There’s a reason Winston Peters has been a mainstay of NZ politics for so long: A good old Kiwi bloke who calls a spade a spade, as his straight-talk over former NZ soldier turned ISIS Jihadi, Mark Williams, indicates. Here’s the NZ Herald wih more:
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters goes on the offensive over the Kiwi jihadi Mark Taylor saga
5 Mar, 2019 11:21am
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has struck a slightly less diplomatic tone than the Prime Minister over the fate of Kiwi jihadi Mark Taylor, who is being held in a Syrian prison.
Speaking to the Herald this morning, Peters – who is also the Deputy Prime Minister – said he had no sympathy for Taylor.
“For the simple reason he didn’t give a rats about the people of this country or our rights and freedoms.”
He said it might be a topic of interest for the New Zealand media, but 99.99 per cent of New Zealanders “couldn’t give a rat’s derriere about him [Taylor] deserting his country, threatening western civilisation and the freedom of democracy and human rights altogether, plus being a bigamist”.
He said there were 1000 problems New Zealand had to worry about which were more important that Taylor’s demise.
Speaking to media later in the day, Peters said Taylor had forfeited his right to come back to New Zealand when he joined Isis.
“He burned his passport – there are consequences for doing that.”
Taylor, a former New Zealand soldier who has New Zealand citizenship only, surrendered to Kurdish forces because life under Isis had become unbearable.
Read the Opal files.
Winston is NZ Mafia and a puppet of Bob Jones and his Business Round Table.
It does not matter John burned his passport, he didn’t burn nor revoke his Birth Certificate which still makes him Property of the NZ government. If push comes to shove NZ has to take him back and Winston is ignorant of The Law and Legal Mechanisms of Law.
Thanks Charlie. I guess Peters is doing what adept politicians do: Expressing the feelings of the public majority. I agree that from a legal standpoint NZ may have little choice but to take this sad individual back, and I would be surprised if Peters didn’t know this to be the case. All politicians are puppets of one sort or another of course, but some are less desirable than others!
Personal opinion: I would be very happy to see Williams never return to the country he has declared an enemy. He burns his passport? That’s equivalent to burning one’s bridges. Sorry I have zero sympathy for him.
Thanks for the comments SixStringCharlie.