Police spy on Greenpeace, SAFE, the Green Party and now Unions?

Union backlash: Strike threat over police spying
The backlash from unions against revelations police used an informer to spy on them increased today. The National Distribution Union (NDU) lodged an Official Information Act request for information the police hold on it, while the Maritime Union said it may call a national work stoppage to hold meetings of its members to discuss the spying. Yesterday the Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) said it backed a call by Unite Union for a full public inquiry into the activities of the police Special Investigation Group (SIG), following revelations a paid informant for the unit was spying on union industrial and political campaigns. Prime Minister John Key this week ruled out an inquiry and said police assurances had been given to the Government that covert investigations were justified. NDU national secretary Laila Harre said she was angry that police informant Rob Gilchrist was being paid to gather information about legitimate union activity and wants details of reports he made about the union. "The public need to know why the police think they need to use valuable resources and taxpayer money on spying on unions when they say they are too stretched to do the rest of their job properly," she said. Maritime Union general secretary Trevor Hanson said today the union was supporting calls for a high level commission of inquiry into the SIG.

Oh come on now, we’ve had the Police Commissioner lie to us when he said individuals and not organizations are being spied on and John Key assures us that there is no need for an inquiry, yet every single day this week the spying tactics of Gilchrist have grown from protest groups to a political party and now the Unions. Spying on the Greens to see what protests they are doing against tasers and detailing whom in Greenpeace is sleeping with whom in SAFE is not why we gave Police these extra powers. John Key needs to re-examine this and Phil Goff has a huge amount of questions to answer as to how SIG went way off their mandate with this shit.

Letting the Police get away with bribing spies to infiltrate Unions, Political Parties and protest groups is something repressive police states conduct, this shouldn’t be happening in NZ, the SIS deals with these types of threats, not the bloody Police.