction between civil rights and liberties (which this bill without Charles’ amendments is contrary to), and the notion of ‘inalienable human rights’, such as bodily integrity, you were pointing to (which even the amended bill would still be contrary to).
But Charles is talking about ‘civil liberties’, and this is the discourse of rights that is appropriate to amending a policy that can only ever hope to be second best.
Zaahk – Labour’s hypocrisy is evident you cannot deny that. You can argue the point about legal vs moral rights and immigrants (and Labour’s disgusting actions thereto), but that doesn’t change the facts that in Labour’s time in power they eroded our civil liberties and their concern for them now is contrary to their actions hence their hypocrisy.
It is always concerning when civil liberties are threatened. That is why I hope Labour will be voting for the Education (Freedom of Association) Bill, to give students the liberty to choose whether or not to join a student union.
I hope most MPs will vote against the Education (Freedom of Association) Bill.
Two compelling arguments, Spud. You’ve swayed my opinion with your ice-cool reasoning.
@Hawkeye – LOL
Yep, I really know how to cut to the heart of the matter, grrr 
Watch out, if you read enough of my sophisticated rhetoric – you may just turn into convert
Big ups for unions, whether they be from the Unis or the Land of Cheese…
Labour’s roots are in trade unions, so it’s natural that you like unions. But that doesn’t mean they should be able to force people to join.
I don’t like the idea of people being forced to join either. The way I see it, student apathy coupled with their lack of awareness of just what a good deal they would be getting would prevent them from voluntarily joining a union.
It is painless to have the bill for the union with your fees, if students had to go to the trouble of joining it might not happen, not because they don’t want to join the union, but because it would be yet another chore for them.
I think that there is more to be gained from the services that the students unions provide, than what would be from private providers. I think these services would be in danger if fewer students belonged to the unions.
It isn’t painless to have $177 per year forcibly taken from you.
Your argument is basically that students don’t know what’s good for them, and don’t know how to spend their own money etc, so the nanny (in this case student unions) should intervene. But one of the most fundamental liberties is the ability of each person to spend their money however they want.
$177 isn’t that much compared with the amount of money that it would cost to use the same services and facilities that unions provide over the course of a year!
Apply some basic mathematics and then come back.
Seeing how it’s Sunday I won’t do it today, but might do it tomorrow.
And furthermore, its a freeloader problem. I don’t want some idiot at uni who thinks the unions are useless leaches, whilst getting all of the benefits of the unions and not paying a cent. What’s the difference between a student union member and a non-unionized student in the eyes of a University? Nothing.
We have a university system plagued by funding limits and enrollment caps, and then we have student unions to advocate for students not to bear the brunt of the financial hardships universities face. So students have a choice between student union services including advocacy for $177, or an unknown situation of internally unregulated fee increases that could probably be more than the student union fees anyway.
Think about it in terms of citizenship on the Liberal account*:
a) its involuntary, but you can choose to take up citizenship elsewhere on their terms
b) the government makes us pay taxes for services and welfare provisions
c) we pay for MPs to hold the governments budget to account and scrutiny
Consider MPs to be like the student unions qua advocates, and the nation-state to be like universities, and government to be the powers-that-be at universities.
*Act being the “liberal party” (puke.)
Makes it much clearer that this bill is a crock.
No one goes to university thinking that they will need advocacy, it’s such an important resource to have. The advocates provide confidential, supportive, professional and informed advice and advocacy.
Zaahk:
1) “Freeloaders” would not be a problem. Currently, to prevent freeloading, students are required to show student ID whenever they attend student functions. Student unions could issue ID to members who chose to join. Pretty simple really.
2) Unions don’t do a good job of stopping fee increases at all. Fees always rise whether or not the unions complain about it. This is partly because the unions spend their time campaigning for unrealistic things like universal student allowance (absurd), fully taxpayer-funded education (perhaps even more absurd), and funding the Alliance party (waste of money whichever side of the political spectrum you’re on.
The reason universities are able to raise fees every year is because they are so heavily subisidised. Subsidies don’t work, anyone economically literate knows this. Stop the subsidies and you’ll stop the fee hikes.
3) Comparing student unions to national governments is ridiculous. Should tennis clubs be able to force people to join?
However I can see from your post that you would like all trade unions, student unions etc to be compulsory. Personally I prefer freedom, but that’s just one man’s opinion.
“Should tennis clubs be able to force people to join?” – Yes, it would help reduce the obesity rate and we could find our next champ.
I’m glad you impliedly agreed with my post with such good grace. Thanks Spud.
You’re welcome
Just let me buy a racquet and I’ll see ya out there. 
No, comparing tennis clubs to student unions is ridiculous.
My analogy to responsible government was to show how compulsory payments for representation in matters relating to taxation, or in this case tuition fees, is not contrary to liberal principles, and is actually a requisite. Regardless of what idiotic pseudo-libertarian students/citizens may think.
I think your analysis of what student union execs do with their time is highly presumptuous, and completely inaccurate, and blurs the line between NZUSA and the independent SA’s.
Student associations don’t need to lobby for lower fees. Thus no one needs to pay taxation to them for these services. People will continue going to university so long as the benefits outweigh the costs for them as individuals. If students don’t like the fee hikes, they can leave university and work instead. That is the beauty of the free market.
As for blurring the line between individual SAs and NZUSA – all SAs waste thousands of dollars a year on membership (voluntary, I might add) of NZUSA, as well as airfares etc, sending their representatives to sit at a table and discuss whether to fund the Alliance or the RAM party.
If student associations do a good job, they have nothing to fear from VSM.
“Student associations don’t need to lobby for lower fees.” As Zaahk says that’s not all they do, they provide many services to students and access to such things as sporting equipment, provide cheap courses, student events, a liason between the students and the university ….
“If student associations do a good job, they have nothing to fear from VSM.” I disagree, I think that most students have better things to do than ponder and pontificate over all the great things that their student associations actually do for them.
They won’t know how good they’ve got it til tis gone.
Quote:
“As Zaahk says that’s not all they do, they provide many services to students and access to such things as sporting equipment, provide cheap courses, student events, a liason between the students and the university…”
Lobbying is the only example that Zaahk gave of a service that couldn’t be provided by user-pays. User-pays = good.
As for your examples:
“sporting equipment” – user-pays is fine for this.
“cheap courses” – huh? Nothing to do with student associations.
“student events” – in fact most orientation week events etc are already open to the entire public, with non-OUSA members having to pay $10 more. A perfect example of user-pays in action.
“liason between students and uni” – not a “great” service – basically this consists of a couple of students on the SA execs giving the rest of the students a bad name by demanding fully taxpayer-funded courses, student allowances and other such truly ridiculous things.
At this stage it appears the Bill will be passed into law, and all students will be far better off. Even after paying for all the services which will be changed to user-pays, each student will have heaps left over from the $177.
““liason between students and uni” – not a “great” service – basically this consists of a couple of students on the SA execs giving the rest of the students a bad name by demanding fully taxpayer-funded courses, student allowances and other such truly ridiculous things.”
I wasn’t thinking of those things. I was thinking of such things as advocacy, mediation, support for various minorities, the class rep/ education officer system, rooms, events, ….
I do agree with you that a free tertiary education system isn’t feasible, but it doesn’t worry me if other people want to fight for it. Good on them.
“At this stage it appears the Bill will be passed into law, and all students will be far better off.” – I think they would be worse off because their will be less money to provide all the services.
“Even after paying for all the services which will be changed to user-pays, each student will have heaps left over from the $177.” – Now I didn’t argue with your other points because it’s Sunday and I don’t want to do number chasing, but even paying an advocate alone to do work would cost a bit. I think that for the services that the students are enjoying now, that over the course of a year the value would come to over $177.
Think of it this way. Say there are 10 students each paying $10 per year to a student union. That is $100, and if the money is spent perfectly, with no waste, they will get $100 of services between them ($10 each.)
If VSM came into this fictional world, the students would have to spend their $10 on services instead of giving to the student union.
It works out to be the same, except unions waste heaps and heaps of money, or at best allocate it inefficiently.
You see waste and I see more bang for your buck. I don’t think we’ll ever agree.
Some of it is more well-intentioned than waste, but is still wasteful. For example, every student MUST pay for the gym, which only some people use. It would be more efficient for the students who like the gym to buy gym memberships.
Aren’t gym memberships over $100?
I think a casual visit to a gym costs about $7? Possibly less. So for the average student who only goes to the gym a few times a year, they are getting about $20-30 worth of value out of the gym, while paying far more than this in terms of fees.
There may be some gym junkies who get their money’s worth, but that doesn’t make it any less inefficient to force everyone to effectively buy a gym membership.
The money goes towards plenty of things, not just the gym, though the gym is value for money for those who like gyms. You put down your lump sum of union fees and then that buys you your choices, such as the gym, room hire, advocacy, food bank, magazine …
And if you deem those choices to not be value for money, you should not be forced to join.
Maybe there’s a case for an opt out policy. This is just my personal opinion, but I really think that students are better off paying the money and that they benefit from this. Maybe keep membership an autonmatic thing, like being charged for your papers, but allow people like you who want out to get a refund and have a limited window of time where you can do this.
I don’t think that most students mind being paid into a union and they do get a good deal.
I would argue that the vast majority of students get a bad deal from student unions. But regardless of that, I think the freedom argument is the most compelling. After all, Freedom of Association is supposed to be enshrined in the Bill of Rights and United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
You won’t agree with this, but I think that being in the student union gives students more freedom because they are getting a lot of stuff for less money. Fiscal freedom. I think the human rights thing could be got around with an opt out policy.
Well I appreciate the fact that you engaged in a reasoned debate, it’s a rare thing these days
We can just agree to disagree.
It’s a deal and for what it’s worth I do appreciate your point of view.
I agree to disagree. P.S. I really like the name Hawkeye.