'A' IS FOR AUTHORITARIANISM

The Green's and Labour's call for a police inquiry into the allegations swirling around Peter Dunn  reveal again just how right wing these two parties have become.

I've always regarded Peter Dunne as being a particular punctilious politician but whose main concern has always   revolved around doing what was best for Peter Dunne. So naked self-interest  has seen him happily  support  the neoliberal policies of both National and Labour-led governments. And it is  probably self-interest that has influenced his recent actions - not concern about the implications of the report itself and the new legislation that will allow the GCSB to engage in domestic surveillance activities.

The fact that he is denying that he leaked the Ketteridge report on the GCSB suggests that he certainly didn't have any noble aspirations to tell the public the truth. 

That said, both Labour and the Green's call for a police inquiry into the allegations  swirling around him is especially odious.

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said yesterday the inquiry into the leak of the GCSB report  to Fairfax Media did  not confirm whether Dunne in fact did it, and police needed  to investigate and force  Dunne to release his email exchange with Dominion Post journalist  Andrea  Vance.

In a similar vein Labour deputy leader Grant Robertson weighed in with his support for a police inquiry, declaring that  'Dunne should be compelled to give evidence under oath.'

Regardless of the allegations and the speculations,  Labour and the Green's enthusiasm for a police inquiry  is yet more evidence of just how right wing these two parties are.  We all know that they are seriously right wing in terms of economic policy but the attack on Dunn reveals  that Labour and the Green's commitment to even our limited form of democracy comes with strings attached.

Will they now be demanding that all whisteblowers be pursued by the police?

In March last year both Labour and the Green's said that New Zealand had been turned into a 'police state' when  Parliament  narrowly passed the Government's controversial Search and Surveillance Bill. Now they are calling for the police to investigate a parliamentary politician.

I'm assuming that both Labour and the Green's authoritarianism has also prevented them in coming out in support  of the US marine Bradley Manning who is charged with leaking  hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.