Dialogue: What do visitors think of paradise?

By ELISABETH EASTHER

It is often through the eyes of visitors that we see more clearly the country we boast about and claim is paradise to anyone who will listen. It was through those eyes that I saw New Zealand when I picked an expatriate up from the airport.

I arrived early to avoid the traffic, but I needn't have bothered because an hour and a half later I was still waiting around. Every last passenger had disembarked and been greeted, so I explained my predicament to a man dressed like a Canadian Mountie. He was certain he couldn't help me. Customs, he said, didn't like people to approach them, even airport employees.

Finally, I begged him to see if Customs were searching anyone, described my lost boy, and soon back the man came. "Yes, they've got one like that, but if he's yours a Customs official will find you and tell you they're holding your friend."

No one had found me and I wasn't hard to find - the only one left in a great hall that had recently teemed with reunions. I then visited Customs on the mezzanine floor. They consulted their computer: no, we haven't got him. He should be out and about. I went back to arrivals, not holding much hope, when he emerged looking quite rough.

Poor lamb. He obviously fitted the international drug-courier profile they follow at Auckland Airport, unshaven as he was after 30 hours' travel. Yes, they'd searched him and asked probing questions: "So, you work in the film industry, eh? Lot of drugs in that business," one officer noted.

I know they were only doing their job but still, don't we do innocent until proven guilty round here? They never informed his uplifter that he'd be held for a while, denied they'd ever had him and, once released, not a word like "sorry."

Later in a cafe we read of a policeman who had been let off a speeding fine for no other reason than that he was late for a briefing and had decided it was safe to drive fast. His superintendent even agreed.

Admittedly, since then the offence notice has been reinstated but it should never have been waived in the first place.

Hoping to prove that NZ still can be paradise, I took my guest to the beach, where we were confronted by the last straw of the law taking authority too far. The region had lately been raided for pot. It happens every year and, fair enough, marijuana is still illegal. The cops are entitled to pull it all up but did they also have to spray with blue dye and poison? As a ratepayer, I'd rather they hadn't.

I visited the local police: Was it true? I needed to know. Yes, the cop on duty told me, we covered the entire Far North. This area alone took over a week. The spray? Roundup, he replied, before getting suspicious, suggesting I contact the chief up in Kaitaia, although he was never in when I called.

Two days after this area was sprayed it rained, as it does in the north. All that dye and poison would have found its way into the rivers and streams and, naturally, into the sea.

This is a kiwi zone, alive with native bush and birds. The spraying will probably poison more than just a few pot plants. Not to mention the cost of Roundup at about $30 a litre. And, besides, isn't the indoor grower the more organised criminal now, cultivating most of the commercially grown pot?

I'm really quite shocked, surprised and disappointed with the local constabulary, for whom I usually have the highest respect.

I'm still waiting to hear from the council. No one seems to know if the police needed consent and, if yes, did they receive it? I can't believe permission would have been given to spray the North with a non-specific defoliant such as Roundup or that the community wasn't consulted.

It's funny how, when some people get a little bit of a power, they start to think they have the right to take a lot, or can overlook the procedures the rest of us are expected to follow. These are the people we rely on to uphold the law, not ride roughshod all over it.

I guess it's just proof that a little can go a long way and how those who have authority vested in them will sometimes take much more than was meant.