New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush – Why is it that unlike other police forces with a history of corruption the Kiwis just can’t bring themselves to acknowledge the evil within? On this point alone Mike Bush would have to have been, and continues to be, the most unsuitable candidate for the job, and yet he was handed the job on a platter – why?
Back in January LF questioned police commissioner Mike Bush’s intellectual prowess and the integrity of the New Zealand mainstream media when Bush was permitted to hijack the New Zealand Herald, a major daily, purely for police propaganda purposes. In fact at the time it was not so much his intellectual prowess that was in question, more Bush’s state of mind, his mental health. Yesterday however commissioner Bush was permitted to go much further, for the high jump so to speak. With this his latest effort Bush proved beyond any doubt that he is not just a complete tool but an extremely dangerous one, exactly the same type of tool that inhabited Adolf Hitlers Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (Nazi) political machine in the early 1930’s. In fact Bush, like many of Hitlers close associates, seems to lack any respect for the academics of this world, oh and the serious research that’s being conducted into police, in this case in New Zealand by Dr Bryce Edwards a specialist in this field. Bush also has three other very dangerous aspects to his personality, a distinct lack empathy, little if any humility and a delusional grasp on reality.
Just how deluded can a police commissioner be? New Zealand’s Mike Bush answers the question. (Lauda Finem 03/01/2015)
There is of course another dangerous precedent in history when it comes to the public vilification of academics, their studies, research and the results. That’s right, it was those damn Nazi’s again. Of course the Nazi’s took it one step further by imprisoning or murdering Germany’s academics or anyone that disagreed with their manifesto and then spending a night or two burning every book they could lay their hands on. Of course today it would be the internet that would undoubtedly be the target of budding national socialists, and of course any blogger that dared oppose those neo Nazi’s that would be at risk of burning – which of course, strangely enough, are currently the medium, for conveying knowledge and opinion, that Mike Bush and his police force have sort and obtained the obscene powers they needed to control – at least in New Zealand. In fact Kiwi Blogger Martyn Bradbury has personal experience of the extreme lengths the New Zealand police are prepared to go to when shutting down any form of public descent or political protest surrounding their own behaviour.
Would New Zealand police Commissioner Mike Bush feel right at home in this crowd? After all this mob also held the belief that they were just “defending the defenders” – Just like Bush, and his wannabe paramilitary police service, most of this lot weren’t real soldiers either!
Bush, or whoever actually wrote the latest article published in his name, proves to be far removed from the academic world of facts and empirical evidence, which is actually not that unusual for a Kiwi cops – look at their record in criminal investigation. In what was obviously intended to be a response to Dr Edwards extremely well researched articles Bush falls well short, the result little more than a hodgepodge of crap, spin and horse-shit, bordering on the amateur, but nevertheless however bad, its still a completely transparent police propaganda puff piece.
We’ll let our readers however decide for themselves, Police National Headquarters spin-doctors, aka Mike Bush, opines:
Police Commissioner Mike Bush: In defence of New Zealand’s defenders
By Police Commissioner Mike Bush
5:00 AM Sunday Apr 12, 2015I challenge Dr Bryce Edwards to get out from behind his desk and see first-hand the outstanding work 12,000 New Zealand Police staff do every day.
I have no doubt this would give him a better-informed picture of modern policing, rather than re-visiting a selective handful of high-profile issues dating back over the past 50 years.
Space does not allow me to respond point-by-point to his assertions, nor am I in a position to re-litigate the historic cases.
I can, however, say he grossly misrepresents New Zealand Police, particularly our victim-focused frontline staff who work tirelessly every day to prevent crime and deal with the worst behaviour in our communities.
Police staff make difficult decisions every day while displaying courage and resilience.
On behalf of the communities they serve, they deal with situations which, thankfully, most of the public don’t have to experience.
Every year police respond to 1.94 million phone calls for advice or assistance and about 772,000 emergency calls.
I am proud to say the overwhelming majority of these are dealt with in line with our core values of professionalism and empathy.
This is why New Zealand Police has levels of trust and confidence that are the envy of most equivalent overseas jurisdictions.
This is so important to us that we continually measure public perceptions of police using the independent research company Gravitas.
The overall result for last year showed “high” or “very high” trust and confidence at 78 per cent, from a sample of 9260 members of the public.
But don’t just take our word for it.
Recent reports from the State Services Commission and the independent research company UMR ranked police highly on public perceptions.
The police force was the second highest Government institution in which the public had “a great deal or quite a lot of confidence”, according to UMR.
As Commissioner I am not complacent about these numbers. We can only achieve the best outcomes for communities – that they be safe and feel safe – if we have the consent of the public.
This is why our overall vision is to have the trust and confidence of all.
We must earn that trust every day, and be continually focused on achieving it.
Trust is also built on owning and being accountable for our mistakes. We don’t claim to get it right every time and our staff are only human. We apologise and work hard to put things right when we get it wrong.
Police is rightly one of the most scrutinised of any Government agency, be it from the courts, Government, media, the public or other agencies, especially the Independent Police Conduct Authority.
I reject outright any suggestion that police is “thumbing its nose” at the IPCA. The authority is vital in helping us learn from our mistakes and continuously improve.
I must also challenge two other points Edwards raised.
Does he really think that a 100 per cent resolution rate for murder is just a “box-ticking” way for police to “prove themselves”?
I’d say it is something the public should rightly expect.
And are 23,000 incoming social media contacts from the public every week just a product of “slick marketing” as he seems to think?
In my view, our 40-odd Facebook pages are vital tools for engaging with local communities to prevent and solve crime.
Edwards may be one of the minority who just don’t like police. I have no issue with that and we have broad shoulders when it comes to criticism.
But I take issue when he undermines and misleads about the good work of modern police staff.
I will leave the final word to a young constable who contacted me directly after reading the article.
He represents the New Zealand Police of today, not 50 years ago.
“As a cop who is 2-years in, I’m learning to tolerate negative and inaccurate media reporting. But this article is the worst I’ve read since joining.
“It just bugs me that my colleagues and I bust our guts to catch criminals and help victims, yet all we get is negative publicity. Having said that I’m still loving the job.”
Otago University academic Dr Bryce Edwards – The truth is something completely alien to the New Zealand police, a fact that the good Doctor is now fast learning – He may have done well to have had a quick chat with fellow academic Lynley Hood.
The Daily Blogs Martin Bradbury – police threatened to incarcerate Bradbury over a satirical cartoon he published sending up police for their corrupt handling of the Roast Busters rape cases – following an investigation into the coverup the police where given a rap over the knuckles by the IPCA – As always no one responsible lost their job despite many of the victims being children, little more than thirteen years old.
A response to Police Commissioner Mike Bush
Police Commissioner Mike Bush has reacted to the excellently researched critique of the NZ Police force by Bryce Edwards with all the alpha male privileged arrogance that remarkably underscores Edwards argument.
Let’s dissect Bush’s insincere sophistry column by column…
I challenge Dr Bryce Edwards to get out from behind his desk and see first-hand the outstanding work 12,000 New Zealand Police staff do every day.
…ahh, the good old ‘wimpy intellectual sitting behind their desk’ argument. Nothing deflects well thought out criticism in NZ better than by appealing to our anti-intellectualism. Bush may as well call Dr Edwards a commie pinko, because writing his criticisms off with such a broad statement is designed more to attack the messenger and focus attention on them than what is actually being said. It’s a tactic Key uses every time he is caught out lying about a mass surveillance lie.
I have no doubt this would give him a better-informed picture of modern policing, rather than re-visiting a selective handful of high-profile issues dating back over the past 50 years.
…Oh that’s the defence is it? These events took place half a century ago? Luckily for Bush, BLIP at the Standard has recorded every abuse of Police power since 2008. Let’s have a brief look shall we?
05/12/08 – Wellington police officer Jason Manu Casson is discharged without conviction for stealing $90.
11/12/08 – Another police chase, another crash.
16/12/08 – Palmerston North police officer Timothy Hesketh, 27, who lied during investigations and showed no remorse was found guilty of breaking a prisoner’s neck yet escapes a jail sentence.
09/02/09 – A police recruit escapes assault charges and is permitted to graduate with any sanction or note on his personal file. He first posting was South Auckland.
11/02/09 – Lower Hutt police leave confidential documents behind after executing a search warrant putting witnesses at risk of gang violence and then fail to own up at a subsequent IPCA enquiry. The inquiry noted: “The conflicting accounts given by the two officers, and the facts that no officer has taken responsibility for the loss of the Operation Order and that the Police investigator has not been able to identify that officer, are undesirable. Whilst there is no evidence of criminal conduct in relation to the loss of the order, its loss does amount to misconduct.” The Mongrel Mob say they know who left the report behind but were never interviewed.
17/03/09 – The IPCA criticises police for their continuing failure to develop procedures for the prompt drug and alcohol testing of officers involved in serious incidents.
27/03/09 – A Christchurch officer broke a number of police protocols in the lead up to the fatal shooting of Stephen Bellingham. The IPCA finds that the unnamed officer: did not tell his communications controller he was going to the scene, nor did he advise them he was armed, failed to brief two other officers who were on their way to the scene so that he could tackle Bellingham with support, and, crucially, a dog patrol unit, which would have been a huge asset to the effort to contain Bellingham, was diverted to another crime.
30/03/09 – Nelson police officer Anthony Dale Bridgman is convicted of two counts of dangerous driving after he pulled out in front of two motorcyclists, seriously injuring both.
24/03/09 – Another police chase, another crash.
19/05/09 – Head of the Police Prosecution Service Superintendent Graham Thomas steps down after it is revealed that he refused to undergo a breath test.
29/05/09 IPCA states that Auckland Police officer Constable Aaron Holmes was breaking the law and ignoring official policy when he seriously injured innocent teenage Farhat Buksh.
20/06/09 – An unnamed police officer is reprimanded for writing out the employment details of a driver on a speeding ticket as “kitchen bitch”.
25/07/09 – Northland police run down two pedestrians, killing one and injuring another.
15/08/09 – An Auckland constable is suspended after it was alledged that he leaked sensitive information to help a known criminal to avoid arrest. The unnamed officer was in a squad which targets “volume crime”, in particular burglaries, and had access to the police intelligence database.
…and the list goes on and on and on. So let’s knock this rebuttal by Bush on the head right away shall we? We are not talking about issues that are half a century old, we are talking about an ongoing and worsening culture whereby the Police have become a law unto themselves. To suggest Bryce is basing his argument on ancient issues is false and misleading.
Back to Bush’s column.
Space does not allow me to respond point-by-point to his assertions, nor am I in a position to re-litigate the historic cases.
Well let’s take up some space here shall we Mike? How about the over 300 woman who were sexually assaulted by the NZ Police Force? How about the Police Association Cheerleader Greg O’Connor describing being held to account for the implementation of the recommendations to stamp out the sado-masochistic gang rape culture of the Police as ‘ritualistic humiliation’ manages to sum up everything wrong with the Police? Simply shrugging off most of the evidence Bryce is using because Bush doesn’t have the space is convenient.
I can, however, say he grossly misrepresents New Zealand Police, particularly our victim-focused frontline staff who work tirelessly every day to prevent crime and deal with the worst behaviour in our communities.
I’m sorry what? In the wake of the appalling manner in which the NZ Police framed Teina Pora and the RapeBuster case, Bush – who praised the Detective who planted evidence in the infamous Crewe murders– dares to pull the ‘victim focused frontline staff’ line is he? Let’s ask the young woman who were victims of the Roastbuster rape club if they feel they were victim-focused?
I can, however, say he grossly misrepresents New Zealand Police, particularly our victim-focused frontline staff who work tirelessly every day to prevent crime and deal with the worst behaviour in our communities.
Police staff make difficult decisions every day while displaying courage and resilience.
On behalf of the communities they serve, they deal with situations which, thankfully, most of the public don’t have to experience.
Every year police respond to 1.94 million phone calls for advice or assistance and about 772,000 emergency calls.
I am proud to say the overwhelming majority of these are dealt with in line with our core values of professionalism and empathy.
This is ridiculous. Yes there are plenty of officers who do amazing work in trying situations that most NZers would have difficulty identifying with. The job is stressful, emotionally damaging and dangerous, and for those doing that job well we offer our support and thanks. BUT we aren’t talking about those cops, we are talking about the cops who are abusing their powers, we are talking about the cops who turn a blind eye to those abusing their powers, we are talking about an alpha male complex that sees their actions as above the law. The cops doing their jobs properly aren’t the problem, holding them up to deflect attention on the problem ones is again simply misleading.
This is why New Zealand Police has levels of trust and confidence that are the envy of most equivalent overseas jurisdictions.
This is so important to us that we continually measure public perceptions of police using the independent research company Gravitas.
The overall result for last year showed “high” or “very high” trust and confidence at 78 per cent, from a sample of 9260 members of the public.
But don’t just take our word for it.
Recent reports from the State Services Commission and the independent research company UMR ranked police highly on public perceptions.
The police force was the second highest Government institution in which the public had “a great deal or quite a lot of confidence”, according to UMR.
This is pure sophistry. NZers have an authority worship complex, they slavishly side with cops no matter what the issue, and that’s part of the problem . Holding up stats that show the sleepy hobbits of NZ are easy to con isn’t any proof NZ Police not being corrupt, these are the same sleepy hobbits who elected John Key despite knowing his office colluded with the SIS to falsely smear the Leader of the Opposition months before an election.
As Commissioner I am not complacent about these numbers. We can only achieve the best outcomes for communities – that they be safe and feel safe – if we have the consent of the public.
This is why our overall vision is to have the trust and confidence of all.
We must earn that trust every day, and be continually focused on achieving it.
Trust is also built on owning and being accountable for our mistakes. We don’t claim to get it right every time and our staff are only human. We apologise and work hard to put things right when we get it wrong.
Remember all those top cops who were rolled out onto current affairs shows to lie about their incompetence over the Roastbuster case? Where was this leadership last year? Has it just turned up now has it?
Police is rightly one of the most scrutinised of any Government agency, be it from the courts, Government, media, the public or other agencies, especially the Independent Police Conduct Authority.
I reject outright any suggestion that police is “thumbing its nose” at the IPCA. The authority is vital in helping us learn from our mistakes and continuously improve.
Oh come on! The bloody IPCA is still cops investigating cops, and when they are critical it’s a mere slap on the wrist recommendation that is issued. The cops don’t need to thumb their nose at the IPCA because the IPCA can’t do anything meaningful.
I must also challenge two other points Edwards raised.
Does he really think that a 100 per cent resolution rate for murder is just a “box-ticking” way for police to “prove themselves”?
I’d say it is something the public should rightly expect.
This is selective rebuttal that still doesn’t address Edwards core criticisms.
And are 23,000 incoming social media contacts from the public every week just a product of “slick marketing” as he seems to think?
In my view, our 40-odd Facebook pages are vital tools for engaging with local communities to prevent and solve crime.
No, Bryce is referring to the crime porn reality TV you produce that is little more than outright propaganda that keeps the sleepy hobbits bound to the myths that Police authority should never be challenged.
Edwards may be one of the minority who just don’t like police. I have no issue with that and we have broad shoulders when it comes to criticism.
Oh this is nonsense, Edwards is an academic who has presented a well researched critique of the Police, insinuating that he is some anarchist who dislikes the Police is shallow and petty.
But I take issue when he undermines and misleads about the good work of modern police staff.
I will leave the final word to a young constable who contacted me directly after reading the article.
He represents the New Zealand Police of today, not 50 years ago.
“As a cop who is 2-years in, I’m learning to tolerate negative and inaccurate media reporting. But this article is the worst I’ve read since joining.
“It just bugs me that my colleagues and I bust our guts to catch criminals and help victims, yet all we get is negative publicity. Having said that I’m still loving the job.”
Hiding behind a young bushy tailed bright eyed cop to deflect criticism simply confirms this as a puff piece. Who polices the police is a fundamental issue in a democracy, it is not the ravings of niche academics who supposedly have a chip on their shoulder with cops, that Bush has not responded in any meaningful way is as disturbing as it is empty. The vast powers that Key has handed the police and the manner in which the Police are consistently abusing those powers demands a response far better than this shallow crap.
Source: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/04/12/an-response-to-police-commissioner-mike-bush/
Bradbury unlike the dodgy cunts at the Standard has personal experience of police’s storm-trooper tactics. The likes of the Standards Greg Presland on the other hand have very unsavory “friendly” connections to some of the most recent crop of New Zealand’s most corrupt cops. Greg Presland is of course a criminal defense lawyer based in West Auckland, the Waitakere area of the police Waitamata Area Command – His role at the Standard purely to push Labour party propaganda, no doubt in the process hoping to advance his own personal political aspirations.
The Standards Greg Presland, Cameron Slater has accused Presland of being is a sniveling cunt, LF suspects far worse however, that Presland in fact shares his bed with the current crop of New Zealand’s most corrupt cops
LF have, over a number of months, been supplied with a cache of evidence that paints a seriously ugly picture of Greg Presland and his local Waitamata police associates, unsavory covert relationships that LF suspects Greg “the escapologist” Presland has used on occasion for his own special personal political purposes.
Mike Bush has since his installation as commissioner of police achieved little more than prove himself to be just another in a long line of corrupt New Zealand police commissioners. Bush in his attempt to spin the police out of the hole Bryce Edwards research had unearthed closed his effort with this;
“I will leave the final word to a young constable who contacted me directly after reading the article.
He represents the New Zealand Police of today, not 50 years ago.” – Mike Bush
There is a glaring absurdity in Bush’s closing, and its not down to the words of the character of the junior cop Bush and or the spin-doctors invented. Fifty years ago the New Zealand police were not a problem, at least not an obvious problem. Most cops walked or bicycled around their local beat, more often than not they lived and worked in the very same neighbourhood, where they were also dealt with by that community if they were ever stupid enough to forget who it was they actually served.
No the real problem is far more contemporary, as is clearly evidenced by the growing public awareness and undercurrent of concern that Edwards research gives voice to. Arguably the era of police corruption that is now coming to a head first surfaced with the Arthur Alan Thomas case and the now notorious Bruce Hutton’s corrupt framing of an innocent man and decades of police coverup, coverup that continues, somewhat ironically under police commissioner Mike Bush’s own direction. Hutton was of course the very same seriously bent cop, a man that should have served time in prison, that Mike Bush himself stood and nauseatingly eulogised, painting a false glowing portrait of a serial criminals saintly virtue.
Since the early 1970’s the problem of police corruption has steadily grown, a period of 30 – 40 years, not the distant 50 that Bush, we believe knowingly, falsely claims. During that same 30 year period there has been corresponding growth in the disconnection between police and the public they serve.
High speed and lethal pursuit vehicle have replaced shanks pony, transfers to far off communities has replaced the former wisdom of posting officers to communities where they had often been born and raised. All accountability to the community they serve has long since disappeared, a distant misty memory, arguably remembered only by those who are old enough to have actually known their local neighborhood cop as far back as the 50 years that Bush speaks of.
Dame Margaret Bazley, the governments failed painter and decorator. The Royal Commission into police conduct did little more that attempt to paper over serious structural cracks – Like all cheap half-arsed decorating jobs, the papers now started peeling off!
Still, some foolishly believe the police have changed, especially since the Bazley Royal Commission, such beliefs born yet again of police propaganda, the truth is unfortunately far more sinister. All that has really occurred since July 2004 is that the police have increased their allocation of funds to spin-doctors, they’ve reassigned financial resources to perfect their public relations and cover-up tactics. Whats more, in pursuit of this agenda they’ve employed swags of seriously dodgy journalists and even more unscrupulous lawyers who, without a shred of conscience, continue to do their utmost to abuse and circumvent laws so as to serve the police’s corrupt agenda alone.
In short the corruption has become far more deliberate in every way, the planning, the execution and cover-ups all developed to a fine art, which has inevitably only served to increase corruption, diminish the internal perception of what constitutes corrupt behaviour and inflate the polices own sense of invincibility – the prevailing institutional belief being that they are accountable to no one outside the police, that they are a law unto themselves.
Those on the left of politics would like to blame John Key alone for this predicament, but whilst we too don’t like Key or his corrupt politics it would be unfair to lay blame entirely at his feet. It’s a problem that has been thirty years in the making. Successive self-serving governments and politicians, from the left and right, share culpability for a problem that is now huge in its magnitude.
Prime Minister Robert Muldoon and the National Party may have started the ball rolling in the 1970’s with the infamous well publicised Arthur Alan Thomas case and the politically motivated 1977 police raid on Bastion point but once rolling the Labour party too saw their own opportunities to utilise what had, by 1980, become a systemically corrupt institution.
The New Zealand Police, Tuesday 22 October 1970 “the day they framed an innocent man” (The Arthur Alan Thomas Case)
The Peter Ellis case is but one example of the Labour party’s unscrupulous behavior, where the New Zealand police, the judiciary of the day and Labour politicians, including Helen Clarke and Phil Goff, all conspired to conceal the corrupt involvement of a small political élite, individuals such as Lianne Dalziel, Nick Smith and their respective families, who stood among the people who falsely pointed the finger at Peter Ellis and the other workers at the Christchurch City Council owned crèche. All of which have continued to play a major role in justice evading Peter Ellis, the identities of whom are still corruptly concealed from the New Zealand public behind politically motivated name suppression orders.
The Peter Ellis Case – New Zealand, A Queer Nation, In More Ways Than One
New Zealand police commissioner Mike Bush is at best a simpleton, an idiot, but anyone with an ounce of nous knows that Bush is in reality a far more dangerous species, a psychopath, a diagnoses which is completely consistent with Bush’s inability to accept that the police force he controls has in the recent past and currently continues to cause great harm to the society its meant to serve and of course the style and content of his latest literary effort – a blatant attack on an academic, the ongoing research and the empirical evidence that study has produced to date.
Bastion Point
If readers are interested in watching the entire doco on the Bastion point occupation (involving the police raid) they can do so here. The film has been posted in six parts, of which the except above is part one
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`As far as I’m aware the drug squad was the first unit to train its members to perjure themselves in court via the ‘simulated smoking’ scam that they played on judges and jury s.
The drug squads were also the means the police got granted more and more powers which they abused to the full.
It’s how they got the public used to goons in uniforms kicking in doors ……. something I always thought the old soldiers from WWII went to war to protect us from.
Clint Rickards, Mike Sabin and Greg oCONner were all drug squad cops.
The cops love abusing power and this is clearly shown by their continual support for criminalizing the users of Cannabis.
NZ police 2015: Roastbusting is not a crime …………… but smoking a joint is.
Bush – the most senior patched member of NZ’s only legal gang of thugs.