Freedom of the Press Exposed

In late May the Government banned the 'People's Voice' and police raided its Auckland office, wrecked it and confiscated all printing gear. By June 10 Communists from Auckland to Invercargill were serving terms ranging from 2 months to 12 months for subversion. (The present Secretary General of the CPNZ, Vic Wilcox, was fined 1 pound for assaulting an unidentified soldier at an earlier CPNZ meeting in Auckland which was attacked by soldiers, led by officers.)

Although the CPNZ itself wasn't banned, its publications had to go underground. Wellington and Canterbury Communists put out their own illegal editions, of the 'People's Voice' which later changed their names to 'Tribune' and 'Torch' respectively.

'In Print', a national CPNZ paper, produced in Auckland, started in September 1941 and continued until the ban on the 'People's Voice' was lifted and that reappeared in July 1943. Police harassed CPNZ meetings, mail was interfered with, Party premises were raided, members were fined and gaoled on 'subversion' charges ranging from possessing anti-war stickers to distributing illegal Communist papers.

Communists were subject to all sorts of persecution. In August 1940, CPNZ man Alec Drennan was ordered not to engage in any CPNZ activity for 3 years as part of his probation; in 1941; two Communists and an anti-conscriptionist were released after serving 8 months of a 12 month sentence, and were put on 8 months probation instead of the usual 4.

On of them, Alec Ostler, as well as this was released from Paparua straight into Army custody and taken to Burnham where he was railroaded into the Army. Semple said the Communists and pacifists were 'direct agents of a foreign power'; he also called Communists 'curs, vultures, vipers and wreckers.' Papers referred to 'Communazis.'

When the Soviet Union entered the war in mid-1941, the CPNZ swung to full support of the war effort and its old enemy, the Labour Government Communists, such as today's Party leader, Vic Wilcox, served at the front line, (Gordon Watson, the CPNZ's rising young star and a talented poet was killed on active duty). The 'People's Voice' was back in full swing by mid-1943 and the persecution ended.

Some of the represive features of the WWII home [unclear: fron] are still with us today (e.g. the forerunner of the Security Intelligence Service was created in 1941 by an ex-convict who turned out to be a con-man). That was one of the few funny features of the local scene.

Apologists could say that drastic domestic action was justified as N.Z. faced the threat of a direct military attack from Japan on one stage. This overlooks the fact that most of the repression took place in the two years before Japan came into the war. Raids, deportations, bans, censorship, hundreds of men spending months and years in camps and prisons as political prisoners.

It happened here.