14 December 2004

NZ First Puts Forward Urgent Zaoui Bill

New Zealand First Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters has submitted an urgent amendment to the Immigration Act to the Leader of the House Michael Cullen, closing off the legal loophole that allowed the Supreme Court to free convicted Algerian Ahmed Zaoui.

Mr Peters has done this by way of a private members bill and he has called on all parties within Parliament to support the passing of the bill under urgency because a matter of national security is involved.

“This case is now bigger than Zaoui. New Zealand cannot have an Immigration Act that allows illegal arrivals with overseas convictions to destroy their false travel papers, claim refugee status, then get freed on bail because of glaring gaps in the law.

“This issue must be resolved with urgency. We cannot wait for some legal waffle to come from Canada as the Prime Minister has said. The result of the Zaoui case will already be encouraging others of his ilk to come here to try their luck,” said Mr Peters.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

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>>