Politicians Grab Surveillance Cameras II
December 11, 2024
By NZB3
National 5.0 have done a very fine job capturing road surveillance cameras from the Police. I often think it’s a bit of a shame that Beehive communications staff aren’t eligible for the New Zealand Film and Television Awards or AXIS advertising awards. Their sneaky Edward Bernays inspired propaganda is done in the dark. If anyone were Anarchist enough to have noticed this one then they probably pass over it with a cynical exhalation. Don’t do that. Write it down and send your observations to Anarkiwi!
Remember back in 2019 how Labour 6.0 were set to take the nation’s surveillance cameras away from the Police? According to the story on government radio the Police didn’t want this power and revenue any more and wanted to give it up! It was so absurd that I had to point it out at the time. Ref. Politicians Grab Surveillance Cameras, NZB3 (2019)
Evidently Labour’s transport goons (Stuart Nash and Julie Anne Genter) didn’t manage to quite pull it off at the time. But now, according to headlines, National 6.0’s Transport Minister Simeon Brown has done it. The cameras are now going to Team Blue…
“Police run the cameras at present, but…NZTA Waka Kotahi has begun taking over the cameras,..The agency is signing up a private company to operate them, although it will handle the assessing and issuing of infringements.” – RNZ, ODT (11/12/24)
Team Blue and their Totally Above Board Private Partner and Not A Political Client At All private company will now be rolling in power and cash. Simeon Brown will have eyes on the roads and it sounds like that vantage point is set to expand. For “road safety,” of course. He has already set in motion a new heavy-handed power for his police to conduct roadside drug testing legislation: “The legislation will allow oral fluid testing for roadside screening purposes, followed by a more sophisticated test for people whose screening returns a positive result…Drivers who refuse to take a screening test would be issued with an infringement fee, demerit points, and be prohibited from driving for 12 hours.” Ref. NZH (2024)
Police will now have the power to stop any driver they like and force a search upon them. Your DNA now belongs to The State. Whoever handles the press for this (probably the same as the camera guy) deserves a wickedness award for that too.
For the first half of the week they prepared the ground. And it’s fertile ground too because journalists are all going to sleep for the holidays and wont return until February.
All I’ve been hearing about is how police have been caught out having a quota system for speed cameras…
eg. Dylan Thomsen: AA Road Safety spokesperson on police missing funding for failing to issue enough speeding tickets – Newstalk Zb 9/12/24
eg Sean Plunket: Do Police Have A Quota For Speeding Tickets? – Platform 9/12/24 [Meta]
“My understanding was that during the course of last week, many police officers around the country involved in doing traffic patrol received a memo. And the memo suggested that the police have failed to meet, well, what essentially is a quota. And yes, we get told there are no quotas for tickets or anything, but..” – Plunket transcript, Linkedin
The national conversation was set. Damn police and speed cameras! “Blast them!” They have quotas?? That’s the world we live in?
And all that took was someone at the LTSA to have supposedly written a “memo” to “many police officers” and for it to leak to the press. Hook baited.*
Then, WHAM’O!: 11 December: The news that police will be relieved of this burden of power and revenue.
Well done Simeon Brown’s communications wonk! I think you got us. Served up the new State surveillance dystopia very nicely. And, hopefully, whoever these private camera spies are will thank Team Blue with some campaign contributions. Team Red must be pissed off for not being able to do this! Probably helps to have just put a new Police Commissioner (Richard Chambers) in the chair to make sure the Police part peacefully with their old toys.
Honorable mention, too, for Winston Peters’ communications goon this holiday season too. This week he has apparently banned Greyhound racing as of August 2028 and shocked the industry. I doubt it. By the same Anarchist reasoning there is no way that a money and power base is given away for nothing in return. It’s simply another shakedown to grab control, or more control, of a valuable revenue source. Team Black will cut a better deal for how much fast dog money comes their way and toward the way of their backers. Ref. Watch: Greyhound racing to be banned in New Zealand, Winston Peters announces. RNZ
We wouldn’t put up with any of this if it were such explicit control over our lives. But if the snazzy politician mumbles something about “road safety” and “animal welfare” then that’s enough cover for us to go along with whatever the wish to do to us.
That’s why we can’t have a government.
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* Following this memo to its source, like a journalist (extinct species) would….and you’ll be pretty close to Simeon’s PR pro
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