It is important to remember the Tuhoe raids each year because what happened then is continuing to happen, as the Government spreads its tentacles ever further into everyone's lives, Mana Party leader Hone Harawira says.
Mr Harawira was in Dunedin last night to mark the sixth anniversary of the police raids in Tuhoe country, with about 170 people who gathered to watch a screening of Operation 8, a documentary on the raids, put on by the Otepoti branch of the party.
On October 15, 2007, armed police conducted a series of raids around the country to apprehend an alleged terrorist network.
Seventeen people were arrested. Four were eventually convicted on firearms charges. Most charges were dropped following a court decision the police had illegally spied on people.
''Basically, six years later, nothing's changed,'' Mr Harawira said.
The Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) was still spying on New Zealanders and the Government was denying wrongdoing and then passing laws to legalise what was illegal, he said.
''The power of the State is growing all the time.''
It was important to remember the raids, because at the time a lot of people thought maybe there was something happening there that needed to be stopped.
Now middle-class Pakeha were upset over the GCSB spying revelations, they could appreciate poor people had been dealing with a high level of scrutiny for a long time, and understand the importance of stopping it happening to everybody, he said.
