Mike Hosking: Why are we accepting these 'checkpoints?'

So the fundamental dishonesty continues. It seems the most remarkable thing to think you can set yourself up a roadblock, pretend to call it a checkpoint, and get approval from the Prime Minister and the Police Commissioner. 

As we found out over the weekend from a NZME journalist who arrived at the Ngataki in the Far North, there wasn’t a police person in sight. Locals had already talked of friction at the sight, as people try and access beaches, something perfectly acceptable in level three.

NZCPR Weekly: Another Captain's Call

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week we question the Prime Minister’s decision to take the country into a full lockdown to eliminate COVID-19 – instead of continuing to follow the Ministry of Health’s Pandemic Plan to manage the epidemic whilst minimising social and economic disruption, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Karl du Fresne shares concerns that vigilante roadblocks are being used to advance a race-based separatist agenda, and our poll asks whether an inquiry should be held into the Government’s decision to impose the lockdown onto New Zealand.

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Heather du Plessis-Allan: Police Commissioner defends community checkpoints

I’m pleased to see police plan to have a presence at these vigilante checkpoints.  

But really, this should not have been allowed to happen for the last four weeks.

And I wonder if they’ve created a problem for themselves.

Bob Edlin: Do iwi roadblocks signal a policing “partnership”?

The proposition that our Police are paving the way for a partnership in which former MP Hone Harawira and other iwi leaders police communities within the borders they define went unchallenged when put to press officers working for the Prime Minister and the Police.

The picture painted in the preceding paragraph was drawn from Deputy Police Commissioner Wally Haumaha’s statement on road blocks Harawira set up in Northland to check tourists’ health.  He declared:

” … we want to model what it looks like when iwi, police, councils and other agencies work in partnership”. 

But nether the Police nor the Prime Minister’s Office directly answered questions put to them by Point of Order about the legality of Harawira’s blocking public roads while policing the a border which he presumably established.