Ele Ludemann: Less safe, less free

A friend was driving me to parliament.

I told her to drop me off on the street. She replied that no, she would take me to the door because she could.

That was a sign of the freedom of access we used to have to parliament, a freedom that was stopped some years ago.

If risks to MPs increase it’s possible that further freedoms of access for the public will be curtailed too.

Speaker, Gerry Brownlee is mulling giving parliamentary security guards more powers than they currently have, including the power to arrest.

. . . “Over recent years, the number of incidents where MPs have been physically threatened have increased. My concern is that at some point you get something that goes very wrong.

“At that point, where you’ve seen in Great Britain and other countries where this has happened, everything suddenly changes, everything is all on.”

He said it was important to strike a balance between public accessibility to MPs and security around MPs going about their work “and increasingly their private activities as well.”

He said it was an issue of balance: “I’m not saying we want an all-powerful security service. But we do have to talk about, at least, where that line might be.”

“We can’t go on having circumstances where we are relying on our security to keep the place safe, but having to immediately call police to see if they can come and help them out when something goes wrong.” . . .

The greater risk to MPs is not in parliament, but when they’re out and about and it’s not just MPs who are faced with anti-social behaviour including verbal and physical abuse which threatens their safety. Shop assistants, and security guards at retail outlets, especially supermarkets, would like more power to deal with offenders than they currently have.

Incidents of theft and/0r violence when shop staff and security guards have to wait impotently for police are far too common.

Freedom is a right that, like other rights, comes with responsibilities.

When people not taking their responsibilities to behave well and within the law starts impacting on other people’s safety, they don’t only put their own freedom at risk.

Measures to make work places, including parliament, safer, will almost certainly increase restrictions on freedom of access for the rest of us.

A country that is less safe becomes less free.

Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.