A leading figure in the passing of the Homosexual Law Reform Bill, which decriminalised sexual intimacy between men, says Police minister Judith Collins should not appear with police officers in next year's Auckland Pride Parade. The police have confirmed that they will be appearing in the 2017 parade and that there have been many requests by glbti and glbti-supportive staff to be part of the police presence. Alan Ivory, a gay lawyer who co-drafted the landmark bill which Parliament passed into law thirty years ago, says Collins, who is minister of both Police and Corrections, should not march in the parade with the police officers and staff as she did last year. "She's in support of the parade," he acknowledges, "but the Minister of Police marching in the parade politicizes the position of the police. Judith Collins does not have the freedom to act as the leader of the police. They are there in their own right for the public, not for politics." "She's not marching as a citizen first and foremost," Ivory says. "Marching as the leader of both ministries and making the police's presence in the parade politicized is not acceptable behavior." The day after the 2016 parade Labour MP Trevor Mallard, backed up by Labour leader Andrew Little called Collins marching with police "clear politicisation and totally inappropriate." GayNZ.com has contacted Collins asking for comment.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 8th December 2016 - 10:19pm