KEY POINTS:
We certainly enjoy wallowing in our "little country" inferiority complex. At the risk of cheering people up, could I suggest we might well be the world champions at it.
There we were in the pits of despondency about a certain rugby trophy slipping from our grasp when up popped Inspector Plod trying to restore national pride with news that at least our terrorists could foot it with nations much bigger than us.
Not to be outdone, the sex abuse industry has followed up with a claim we're the greatest molesters of young girls in the world.
Do we really have to try so hard?
The day after the latest terrorist scare erupted I had a call from Odette Shaw, innocent casualty of a similar burst of hysteria on the eve of the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games. It brought back memories of the dawn raids that created headlines that summer's morning.
Led by an officer called "Gonzo" by his men, the armed raiders burst into the homes of selected unionists and Maori radicals seeking rocket launchers, allegedly imported for the purpose of disrupting the Games and the visit of the Queen.
A warrant had been obtained on the grounds that "several groups are wishing to arm themselves with weapons that can be used to disrupt the celebrations ... Weapons have been imported into New Zealand by unlawful means. These weapons have included firearms, ammunitions, explosives and sophisticated items such as rocket launchers and the rockets to use with them."
The warrant alleged that Ms Shaw's flatmate, an apolitical motor mechanic called Rohan Bailey, was believed to be "in possession of or in control of rocket launchers and ammunition for their use ... "
Ms Shaw worked at the trade union centre, Mr Bailey ran a commercial garage underneath. Their Pt Chevalier home and his work garage were both turned over by a squad of armed police. Mr Bailey's two hunting guns and some ammunition were seized and as his hunting licence had expired, confiscated. He was charged.
But of the rocket launchers, not a sniff. Quizzed about the whereabouts of the rocket launcher, nightie-clad Ms Shaw said she didn't know what one was. "Are those the things they send rockets to the moon on?"
Mr Bailey was taken back to the central police station and after being charged, was offered work as a police informer. "Yeah sure," he said and fled.
As for poor old Suzie, the pet cocker spaniel, she suffered sexual advances from the police dog.
Out west in Titirangi, two cops pushed their way into the home of an outspoken Anglican priest, the Rev Eru Potaka-Dewes. Unfortunately they were too late. In a hilarious twist, he had already left for work as official Anglican chaplain in the Games Village. So much for police intelligence.
Mr Potaka-Dewes later linked the visits to his 1987 naming in Parliament by then Hobson MP Ross Meurant as a radical activist, along with Titewhai Harawira, whose home was also raided that morning.
In a revealing twist, after the latest raids, Mr Meurant, a one-time head of police intelligence, confessed he had been brainwashed in his police days to believe "the nonsense we were producing out of the police". He said the police had a tendency to consider suspects guilty and to make subjective assessments of materials. His words, not mine.
Seventeen years on, the hunt for the mystical rocket launchers goes on. For the sake of police credibility, one hopes the present informants are better informed.
