Soft-on-crime Labour makes NZ "haven for paedophiles"

Thursday 3 Feb 2005

Deborah Coddington - Press Releases - Crime & Justice

Time magazine today asked if New Zealand is becoming a "haven for paedophiles" because the Labour Government has done nothing to catch dozens of child pornographers despite receiving first class information from US Customs, ACT Associate Justice spokesman Deborah Coddington said today.

"American agents gathered over 95,000 potential recipients of child pornography using credit card records, and traced them to countries including Australia and New Zealand," Miss Coddington said.

"They passed the information on to Australia and New Zealand four months ago. Australia acted swiftly and rounded up hundreds of suspects.

"However, despite US Customs confirming they have given the names of scores of suspects to New Zealand Customs, Police and Internal Affairs, there has been no visible action in this country.

"George Hawkins is responsible for both Police and Internal Affairs. No doubt he'll make the usual excuses about not interfering in the day-to-day business of police, and advise me to make a complaint to the Commissioner.

"Fat lot of good that will do. When the child pornographers see Time magazine they'll destroy the evidence - if it's not destroyed already, after the Australian publicity.

"We have damn good child protection squads around New Zealand, and the Internal Affairs policing unit does a fine job also. The Minister needs to explain why this issue has taken so long to be acted upon.

"He could start by answering Time magazine's question: 'What are New Zealand's suspects up to, and when will they find a police officer at their door?'" Miss Coddington said.

ENDS

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