Started getting tweets and emails last night about how people could make submissions to the truncated select committee on the Video Camera Surveillance Bill.
Because of the swiftness of the process, the normal democratic process was not able to be followed.
I was approached by someone at around midnight and asked whether I could lodge their submission. Which of course I did this morning.
In the absence of an electronic process (which is now available I understand) I told people via twitter and facebook they could send submissions directly to me and I would lodge them. I’ve had a steady stream all day.
Keep them coming tonight people. This is democracy in action. It may be flawed. But it’s yours.
Update: email me clare.curran@parliament.govt.nz
Or any of your MPs. That’s what we’re here for
You’re doing wonderful work Clare. You’re such a hard worker for Dunedin.
Yee haa! Go Clare! (flower).
VERY good idea. Way too much work – but in lieu of a smoother system it’s good of you to take this time (which I suspect isn’t trivial)
So how many submissions have you forwarded on in total?
(And yes, this is exactly what MPs are here for)
About 20. Not too much work Dave. Every submission is important.
Well done Clare.
I hope this means your party isn’t going to support the Bill Clare? A lot of people will be VERY disappointed if you do all this work looking like you’re opposing it and then turn around and vote for it.
Is there a reason why the Search and Surveillance bill already before parliament could not have been passed under urgency instead of this new one?
That would seem to remove a lot of the issues surrounding the attempt to ram this one through without debate.
Thanks Clare.
@Dave there is a very good reason. Labour supports the bill apart from three parts which do not involve surveillance and if these were changed then there would be no impediment.
The reason why this will not happen is National believe that they will get political advantage out of banging the law and order drum and want to try to make Labour look soft on crime. Good on Labour for standing up against what would be a constitutional outrage.
Labour are in good company. Groups or individuals who have come out strongly opposed include the New Zealand Law Society, the Council for Civil Liberties, the Human Rights Commission, the Law Commission and Geoffrey Palmer.
I find it unbelievable that the Police legal team or Crown Law did not advise them of the possibility that their illegal behaviour would not be ruled as such by the judiciary and that steps have not been taken before this to address this issue.
This knee-jerk reaction is akin to that of the Foreshore and Seabed legislation and had it not been for the world cup we might be seeing a bigger reaction to this vile piece of urgent legislation.
This is wrong, a shortened and exclusive select committee is wrong, the police are wrong, the executive is wrong and right now the way Parliament is rushing this through for political gain is wrong.
Since when has New Zealand started to condone illegal behaviour by actors of the state (police) to curb illegal behaviour.
We are now walking down a very dangerous road of tilting our democracy in favour of the state and quite frankly it is no more different than what we accuse Fiji of doing — being autocratic and a police state.
We need to do more than just make submissions on the bills, we need to be able to vote on them and their clauses as well.
People need more time to prep and be heard on the bleepin submissions!
!