Sir Guy Naive?

Sir Guy's thought has an admirable moral basis But it is labyrinthine enough for the most devious of politicians to discover the odd dark comer in it. So it is unfortunate that a report prepared for Mr Rowling should come into the hands of the present Prime Minister, who is himself a man of strong subversive potential and who may in fact be implicated in the controversies in mid-1975 that provoked Sir Guy's inquiry. A democratic society must assume that its police and politicians, no less than its secret service, are men and women of integrity and principle. The assumption continues to be made despite evidence to the contrary.

But the assumption becomes dangerous when a democratically elected Prime Minister is in fact a man who does not believe in democratic processes or their rationalisation — as Muldoon patently does not. The situation arises where democratic ideology and rhetoric are used to justify undemocratic and subversive practice. Such politicians have an active interest in increasing the power and domain of the state police, as a means of extending their own domain of power. And they will explain such increases as 'the price we pay for our freedom'. Eventually, that price becomes the freedom it is supposed to guarantee. This situation is developing in New Zealand now.

It would be naive and foolish to believe that the proposed amendments to the NZSIS Act of 1969 will regularise present practice with regard to phone-tapping, mail-opening or anything else. This is not even the intention. The bulk of the activities of the SIS will remain secret and unobserved. What the amendments do provide, is a means — a Parliamentary process — whereby it will seem that the activities of the SIS are being scrutinised. But there is no guarantee whatsoever that this will in fact be the case.