Alexander: PM, AG to decide when ZOSO Bill returns to Parliament

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says he is await­ing word from the Prime Min­is­ter and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to de­ter­mine when Gov­ern­ment’s con­tro­ver­sial Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion will re­turn to Par­lia­ment, as he in­sists the pro­posed law is about trans­form­ing com­mu­ni­ties and not sim­ply send­ing po­lice of­fi­cers in­to crime hotspots.

Alexan­der an­nounced on Sat­ur­day, a day af­ter telling Par­lia­ment that Gov­ern­ment in­tends to bring back the leg­is­la­tion, which is de­signed to pro­vide “spe­cial mea­sures to up­hold the rule of law, pub­lic or­der, cit­i­zens’ se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic safe­ty” with­in ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly de­fined ar­eas.

But while Gov­ern­ment pre­pares for an­oth­er at­tempt to se­cure par­lia­men­tary ap­proval, Alexan­der made it clear that he does not con­trol the tim­ing of the bill’s re­turn.