8 October, 2004

Police getting priorities straight, says Nandor

Green MP Nandor Tanczos today welcomed reports that regional police are refocusing their resourcing towards organised crime.

Nandor, the Green Party's Justice spokesperson, was responding to comments by Northland police chief Viv Rickard that Whangerei's four-person drug squad has been replaced with a six-person organised crime unit. Police Association's Greg O'Connor has said that other police districts are following a similar pattern.

"This reinforces statistics released earlier this year showing a drop in convictions for personal cannabis use," said Nandor.

"Police seem to be focusing more on hard drugs and associated organised crime and less on the domestic cannabis smoker.

"Unlike cannabis, you can't grow P in your back yard - it takes a sophisticated criminal organisation to manufacture it.

"Most New Zealanders agree that police resources should be focused on 'real' crime rather than easy cannabis arrests. It's time the Government got with the programme," he 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>>