Andrea Vance | Sunday Star Times | 9 Nov 2014
‘‘I DON’T want to overstate the risk,’’ Prime Minister John Key said in his much-amped speech on the growing threat of Islamist terrorism. You might be puzzled to learn, then, that Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne has cancelled just two passports so far this year.
Key wasn’t ‘‘lying’’ in the strict sense of the word when he told reporters on Wednesday that nine passports were revokedw. (Back in February, he told a press conference that the documents of fewer than 10 people had been cancelled since authorities were granted the power to do so in 2005.) But he deliberately implied that they were wannabe Kiwi jihadis.
Key could have argued that the intelligence community believes a number of people want to leave New Zealand to fight in the Middle East. So far, the Government has cancelled only two passports, and would like to make a reasoned case for greater powers to confiscate more.
But Key didn’t say that. Instead, he inflated the risk – because that fits with the big, scary Muslim threat he’s been peddling lately.
The media happily followed Key’s trail of breadcrumbs to Wednesday’s announcement. Clumsy (unsubstantiated) hints about beheadings, homegrown terrorism, and the lone wolf attack on Canada’s parliament made for easy, dramatic headlines. Kiwi converts were tracked down and quoted as voicing support for ISIS – although you’ve got to question the nous of a “terrorist” who gives interviews to the local paper.
Ahead of the speech, exclusive access to top spies was granted to newspapers and television crews. Sold as being transparent, it was a PR snowjob to tie New Zealand to the conflict raging across Syria and Iraq.
The threat level was publicly raised, for added theatre. And just in case the public didn’t quite get it, Key threw up a hint about terror threats to next year’s Cricket World Cup. Forget civil liberties, no-one’s going to hold sporting events to ransom! Domestic action to curb terror tourism and enhance unwarranted surveillance was cynically conflated with New Zealand’s participation in the international effort to stop ISIS.
Parliament’s toothless Intelligence and Security Committee has not met in months. The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand says there was no consultation with the local Muslim community.
Key’s assertions on foreign fighters are difficult to challenge, because he holds all the cards when it comes to intelligence. The directors of the SIS and the GCSB are his hand-picked, political appointments. The public, media and rival politicians see only the information he chooses to reveal. And anyone who dares to contradict him is branded naive, despite his unwillingness to engage in debate on security matters.
Scaremongering, twisting the facts, and ramming reforms through under urgency is just a convenient way to bypass much-needed scrutiny of state surveillance.
