The Police Review must be immediately cancelled, or the public will bear more than a financial cost from the INCIS debacle, Labour police spokesperson George Hawkins said today.

"The Police do not have the information technology they were promised. To carry on with sacking police staff would be a travesty and seriously reduce the ability to fight crime.

"Despite the protestations of the Government, INCIS and the cost-cutting Police Review are inextricably linked. Treasury documents obtained by Labour in June this year show that the Police Review was expected to provide $23 million a year for "INCIS repayments."

"The Police Review never made sense. It was all about saving money, rather than improving policing. Just last week Treasurer Bill English admitted that the overall Police budget is being cut, because of expected savings from the Police Review.

"The expected efficiency gains from INCIS are not going to eventuate. The Government has partially acknowledged this by calling a halt to the madness of sacking non-sworn staff. But 195 non-sworn staff have already gone. Front-line police who want to be out catching crooks have been turned into typists.

"Experienced senior police officers are still being made redundant. It's madness. The public is rightly outraged by proposals such as halving the Wellington CIB unit, removing 11 sworn officers from Levin and similar cuts in Wairoa, Gisborne, Rotorua, Christchurch and many other centres.

"INCIS and the Police Review were supposed to offer a new way of doing police business. There is no new way. The Police Review must stop immediately."

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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>>