Heather du Plessis-Allan: Chris Hipkins deserves a lot of praise for backing the police

Chris Hipkins deserves a lot of praise for backing the cops in this debate about whether they’re allowed to take photos of kids .

This is not a natural position for a Labour MP to take.

On one side you’ve got the police who’ve been taking thousands of photos of kids who haven’t yet committed a crime.

And on the other side you’ve got the Office of Privacy Commissioner and the IPCA both of whom have slammed the police for doing this unlawfully, and you’ve got the media writing headlines about the fact that around half those kids were Maori, seemingly implying racism among the cops.

I feel like it’s more natural for a Labour MP to come down on the side against the police, especially given his party has committed to doing "reducing the prison population" through "progressive policing".

This is the opposite of progressive policing; this is just straight, old fashioned policing. 

If Chris Hipkins is true to his word, the criticism he's copping isn’t over yet.

He’s not ruling out passing a law to make it legal for the police to take photos which might end up being what he has to do.

That’s going to provoke howls of outrage from human rights luvvies and the Green Party and the Maori Party, all of whom are more likely allies of Labour most of the time than not.

So Chris Hipkins deserves a lot of praise for backing the police here. And I’m sure this will be a huge relief to the front line coppers who’ve had to suffer quite a few years now of working under a Police Commissioner and a Minster and a Government who haven’t had their backs.

The Police Commissioner stopped them pursing fleeing drivers, he pulled the armed response teams, he took them off the front line and sent them to baby-sit Hone Harawiras iwi led checkpoints.

And they’ve had a Police Minister who didn’t want to arm police because the communities she represented didn’t want that.

They’ve had a Government who froze their pay.

It must feel great to hear their Minister say he’s going to square up to the criticism and make sure they can do their jobs. 

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