P.M. ‘not in picture'

Press, 23 October 1976, Page 6

P.M. ‘not in picture'

PA Auckland The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) said last night that he did not know that the police were making random checks for overstayers. He “knew little” of comments that aliens should carry their passports with them. Speaking at the opening of the motor show in Auckland last night, Mr Muldoon said that he would want to clarify and check the alleged statements with the people who had been allged to have made them. He said he did not know that the police were making random checks of people in the streets, because “that would mean the police having to deal with such people as United States tourists.” “I think our policemen have got more intelligence than that,” he said.

The movements made against the overstayers had been left in the hands of the immigration authorities, said Mr Muldoon. He was not advised of their actions “and I normally wouldn’t be.” A white man, aged 23, born and raised in Auckland, was one of the men arrested in the blitz on overstayers on Thursday. Mr K. R. Humphrey, of Takapuna, described yesterday how he was held in police custody for more than two hours, much of the time in a police van driving around the North Shore picking up suspected overstayers. He said he was body-

searched and his personal possessions examined by the arresting officers. Mr Humphrey, a member of the Hart Krishna sect, and three companions were chanting in the Takapuna shopping centre when three police cars stopped alongside them. He and a Canadian member of the sect, Mr C. B. Foster, were told they were under arrest as overstayers.

“When they approached us, 1 continued playing my guitar, because I hadn’t done anything wrong,” he said. “I wouldn’t give them my name until they told me if I was under arrest or not. They bundled Blake (Mr Foster) and myself into a police van which pulled up. “They drove around for a while and stopped in Barry’s Point Road, where they made us get out and searched us. I think they were looking for drugs. There was a young Samoan, and the police slammed him against the side of the van and hurt his wrist. “When we werd taken to the police station—after about two hours in the van—my lawyer phoned and I was released.”

The Canadian, Mr Foster, alleged that while being driven around in the police van he asked to phone his lawyer, and was told “You’ve got no rights.” At no stage while in the van was he asked to produce his passport.

At 11.45 p.m. he was allowed to phone his lawyer. It was only after the lawyer had spoken to the police that an officer asked for the pass-

port, he said. It was at h home.

“I was kept in the cells ah night, and in the morning I was interviewed by a Labour Department officer. I told him I came to New Zealand from Canada four years before any permit system existed between the two countries, and he agreed that I had the right to stay here.

“The Labour Department officer was quite good about it, but I didn’t get any sort of apology from the police. They did not drive me back to the North Shore. Friends had to come and collect me.”