KEY POINTS:
No one's raided me yet - I must be much less dangerous than an artist, a pensioner, or someone who runs a bike repair shop. They all were done over in the nationwide raids this week but our place somehow escaped the combined attention of the police, the
SIS and the SAS.
I've hidden the kids' BB gun and stashed the fuel for the lawnmower somewhere safe just in case black-clad men in balaclavas leap the fence and thrust machine guns in my face, demanding to know where the weapons cache is concealed. Not that I'm discounting the domestic terrorism threat but the whole affair is slightly odd and raises some really confusing questions.
For example, in court there's that guy Jamie Lockett who apparently claimed he was a "vicious, dangerous commando" who had "declared war on this country" and is alleged to have said somewhat threateningly "white men are going to die in this country". The trouble is he looks whiter than me. Was he going to kill himself? Should I hit the spray-tanning clinic to ensure my personal safety in the coming genocide?
Should I wear my undies on the outside of my trousers in case someone thinks I am "going commando"?
What are the Happy Valley Snail Savers (or whatever that Greenie group is called) really up to, hanging out with suspected terrorists? Is Osama bin Laden disguised as a shell-wearing slug deep in the bush somewhere on the West Coast?
If dressing up like soldiers and running around the bush with guns is illegal why did no one arrest those cops in Ruatoki who looked like they had just stepped out of an XBox game of Halo? If, as in the Urewera raids, cops hit my place and say "hands up" in Maori just to be politically correct, will I be shot because I don't understand them?
Why does the country go crazy every time Helen Clark goes overseas, this time to Tonga for the Pacific Islands Forum? She was briefed about the proposed raids by the cops and spooks before she left New Zealand. I can only hope she found genuinely serious evidence to justify the bizarre police-state tactics, otherwise, Fiji's Commodore Frank Bainimarama wasn't the only leader of a banana republic at the forum.
Aside from the weird anti-terrorism offensive, her Government is beginning to show some shockingly authoritarian traits. The Electoral Finance Bill is the kind of legislation Dr Goebbels would have endorsed. Under that bill only the Government (and maybe a political party or two) can issue propaganda.
As currently written, the bill would stop pressure groups and people from publicly taking political stands during an election year. Unless, of course, that pressure group is a trade union. The Council of Trade unions has grandly announced its intentions to campaign heavily for Labour-aligned policies next year and the CTU is confident the Electoral Finance Bill doesn't apply.
A pile of potentially terrorist-aligned groups oppose the Government's great leap forward for democracy. Notorious commie stirrers such as the Law Society want the bill scrapped, saying it is "a backward step and irredeemable", adding that ordinary citizens could unwittingly break the law simply by taking part in debates on election issues. Well, the Law Society better stand by for a dawn raid from a load of men in black - and I don't mean the All Blacks.
The Human Rights Commission, Education Institute and Post Primary Teachers Association have also attacked the bill as flawed and an assault on people's rights. I expect their radical leaders to be whipped off to Guantanamo Bay at any moment.
Basically, the bill muzzles anyone from taking a stand during an election year on any political issue.
The pure evil genius in the Government's Electoral Finance Bill is that while it restricts the amount interest groups could spend advertising their views on an issue, the Government could spend anything it likes pushing its own views. John Key made this point earlier in the week arguing that the Government could next year spend a fortune advertising how good, for example, its health policies were year but medical pressure groups could not reply that Labour's policies had failed, because the bill would stop them from spending more than $60,000 on a campaign during an election year.
Still, the bill would stop the Exclusive Brethren bankrolling political parties, which is using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. A little like unleashing armed police on a bunch of crackpots.
George W Bush and the Department of Homeland Security will be proud of Helen Clark this week.