Sticker Decision Will Astound Public Warns Clayton Cosgrove

The decision by Wellington police bureaucrats to drop any plans to allow the Under-25’s car sticker scheme to go national will astound the general public says Waimakariri Labour Member of Parliament, Clayton Cosgrove.

“Their decision is a put-down for the thousands of ordinary, sensible Kiwis, in Canterbury, and elsewhere, who have put the stickers on their cars because common-sense tells them the idea works,’’ said Mr Cosgrove.

The decision to axe any plans for the sticker scheme to go national might make perfect sense to bureaucrats obsessed with rarefied areas of law but it was still a decision many people would find hard to accept.

“I’m glad its not me having to tell some elderly person with a sticker on their car that makes them feel safer about their property, that after 31 December 2001 the exemption to section 151(2) of the Human Rights Act expires which will make the scheme unlawful.

“That’s a sales job I’m quite happy to leave to the ‘Sir Humphreys’ who made the decision,’’ he said.

He noted that the advice to the Police from the Human Rights Commission about the sticker scheme had not upheld the three complaints lodged with the Commission about the scheme. They had instead advised that the scheme “breached the spirit” of the Human Rights Act.

“If anything, this is a defeat for common-sense and a victory for that hugely vocal minority group that is always shrieking loudly about rights yet is always profoundly silent when it comes to responsibilities and victims,’’ he said.

He would now have to go to the Christchurch business people who had offered to privately fund continuing the sticker scheme to tell them that their generous offer could not be taken up on police advice.

“I’m afraid on this one, it’s a classic case of the police from National Headquarters, who have operational control over these decisions, letting down the officers actually out there on the street trying their hardest to do their best for the public.’’

The victims of car theft would take the decision as meaning a victory for car thieves.

ENDS

For further information contact:
Clayton Cosgrove
Member of Parliament for Waimakariri
Mobile: (025) 829 562
Parliamentary Office: (04) 470 6593
Papanui Electorate Office: (03) 3522022

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