Salient. Official Newspaper of Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. Vol 40 No. 26. October 3 1977

SIS serves a rotten system

SIS serves a rotten system

While some of the failures of the SIS have been comical in the extreme they are not guided by a basic motivation to be comedians. Instead their dishonesty and subterfuge has a clear and serious purpose. That purpose relates directly to the preservation of capitalist society—the preservation of a system where profit making and not the fulfilment of social needs is primary.

This role of the SIS becomes clearer when the country is in the economic shit. The Government of the day inevitable attempts to bail out big business by putting the burden of escaping from the crisis on the backs of these least able to pay (workers, students, beneficiaries, women etc.). As a result more and more groups are forced to oppose the Government's policies. The Government deals with this opposition through political repression. Laws are passed outlawing strikes, racial oppression increases, smears and other dirty tricks are used on opponents. In this situation attempts to fight the attacks upon the living standards become illegal and subversive and the SIS can be called in to help deal with the Government's opponents.

Today our economic downturn is deepening and threatening to eclipse in severity the Depression of the Thirties. The Government is passing more repressive legislation every day. This legislation is making even the most basic defence of people's living standards and rights illegal and, in as much as it would be directed at the Government, "subversive".

In such a climate the budget of the SIS is being jacked up and its powers and secrecy strengthened to a degree normally only found in fascist or near-fascist states.

In fighting the activities of the SIS we are fighting the greatest threat to our democratic rights. It is clear that today it is the New Zealand people who need protection from a Government that is subverting their living standards and liberties and not the opposite. The SIS is on the opposite side of the fence from those who wish to preserve and enhance democracy—its strengthening will only make the acession to power of fascism that much easier.