The Internal Affairs Minister's being criticised for allowing improper destruction of religious texts from the National Library.  

The Government plans to shred around half a million books which include the Bible, the Qur'an, and the Torah, to save on storage costs. 

Massey University Professor Emeritus of Religion Peter Lineham told Heather de Plessis-Allan religious texts should be offered to the relevant communities. 

He says Minister Brooke van Velden suggested they can do what they want with the books because New Zealand's secular.  

But Lineham says being secular doesn't mean being careless with other people’s beliefs. 

Lineham told du Plessis-Allan religions have strict beliefs about how texts should be handled and destroyed - if at all.  

He says only preserving New Zealand books fails to recognise our society contains —and is stemmed from— many cultures. 

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