Our fearmongering Prime Minister

Last month we learned that John Key had lied to Parliament and the New Zealand public over the "jihadi brides", letting us all think that they left from New Zealand (and that therefore there was a dangerous level of radicalisation going on here) when in fact they had all been living in Australia. But it turns out that its worse than that: according to a written parliamentary question (answer as-yet unpublished), he had known this since May and received repeated briefings on the issue. Which makes it look like deliberate fearmongering by the Prime Minister and his head of the SIS - carried out at a time when the spy agencies were under review and demanding more powers.

This sort of shit is why we cannot trust our spies, or the Ministers who "oversee" them: because they misuse classified information for political gain and to advance themselves. Muldoon did it, leaking SIS information on his political opponents. And now Key is doing it too.

Meanwhile, in an interview with Radio New Zealand this morning, Key doubles down, and tries to pretend that the question of where these supposed women were supposedly radicalised is irrelevant. In fact, its the only thing which might potentially be of security concern. And if its not happening in New Zealand, then its simply not our problem. Worse, he then repeatedly states that the real issue is whether they return to New Zealand - a line repeated by Gerry Brownlee in his robot act last month - which again suggests that passport cancellation powers are intended to be an extra-judicial power of exile (a punishment banned in international as well as New Zealand law) rather than to prevent (alleged) terrorists from travelling.