Focus: Prime Minister Jacinda Arderns, on the privacy breach in gun buyback, cancer research and the upcoming election. Video / Mark Mitchell
COMMENT:
Lock your doors, check the safety of your families and keep an eye on your bank account, the gangs are on the rampage.
Well that's the message coming from the Council of Licensed Firearm Owners, or Colfo.
Figures were being thrown around like confetti as to how many people have had their personal details compromised. Listen to Colfo and it's a city, listen to the police and the Government, it's a Christmas party.
The smell is more likely to come down on the side of marzipan while the stench is most certainly politics.
There's little to celebrate at the German software firm that made an unauthorised change to its data processing which led to the leak. It's officially one person logging in leading to 35 firearm owners' full details being seen with the possibility of fewer than 500 further owners' names and addresses being sighted.
The biggest security breach of this amateur Government's tenure in office, cried the newly confident Simon Bridges who's finally cracked double digits in the leadership stakes. It's given Colfo a shot in the arm too, it's currently investigating legal action against the Beehive's ongoing tightening of gun laws.
It's certainly left the Government reeling, just another clumsy issue with its gun buyback scheme.
So what does a Government do when it's on the ropes? It looks for something that'll get traction. Banning foreign donations to political parties even though it would seem the largesse of cash-rich foreigners is around the same level as our contribution to world greenhouse emissions, 0.2 per cent of total donations at the last election.
It suspended the business of Parliament to make the change under urgency, meaning the public won't have a say on it, but it'll be law by lunchtime.
So do we really have to guard against foreign interference and influence in our election process? The law's sponsor, Andrew Little, couldn't shed much light on it, saying our intelligence agencies just don't know.
James Shaw and Andrew Little during a press conference after the release of the first round of public information on the 2020 cannabis referendum and the draft bill. Photo / Mark Mitchell
So who will be the guardians of our democracy to ensure the money coming it is legit? The political parties' general secretaries, and how will they detect it?
Well Little reckons a flag will go up if the donation comes from the NZ Mongolian Thoroughbred Racing Ltd. The party functionary will be expected to track down who's actually behind the cash flow.
But what if the money's fed through a New Zealand company without a foreign name? Russian rubles would of course be a dead giveaway but if it's been converted into dollars and the party secretary's still unsure, it'll go into consolidated fund - yeah right.
What are we now all talking about though? Not the firearm owners, unlikely to be the foreign donations, but the proposed cannabis law, also unveiled in a timely fashion amid the mayhem.
