Police Minister George Hawkins is dangerously out of touch with officers and the public of New Zealand, ACT Police Spokesman Ken Shirley said today.

"Mr Hawkins today defended the 'three-contacts' rule which, in practice, forces Highway Patrol officers to issue three tickets every hour without discretion.

"Speaking at the Trafinz Meeting in Hamilton, Mr Hawkins said:

'These minimum contact guidelines are essential.. . . . Contact guidelines are here to stay, and I support them wholeheartedly'.

"Mr Hawkins has lost any sense of reality if he believes New Zealanders support his blatant money-spinning agenda. He is out of sync with the members of the Highway Patrol who have to comply with his silly rules.

"Mr Hawkins sees New Zealand drivers as a lucrative source of revenue, and this rule is all about increasing the Government's coffers rather than reducing the road toll," Ken Shirley said.

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>