Maori are being terrorised

Alt Tv/Fleet FM Breakfast News Comment
Maori are being terrorised
Hone Harawira used debate on a bill to amend whistleblower legislation as a platform to make strong arguments that Maori were being "terrorised". "Are these threats to Maori serious? Hell, yes," Mr Harawira said. "There is mounting frustration and anger right across the country by Maori genuinely aggrieved by the continued loss of lands, the denial of the Treaty, and now these raids, smashing into Maori homes and terrorising Maori communities," he said. "Of course Maori are bloody angry. Why wouldn't they be?" The police raids signalled that "the terrorism of the Maori community" had never ended and continued unabated, Mr Harawira said. Mr Dunne called the speech inflammatory and said it was "embittered, divisive and downright irrelevant". Harawira’s comments are true, if you were Maori, if you lived in the community that was swamped by ‘police ninjas’ you can understand the hurt and the fright without even mentioning the historical context, as far as Tuhoe are concerned, the only paramilitary groups running around threatening people are the Police. Which is why the cops had better have this in the bag, so low is their credibility that anything short of a smoking gun in terms of evidence is not going to be enough to restore public confidence in their actions. NZers have a default mechanism that automatically sets to the person getting pushed around, we don’t like it and it gets us defensive, which is exactly what Hone Harawira is articulating. Note however he doesn’t try and defend or negate the charges against those being held, which has become the tone of choice once people hear what the Police allege they have as evidence, in other news Jamie Lockett has been attacked in prison, and the inability of the Police to keep one of those charged inside suggests they don’t have the evidence to keep him after he was released on bail. There seem to be two groups of those arrested, those who were just radical and went to the camps, and those who plotted plans.

More sparks are expected as the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill is debated in Parliament this afternoon.