It’s not just about cyber-culture, Judith

Written By: - Date published: 7:59 pm, November 4th, 2013 - 310 comments
Categories: accountability, crime, john key, Judith Collins, labour, law and "order", leadership, national, police, sexism - Tags: ,

The news reports about the Roast Busters are chilling.  Watching 3 News tonight was very upsetting.  There has much been said online that is relevant.

The most important immediate question is – how hard have the police and authorities worked to support the woman who are living with the damage done to them by the rapes?  And why wasn’t more being done to protect other women from having the same trials?

I’m with Carol Beaumont is correct in saying that there is a problem with our culture, as does the spokesperson fro Rape Crisis:

Meanwhile, Rape Prevention Education executive director Dr Kim McGregor said that if media reports about the Roast Busters were correct, what they were doing was “absolutely rape”.

“Some of the girls are children, they’re only aged 13 so that’s rape. Even if you’re over 16 and having sex with people who cannot give consent because they’re stupefied by a drug, that’s rape.”

The attitudes of the men involved were a “huge concern” and unfortunately widespread, she said.

“They have been saying it makes them feel like a man, and talking about women not as humans but as boasts – dehumanising them. I hope men’s groups are stepping up to address this.”

rape_culture

However, I am appalled with the latest NZ Herald report with the attitudes shown by the quotes from John key and Judith Collins.  The article does report some good points made by Carole Beaumont:

Ms Beaumont said the case raised broader questions around the way rape victims were treated and questioned what was being done to change the culture that meant teenage boys thought such behaviour was acceptable.

But, as this article reports it, Key and Collins seem to be saying the problem has a lot to do with cyber-bullying:

Prime Minister John Key said today the “disturbing and disgusting” behaviour of the group will be unlawful under a bill about to be introduced to Parliament.

“As a parent I find the issue very disturbing and abhorrent,” he said at his post cabinet press conference this afternoon.

[…]

He said that their practice of naming a particular young woman would be unlawful under a law the Government is about to introduce, the Harmful Digital Communications Bill.

“But it is actually a bigger issue and it is just extremely disturbing and disgusting behaviour and these young guys should grow up,” he said.

He said it was very difficult to progress the issues if the victim was not willing to make a formal complaint.

So John Key is just going to sit back and say, “too difficult”?  This just looks like a bit of opportunism by Judith and John, with a main focus on cyber-bullying, over-shadowing considerations to deal with the real, physical brutality of the crimes committed by the men – and they weren’t committed digitally:

Justice Minister Judith Collins foreshadowed the bill in April as a way to address cyber bullies.

Then the article goes into details of the cyber-bullying Bill.  I’m sure that the government is looking for ways to be able to have more control over online behaviour.  But surely as Justice Minister, Collins should have more to say on this issue? However, Collins is someone who enjoys perpetuating a bullying style of behaviour – also a problem in the masculine legacy that still dominates politics.

But there are urgent questions that need answering.  Such as why the police seem unable to apprehended the rapists quickly, when they are very quick to arrest people for other suspected crimes?

NB:  I will moderate this thread quite strongly. Comments that support rape culture will be deleted.

[Update] Scuba Nurse – positive steps to make a difference [h/t Pascal’s bookie]

Scuba Nurse has posted suggestions over at The Hand Mirror,

for how you can be brave, and carry your torch out into the community and really make a difference.

It’s a must read post.  The ideas are explained under the following headings:

Be the light at the end of the tunnel.
Be the voice of reality.
Be the person brave enough to discuss “consent”.
Be the person who knows the facts.
Be the killjoy.
Be the support person.
Be the person advocating body autonomy for the children and young people around you.
Be the person supporting those on the front line.

310 comments on “It’s not just about cyber-culture, Judith ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. RedBaronCV 1
    4 November 2013 at 8:42 pm

    I am so angry. I don’t know how to say how dreadful this is.

    The justice system is for women and children too.

    On one hand we have police who seem to be totally unable to charge males bragging about raping under age women because they don’t have a complaint. WTF. When I last looked child abuse is a crime and it doesn’t require a complaint from the victim. Murder is investigated without a complaint.

    And on the other hand we have a prime minister whose response is to say “the boys need to grow up”. So it’s okay for a teen to rape but not someone over say 21? People who make those sorts of excuses aren’t facilitators they are co-abusers.

    • Chooky 1.1
      4 November 2013 at 9:19 pm

      RedBaronCV +100….there is something dreadfully wrong with Auckland

    • weka 1.2
      4 November 2013 at 9:20 pm

      “When I last looked child abuse is a crime and it doesn’t require a complaint from the victim.”

      +1

      • David H 1.2.1
        5 November 2013 at 7:45 am

        @Weka Then that makes it “what is a child” in the police eyes. Personally I put a child as anyone under the age of 16. And anyway having sex with an underage girl is also a crime, so why are the police dragging their heels on this? And now I see that if the police don’t do anything it seems that there is a group ready to hand out some ‘street’ justice..

        • you_fool 1.2.1.1
          5 November 2013 at 11:31 am

          I haven’t read today’s “news” stories on this, but yesterday I got the impression that the police do not have anything more than some teenage boys bragging about having sex, which is what all teenage boys do. This bragging seems to be much much worse than “normal” bragging, but if the police can’t actually find evidence then they do have their hands tied.

          The question should then be how hard have they looked?

        • SpaceMonkey 1.2.1.2
          5 November 2013 at 12:07 pm

          A child is defined under the Child, Young Persons, and Families Act 1989 as being under 14 years of age.

          http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1989/0024/latest/whole.html

        • weka 1.2.1.3
          5 November 2013 at 1:27 pm

          David, there is a pretty good explanation of what the law says on the Public Address thread from yesterday. It’s in the comments, and mentioned a few times. Look for the one about the difference between statuatory rape and unlawful sexual connection with a minor. There are two different age brackets I think.

    • Zorr 1.3
      4 November 2013 at 9:52 pm

      “Boys will be boys” should never be a legal defense…

    • Ant 1.4
      5 November 2013 at 8:48 am

      I think you have to keep in mind that a lot of the evidence that the media is reporting on is being lifted from social media – A lot of it is obvious trolling/teenagers giving each other shit.

      There is a massive scummy side to it but there is also the scummy manipulation of outrage.

  2. ann kerr 2
    4 November 2013 at 8:42 pm

    Great article Karol.

    I also wondered were CYFs alerted given the age of these girls? Can’t charges be pressed then. If a child is sexually abused by a relative, surely the child doesn’t have to make a complaint for the perpetrator to be charged?

    Did the police make any attempt to stake out and follow these young men and catch them about to commit these despicable acts? I am not an expert on the law, but could they not have pressed charges if they catch someone about to commit a crime like this?

    It is a very disturbing case and even more to hear that one of the perpetrators father is in the police.

    • karol 2.1
      4 November 2013 at 8:57 pm

      Thanks, ann. I actually feel inadequate in commenting on this case and the surrounding comments & issues. It’s all too disturbing. But it also needs to be addressed urgently.

      Good point about CYFs.

    • Tim 2.2
      4 November 2013 at 9:04 pm

      Indeed ! Great article Karol. It’s also obvious that not only should there be concern over Collins’ et al ‘kulcha’, but ALSO that of the NZ Police – it doesn’t appear to have changed that much and is backed up by their own worst enemy – a dinosaur called Greg.
      Watching that TV3 item, the detective appeared to be saying that they couldn’t act UNLESS there was a compainant – never mind that its clear that rape has taken place. Admittedly since then, there’s been some real backpeddling and the efforts are based on gathering evidence to obtain a conviction, but equally evident is that efforts to date haven’t exactly been that strenuous.

    • David H 2.3
      5 November 2013 at 7:53 am

      Sorry Ann, but as someone who has dealt with CYFS (we kill your children quicker) is that they are great talkers they will talk and talk and yes talk, but do anything ? That a completely different matter. In the 2 years I dealt with them (over a troubled teen) the levels of disinterest and incompetence, were amazing. And to get them to even call you back is a mission. This is one govt dept that NEEDS an overhaul.

      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10842434
      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11103254

      And it’s not hard to find more.

  3. Lanthanide 3
    4 November 2013 at 8:47 pm

    Can someone give examples of the people who would fall into the “facilitators” group?

    Also, are the police faciliators in this particular case?

    • RedBaronCV 3.1
      4 November 2013 at 8:55 pm

      Essentially yes. They know what is going on, they have identified the alleged perpetrators, know who they have targeted and have done nothing effective (or nothing at all about it).
      In the vernacular, facilitators are those who knowingly, do others dirty work for them or aid and assist in same.

      • Lanthanide 3.1.1
        4 November 2013 at 8:58 pm

        “In the vernacular, facilitators are those who knowingly, do others dirty work for them or aid and assist in same.”

        Yeah, but what I’m wanting here are some examples of who a facilitator might be when it comes to rape, vs say a bystander. Maybe a parent of a rapist who discovers it is happening and doesn’t do anything about it is a facilitator? Bystanders would be those, like John Key, who don’t/can’t/won’t acknowledge the gravity of the situation?

        • karol 3.1.1.1
          4 November 2013 at 9:06 pm

          Some explanations on that slide are here:

          A slide by Dr. David Lisak used to explain how Rape Culture, bystanders, and facilitators help camouflage sex offenders in our community.

          And here:

          Facilitators perpetuate an environment that allows core sex offenders to assault

          * Reinforce negative behavior

          Bystanders have knowledge of incidents & dangerous environments, but fail to act

          I would include police as both facilitators and bystanders.

          I think quite a lot of our celebrity culture facilitates core sex offences – see for example some of the antics amongst male rugby players. So it is perhaps not a coincidence that 2 of the alleged offenders have a celebrity & a police parent.

          • Lanthanide 3.1.1.1.1
            4 November 2013 at 9:13 pm

            Thanks, both very helpful. I find the “good person” defense particularly compelling.

          • Chris 3.1.1.1.2
            4 November 2013 at 9:20 pm

            IMO I would say Facebook is a facilitator along with Police. Police have known of this Facebook page since 2011 after a victim made an “informal” complaint. Why they would continue to allow this page to exist for 2 years to “gather” information is beyond belief. And in fact Police had no intention of getting this page shut down, that came after TV3 made it public last night.

            Police behaviour and attitude is abhorrent as is Key and Collins.

            • Lanthanide 3.1.1.1.2.1
              4 November 2013 at 9:23 pm

              True enough I suppose. But on a medium like the internet, it’s not really feasible to monitor and police everything. To attempt to do so would greatly diminish freedom of expression.

              • Chris …
                4 November 2013 at 9:26 pm

                L it became feasible from the very first information Police had back in 2011. At which time they could have worked with Facebook.

                • Lanthanide …
                  4 November 2013 at 9:33 pm

                  To say Facebook is a facilitator because they didn’t shut down the page in 2011 implies they need to be policing and monitoring all pages on their site on a continuous basis.

                  The fact is, once Facebook were alerted to the situation, they shut the page down. Doesn’t seem like they fit the role of facilitator to me.

                  • Chris …
                    4 November 2013 at 9:37 pm

                    I doubt very much that Facebook wasn’t aware back in 2011

                  • weka …
                    4 November 2013 at 9:44 pm

                    “To say Facebook is a facilitator because they didn’t shut down the page in 2011 implies they need to be policing and monitoring all pages on their site on a continuous basis.”

                    If I continuously provided a house for teens and children to party in without supervision, and I actively promote this house in a way that makes it desirable to teens, am I a facilitator if bad shit happens even if weren’t there at the time? I think so.

                    If FB were a responible organisation it would have set up processes to minimise rape culture. Reddit is worse I think. There is fuck all social responsibility from these companies.

                    Every person who saw what was happening on this particular FB page and didn’t report it to FB, they’re facilitators too.

                    • Lanthanide …
                      4 November 2013 at 9:47 pm

                      It still is very tricky though. There’s a limit to what automated tools can do to detect undesirable content, particularly if slang terms are used.

                      Even having a simple system where the names of newly created groups were eyeballed by humans may not have caught this one.

                    • Chris …
                      4 November 2013 at 9:48 pm

                      “Every person who saw what was happening on this particular FB page and didn’t report it to FB, they’re facilitators too.”

                      exactly, Facebook would have had hundreds if not thousands of reports in regard to the roast page over the last 2 years.

                    • Lanthanide …
                      4 November 2013 at 9:50 pm

                      @ Chris: if it was a private group (no idea if it was?) then it’s by invite-only, in which case the chance of abuse reports would be greatly lowered.

                    • weka …
                      4 November 2013 at 10:01 pm

                      “It still is very tricky though. There’s a limit to what automated tools can do to detect undesirable content, particularly if slang terms are used.

                      Even having a simple system where the names of newly created groups were eyeballed by humans may not have caught this one.”

                      Ah, the old ‘it can’t be technically done’ defense. Ironically, I see Russell Brown coming out today and saying this case does support the Harmful Digital Communications Bill. I seem to remember for him being an early apologist for internet porn on the grounds that you can’t control the internet.

                      What FB could do is have staff in NZ, who facilitate both education and supervision of FB culture here. Given that part of FB’s core business is youth culture, I can’t see how this would be impossible. They could use both tech and human solutions. They could have built such social responsibility into their system in the same way that they built in advertising or controlling data. We only think these things are impossible because we believe that FB has the right to act like a profit-driven business ahead of social responsibility. Am pretty sure if social responsibility were a given, solutions would be found.

                    • Lanthanide …
                      4 November 2013 at 10:10 pm

                      Fundamentally we’re talking about censoring content. In order to (fairly) censor content, you must first review it.

                      You can foster culture as much as you want, but when push comes to shove, someone still has to click the “block” button.

                    • QoT …
                      5 November 2013 at 10:24 pm

                      Lanthanide, I think this has already been said on the thread, but it should be repeated: Facebook is frequently alerted, by people pressing the “report” button, to content which targets individuals for harassment, publishes people’s photos without their consent, and advocates violence and rape.

                      They do precisely sweet fuck-all until a mainstream media channel starts asking questions. I have a dozen or so “Sorry, this content doesn’t breach our Ts and Cs” emails from them in my inbox to prove it, and I know many other people do too.

                  • idlegus …
                    4 November 2013 at 9:44 pm

                    russell brown (i think) said on public address he was aware of a complaint to facebook months ago, it wasnt until the tv3 story facebook shut it down.

                • weka …
                  4 November 2013 at 9:34 pm

                  I agree. That the NZ Police allowed the FB page/s to continue because they needed FB to continue their investigation, and that they did this for two years, is one of the most appalling things I’ve read today. That alone bears investigation and at the very least a detailed explanation from the police. Because as it stands, what it looks like to me is that they had someone using the FB page as a means of identifying serious criminals, who were commiting crimes over time, and the police didn’t put resources into extra investigation to bring that to an end. If the victims had been say 9 or 10 years old, and the perpetrators say 19 or 20, would the police have still acted in the same way?

        • QoT 3.1.1.2
          4 November 2013 at 9:13 pm

          Just about everyone involved in the Steubenville case would count. Coaches and parents who cover up evidence, police officers who refuse to investigate, district attorneys who refuse to press charges.

        • RedBaronCV 3.1.1.3
          4 November 2013 at 9:14 pm

          In my mind John Key isn’t in the bystander category because he occupies the office of Prime Minister. He has the power at least at some level to direct what should be done.

          Instead he has minimised the offence, “the boys need to grow up”, denied the real problem ” we are going to have rules on cyber bullying”, we already have rules on rape, John, which he seems to have missed and attempted to shift the blame “teenage drinking?”

          You and I Lanth are now “bystanders” at some remove. We know about this and have information to form at least a partial view as to whether or not we condone this, I don’t.

          Well, that’s my take on it. Over to others.

          P.S JKey doesn’t seem to see this as an issue. I think it’s an issue that’s going to be many many times larger than say “Rena” which they ignored at the start.

          • Lanthanide 3.1.1.3.1
            4 November 2013 at 9:22 pm

            Right, I was wondering how far the ‘bystander’ term would reach, and also whether there’s any purpose reaching out as far as myself and you. Your definition makes it sound like if you become aware of something, you’re a ‘bystander’ to it.

            • RedBaronCV 3.1.1.3.1.1
              4 November 2013 at 9:28 pm

              I’m not a professional in this Lanth and this is a personal take on the slides.

              I know we were not in the vicinity at the time but even as a far flung ripple in the pond, I would at this point, find it hard to restrain myself from giving the nearest politician or policeman my unvarnished opinion. Heat in the kitchen does matter.

              • Zorr …
                4 November 2013 at 10:00 pm

                RedBaron – you aren’t a bystander in this instance because you don’t have specific knowledge that would allow you to act immediately to prevent these rapes from occurring or to bring the perpetrators to justice.

                If your attitude were different however, like JKeys, then you would be a facilitator.

                The point is that this kind of activity by anyone should be abhorrent to all members of our society/culture (in much the way that murder is) as it is such an incredibly destructive act. There need be no pussy footing around here – from what I’ve read on this so far, it is as bad a situation as has ever been discovered in NZ. Would be willing already to rate this up there with the Beast himself.

                • Lanthanide …
                  4 November 2013 at 10:02 pm

                  Ok, I thought Key would be a bystander rather than a facilitator, and someone you describe who had the ability to stop the rapes but didn’t would be a facilitator not a bystander.

                  • Zorr …
                    4 November 2013 at 10:13 pm

                    Fair enough – it seems I have gotten the terms the wrong way around in my reading of the comments. It’s such a long way to scroll back to the image… 😛

            • weka 3.1.1.3.1.2
              4 November 2013 at 9:38 pm

              I don’t consider myself a bystander, because I address rape culture as and where I can. Were I to go and look at the FB pages out of curiousity and then do nothing, then I would be a bystander.

              Bystander isn’t becoming aware of the abuse, it’s what you do once you become aware that defines whether you are a bystander or something else.

              From one of karol’s links in her comment above

              “Bystanders have knowledge of incidents & dangerous environments, but fail to act”

              • Lanthanide …
                4 November 2013 at 9:42 pm

                Ok, so in what way should I be acting to avoid being labelled a bystander?

                • weka …
                  4 November 2013 at 9:45 pm

                  Do you want to not be a bystander, or do you just want to avoid being labelled one? Because those are two different things.

                  • Lanthanide …
                    4 November 2013 at 9:51 pm

                    I’m just trying to explore these labels and how they’re applied. You seem to be tying the labels to actions that should be taken but aren’t, and the severity of the failure to act determines the label you get.

                    • weka …
                      4 November 2013 at 10:07 pm

                      Not really. I’m not sitting here thinking Oh Lanth, he’s x, y, z in terms of the diagram. The diagram is a tool for raising awareness and prompting discussion and self-reflection. I think you asking questions in this thread about that has been useful.

                      The severity of the failure to act might determine where on the scale of things you fit in. When you started talking about being ‘labelled’ I thought that was less useful. Where do YOU think you fit in, and why (in any situation like this that you’ve been in), would be more interesting to me.

                    • karol …
                      4 November 2013 at 10:12 pm

                      Yes. Actually, weka. I came across the diagram when I was looking for a suitable image for the front page. I was finding any specific image on its own with people in it, tended to be skewed one way or another to support current cultural values – or at least could be without some accompanying explanation.

                      The diagram seemed to be more suitable than any other image I came across.

                    • Lanthanide …
                      4 November 2013 at 10:15 pm

                      I don’t consider myself a bystander since all I’ve done is been a recipient of the mass-market news. I don’t see there’s any need for me to act in any particular way in response to that news, so it seems to me that my non-action shouldn’t be used against me.

                      Now were I much closer to the situation, and ethical standards and morals compelled me to act in a way that I didn’t act, I think I could be fairly classed a bystander and/or facilitator.

                      I do consider Key a bystander because his comments were well shy of the mark of the message he should be conveying as someone of his official standing.

                    • weka …
                      4 November 2013 at 10:33 pm

                      “I don’t see there’s any need for me to act in any particular way in response to that news, so it seems to me that my non-action shouldn’t be used against me.”

                      It’s not actually about you.

                    • Lanthanide …
                      4 November 2013 at 10:37 pm

                      ???

                      I’m trying to explore the use of these terms, who they apply to and when, which naturally raises the question of whether the terms apply to myself, and if so, why.

              • RedBaronCV …
                4 November 2013 at 9:46 pm

                See what you mean Weka “but fail to act”. At this distance there are not many actions we can take except voice our grave concerns.

                • weka …
                  4 November 2013 at 10:15 pm

                  Most people with a FB or twitter account can do things pretty easily today. Anyone with the time and skills could be writing letters to the NZ Police, or the govt, or Key or his MPs etc. Donate money to Rape Crisis.

                  It’s tempting to think that the rape happened only in the spaces where the young women were. But all of us here partake of the internet and this abuse has moved into our sphere. To say that we are very far removed from it is akin to being in a pub with men who are now drinking in the pub at the other end of the room and bragging about rapes they have committed, and saying that because the rape happened in another part of town it’s nothing to do with us and we can’t do anything. It’s just not true. If we accept that the situation we are hearing about today has come about because of rape culture, then we also have to accept our part in that. Rape culture isn’t something over there. It’s right here.

    • weka 3.2
      4 November 2013 at 9:23 pm

      Facebook are facilitators in this situation.

      I’ve not seen much of the FB content, but am willing to bet there are FBers who weren’t the actual rapists but were facilitators too. Taking part in the online humiliation of the women, supporting the men, making jokes etc.

      • Zorr 3.2.1
        4 November 2013 at 10:02 pm

        The people on FB who didn’t report this despite having specific knowledge were bystanders.

        FB themselves were facilitators (as long as they didn’t have specific knowledge) by providing the environment for this behavior to breed

        • Lanthanide 3.2.1.1
          4 November 2013 at 10:07 pm

          Right, but I think if you’re saying Facebook are facilitators for the duration of time in which they didn’t have specific knowledge, then the only 100% foolproof way for them to not be facilitators would be to drastically step up the amount of monitoring and policing they do of user content. Realistically given their size this would require them to limit what people could do on their site, or put all content into a queue to be reviewed – either would ultimately destroy Facebook.

          Are you really suggesting that open forums like FB shouldn’t exist because a tiny number of people might use them inappropriately?

          • Zorr 3.2.1.1.1
            4 November 2013 at 10:12 pm

            Do you realize just how difficult it is to put up an image of breastfeeding a child with a bare breast? They *were* taking them down almost immediately.

            Why couldn’t they respond to this as effectively?

            And yes, if they can’t provide a business that is capable of monitoring against such crimes as rape and murder in their own confines, then may I suggest that their business needs to rethink their stance VERY quickly.

            • weka 3.2.1.1.1.1
              4 November 2013 at 10:17 pm

              +1000

              Lanth, what makes you think this is “a tiny number of people might use them inappropriately” issue?

              • Lanthanide …
                4 November 2013 at 10:24 pm

                I simply don’t think it is up to organisations like FB to be spending the resources to police their users in the way that is being suggested here.

                It is also an inherently difficult point to decide who should be doing how much policing. FB has 1.2b users. What about twitter? What about MySpace? What about AIM instant messaging? What about SnapChat? Are all communication mediums required to put in equal levels of content policing? Or just the most popular ones of the day, helping to ensure they become less popular because they’re a hassle to use and be replaced by some other service?

                • weka …
                  4 November 2013 at 10:30 pm

                  They all support rape culture, so they can share the responsibility. Are you really saying that FB’s shareholders are more important than protecting people from harm?

                  “I simply don’t think it is up to organisations like FB to be spending the resources to police their users in the way that is being suggested here.”

                  I haven’t seen anyone suggesting that FB ‘police’ their users in the way you seem to be suggesting.

                  • Lanthanide …
                    4 November 2013 at 10:35 pm

                    “Are you really saying that FB’s shareholders are more important than protecting people from harm?”

                    Actually I’m saying the vast majority of uses of FB and other communication mediums shouldn’t be unnecessarily burdened because of the actions of a very minute few.

                    “I haven’t seen anyone suggesting that FB ‘police’ their users in the way you seem to be suggesting.”

                    People here seem to be suggesting that such content should not be allowed on facebook and that facebook shouldn’t require 3rd party notification in order for it to be removed.

            • Lanthanide 3.2.1.1.1.2
              4 November 2013 at 10:19 pm

              I haven’t really looked at any TV/website/newspaper articles on this so don’t know if they’ve shown any pictures. My primary source has been radio.

              Is it the case that the pictures, taken out of context (because that’s exactly why the breastfeeding pictures are taken down), are not inherently objectionable?

              • Zorr …
                4 November 2013 at 10:26 pm

                How is a picture of breastfeeding inherently objectionable? If I take a topless photo right now (as a guy) and post it on FB, that is fine. But a woman choosing to post her own topless photo is not? Even when mostly covered up by baby head? This is puritanical thinking at it’s finest because the moment you can see a female breast it is objectionable.

                This kind of material is something that Youtube is capable of monitoring and policing but Facebook is incapable of apparently. I wouldn’t expect that FB could catch everyone and that it would still be possible to utilize their service for such things even with stringent policing *but* they don’t have to make themselves an easy breeding ground for such practice.

                If you can’t get away with it in a physical store/meeting place, you shouldn’t be able to get away with it in a virtual one where it is even easier to potentially police such activity.

                • Lanthanide …
                  4 November 2013 at 10:33 pm

                  Sorry, bad choice of words. “Against FB’s terms and conditions”. They might have a fucked up definition where booby = bad, but that’s what they decided to define it as.

                  I am reminded of a US judge who failed to come up with a definition of exactly what was and what wasn’t pornorgraphy and resorted to “I know it when I see it”. One person’s art is another person’s blasphemy. At least the standard of “is there a visible female breast in the picture” is by and large objective.

                  “If you can’t get away with it in a physical store/meeting place”

                  Because the police inspect all buildings on a regular basis? As long as a physical store/meeting place was purely invite-only and highly secretive, I’d say it’d be quite easy to get away with murder.

                  • Zorr …
                    4 November 2013 at 11:27 pm

                    It’s not about the police at that point Lanth – it’s about the business owner making sure that their business isn’t being used for illegal purposes if it is within their means to do so.

                    If they are capable of monitoring criminal activity, then they should report it.
                    If they are incapable of monitoring, they should develop the capabilities to monitor in order to prevent criminal activity.
                    If they are incapable of monitoring and choose to do nothing about it then they shouldn’t be allowed to operate.

                    Willful ignorance is no excuse.

  4. toad 4
    4 November 2013 at 8:49 pm

    Key is clueless on this (once again).

    Cyberbullying is threatening adverse consequences IN cyberspace.

    What these guys are doing is threatening adverse consequences in cyberspace only if the victim complains.

    Surely they can be charged with conspiracy and/or incitement to rape, even if no victim comes forward.

    As usual, the NZ Police fail to score on this issue. I wonder how much that has to do with the rape culture identified within the Police.

    • weka 4.1
      4 November 2013 at 9:24 pm

      “What these guys are doing is threatening adverse consequences in cyberspace only if the victim complains.”

      I haven’t seen much of the media coverage yet, what were the threats?

  5. BM 5
    4 November 2013 at 9:03 pm

    The elephant in the room is black gangsta culture that encourages this sort of bull shit behavior, but no ones has the cajones to point that out because they’re scared of being seen as the slave owner telling dem darkies how to behave.

    • karol 5.1
      4 November 2013 at 9:10 pm

      It is part of a much wider culture than a specific youth subculture or music style.

      • BM 5.1.1
        4 November 2013 at 9:16 pm

        I disagree, it’s black gangsta culture, the same shit all the Maori, Polly boys are into.
        Women = meat, Some play thing to do what ever you want with, use and abuse.

        [karol: I’ve said I will moderate this thread strongly. The issue is far more widespread than any one subculture. The problem is all throughout our culture. Blaming the least powerful culture is a way of denying we are all in the midst of the problem culture. It’s scapegoating and blame shifting..

        Rape is about power, and usually about men asserting or making themselves feel more powerful by abusing others. White policemen and sports players, for instance, have been guilty of rape and pack rape.

        Any more attempts to blame a particular subculture or ethnic group will be deleted. It’s a diversion from finding real and successful ways to deal with the problem behaviour and prevent further brutality.]

        • weka 5.1.1.1
          4 November 2013 at 9:25 pm

          I wonder who they learnt that from.

        • North 5.1.1.2
          4 November 2013 at 9:55 pm

          You’re an obscene old bastard BM.

        • thatguynz 5.1.1.3
          5 November 2013 at 10:18 am

          What a generalising piece of shit you are. True colours shown. Fuck off back to WO’s pond of like minded scum.

          • amirite 5.1.1.3.1
            5 November 2013 at 12:23 pm

            BM you fuckin’ idiot. If you can blame any culture it is the one where your parents are in high position which helps you to get away with murder and makes you think you’re above the law. This is the culture that is interested only in an individual’s own selfish interests, well-being and enjoyment, no matter how it may effect others.
            Sounds familiar? That is the ideology that leads this government.

    • Murray Olsen 5.2
      4 November 2013 at 9:13 pm

      Bullshit. Plenty of young white boys act in just the same way. Or are they under the influence of the evil blacks? Pffft.

      • framu 5.2.1
        5 November 2013 at 7:36 am

        yeah ive seen plenty of well heeled white boys you dont fit “gangsta culture” that behave like misyonginist (sp?) litte scum bags

        you could equally blame rugby culture, or any other entrenched macho posturing

    • Tim 5.3
      4 November 2013 at 9:18 pm

      That’d be a bit like a rellie of mine (one of dem ‘spooks’) telling me once that they couldn’t do shit because the (then current) regime of political correctness limited them to some very specific tasks.
      (That nanny state Helun Kluk was in control then)
      Well – we all know what bullshit that limitation turned out to be.
      WHY are you suggesting it has anything to do with a kulcha that’s related to race?
      You do know there are ‘whities’ (dem honkies) all doing their very best to emulate what they perceive as ‘black’, but is in fact not related to race or ethnicity in ANY way.
      All that nasty rap crap I suspect you’re referring to (dem bitches etc), may well have been popularised
      (Commoditised – using a word you should understand and be the devil’s disciple of), but it is actually racially non-specific!.
      Were that not the case, we’d not have dem bloody honkies talking like dem fukn murries.
      Wotcha rekon – we should get Pulla Bent onto the case aye!

      • Tim 5.3.1
        4 November 2013 at 9:30 pm

        I bet you think that ‘gangs’ are specifically race related too. As in that’s where they originated from.
        You should probably look more closely into the seedier side of your own fukn heritage and you’ll discover that they were peculiarly ‘WHITE’ and honky.

        btw – what does ‘BM’ stand for? I don’t necessarily mean that q interms of a name, more your moronic belief system.

        I dunno why TS actually tolerates some of your trolling dressed up as mature argument, but then I’m just an interloper here, and it’s one of the few outlets there is to contest your fukn bigotry that there is these days.

        Oh…. btw. I have a rule: I don’t believe that pushing SHIT UPHILL is really that productive – so don’t be surprised if I don;t reply to any offering you’ll be tempted to follow with

    • North 5.4
      4 November 2013 at 10:01 pm

      Strange BM…….one of those “meat-lovers” on the tele’ looked unquestionably whitearse to me. That’s right……the mouthy one.

      Elephant in the room you reckon ? There’s none. Only the one up your ignorant arse you old fool. It’s making you squeal all sorts of crazy wicked shit.

  6. Martin 6
    4 November 2013 at 9:05 pm

    If this were about underage males the police would have laid charges long before now.

  7. Murray Olsen 7
    4 November 2013 at 9:09 pm

    I wonder how much the police reluctance to make any arrests has to do with the problem some of them would have with seeing anything wrong with this behaviour. They certainly act quickly and without a formal complaint in other cases. That NAct chooses this as a further excuse to crack down on the internet rather than addressing the (alleged) offences is just one more example of their moral bankruptcy.

    • Martin 7.1
      5 November 2013 at 8:50 pm

      ” They certainly act quickly and without a formal complaint in other cases.”
      my point exactly!

      • Mike S 7.1.1
        6 November 2013 at 12:06 am

        The police can’t prosecute someone for rape unless the victim lays a formal complaint. It’s not perfect but how else could they possibly prosecute? What evidence could they use in court if there is no victim statement affirming that she has been raped?

        • weka 7.1.1.1
          6 November 2013 at 12:14 am

          I don’t think that applies to victims under the age of 16 Mike. In that case they need evidence but not a complaint.

        • McFlock 7.1.1.2
          6 November 2013 at 12:14 am

          Didn’t they just convict someone of kidnapping when the victim was adamant she hadn’t been kidnapped but the evidence was overwhelming?

          Same thing. Cameras, FB, interviewing their acquaintances, getting a facilitator twho feels bad to confess against the others, etc. The point is that we’re not hearing “no comment while matter is under ongoing investigation” from the cops so much as “our hands are tied it’s all so sad but we’ve told the lads to stop”.

  8. AmaKiwi 8
    4 November 2013 at 9:14 pm

    Crusher Collins made headlines cracking down on boy racers but ignores a gang of rapists for 2 years!

    Down with this government!

    They have ignored the fundamental responsibility of every government: to protect their citizens from harm.

    Colonial Viper, say it in a few short words, because I am so incensed I am in danger of blabbing on for pages.

    • Tim 8.1
      4 November 2013 at 10:06 pm

      Well – you know ….. apparently it’s easier to measure ‘loss of traction’ and speeding than it is to measure whether a certain demographic (complete with registered birth certificate) is ‘legal for sex’ or not.
      Of course in our Polis’ minds, there are extenuating circun …errr cicumcis …. no wait! stances! Stances, that’s what I mean. A 13 or 14 yo slut dressed up in leopard skin with that fukn skirt circulating round her cnut: Well – she wuz js ASKING for it aye!
      Let alone the fek she moighta been on facebook, let alone (as is normal with the pubescent), she may just have begun thinking about guy’s diks – most guys of which are anxious to tell us how fukn enormous their’s is!.

      Where have some of these rockhoppers come from ffs!!!!!!!? Apparently they have children just like the rest of us.
      Apparently they’re Norman Normals (at least the MSM is very anxious to portray them as such, as is Greg – chief apologist)

      Can’t diss that Polis Kulcha aye! It’s treacherous to do so – besides which there’s a true slut (maybe on account of her not getting anything were she to be otherwise) that heads up ‘Truth, Justice and the NuZill way’. Where’s she at presently? How many cars has she actually crushed?
      Has her disciple (Pulla) gotten with her learnings?
      I’m sure she has to get thru’ half a dozen more before there’s an agenda she can be totally convinced of winning.
      …btw Jude – my neighbour (the varicous vein/botox/etc spessshlist – you know – that one that deals in TOTAL confidence) has ordered up the latest.
      schedule your leave now – be in to win (you gorgeous beauty)

    • Tat Loo (CV) 8.2
      4 November 2013 at 10:20 pm

      Colonial Viper, say it in a few short words, because I am so incensed I am in danger of blabbing on for pages.

      As far as I can tell, this is an accurate summary of Judith Collins and John Key’s attitude –

      “The young guys from the Facebook Rape, Shame and Gloat Gang need a tough lesson via our new cyberbullying laws: if you are going to manipulate, stupefy, abuse and rape vulnerable underage girls, please be considerate enough not to put it on the interwebs.”

      • miravox 8.2.1
        4 November 2013 at 11:19 pm

        yes, Tat, that’s how I read it too.

        Brett Dale needs to go tell police and politicians how to say, in six short sentences, what they should have said.

        Just a niggly point, though. It was rape also for the girls of legal age.

  9. Brett Dale 9
    4 November 2013 at 9:17 pm

    They were underage, so its rape.
    They were stupefied so its rape.
    They filmed their victims, so its child pornography.
    They put pictures up on social media sites, so its distribution of child pornography.
    They not only admitted to all this, they wore what they did as a badge of honor.

    They should be in jail right now and be listed as a child sex offender.

    • weka 9.1
      4 November 2013 at 9:27 pm

      crikey Brett, that would have to be one of the most cogent comments I’ve ever seen from you.

    • karol 9.2
      4 November 2013 at 9:29 pm

      For once I tend to agree with you, Brett.

      • Brett Dale 9.2.1
        4 November 2013 at 9:34 pm

        Karol:

        I hope most people in NZ would agree with those statements I wrote, Ive been on twitter all
        day and it would seem people are on the same mindset.

    • toad 9.3
      4 November 2013 at 9:57 pm

      FFS, Brett. I have never seen you make so much sense here before.

      I welcome your epiphany.

      Long may it continue.

    • Naturesong 9.4
      4 November 2013 at 9:59 pm

      Yup, this is one of the few times I agree with you.

      John Key says: “But it is actually a bigger issue and it is just extremely disturbing and disgusting behaviour and these young guys should grow up,”

      Actually, no.

      It’s rape. It’s a crime.

      “He said that their practice of naming a particular young woman would be unlawful under a law the Government is about to introduce, the Harmful Digital Communications Bill.”

      No John, It’s rape.

      If you can legally add to their sentence because they published their crimes thats great.

      Its rape John. The publishing of the crime is insult added to injury.

      These young men need to be in court before a judge.

    • Zorr 9.5
      4 November 2013 at 10:05 pm

      I think your comment here proves how far removed the Police now are from serving the interests of all New Zealander’s – where the opinion from across the political spectrum is so negatively against the actions of the Police that it is now apparent they are a law unto themselves and need to be dealt with

    • framu 9.6
      5 November 2013 at 7:40 am

      at the very least thats enough to get a warrant to search their laptops and cell phones – if they are posting online, and obviously smart enough to be selective about what they post then i will bet dollars for donuts that theres incriminating evidence on their personal devices

      these kind of low lifes cant help bragging on camera

  10. vto 10
    4 November 2013 at 9:40 pm

    Why on earth do the Police need a complaint from the victim and how do the Police then lay charges in cases of murder?

    • weka 10.1
      4 November 2013 at 9:54 pm

      While on the face of what I have seen so far I believe the NZ Police have been extremely negligent here, I suspect what has happened is that they’ve not been able to get a statement from one of the women under 16, esp one much younger than the perpetrators. Not having a complaint seems irrelevant, but not having statements would make a prosecution very hard because they would be relying on the FB pages alone. I also suspect that the MSM are being their usual sloppy selves and not thinking these things through and asking the right questions. It’s all random reporting and fuck all journalism.

      • vto 10.1.1
        4 November 2013 at 9:58 pm

        I aint going anywhere near the FB page, but I understand there are admissions of crimes committed on it.

        That is evidence sufficient for a conviction in most all cases.

        • weka 10.1.1.1
          4 November 2013 at 10:20 pm

          I don’t think it is vto. If I say right now that I am sitting here smoking a big fat joint, and then I get busted on the basis of that, I can just say I lied online. It’s not a crime to lie like that. Without supporting evidence, saying shit online is not enough to prosecute someone.

          afaik the FB page is down now.

          • Pascal's bookie 10.1.1.1.1
            5 November 2013 at 7:29 am

            It would, especially if you were doing a lot of drug talk on vairious social media, be probable gorunds for getting the police all up in your phones though.

            if you were talking about how much drugs you were selling and how good they were and all the rest, would the police be in your phones? I’d say good chance of ‘yes’. maybe the police did get warrants and track these guys. We don’t know.

            • weka 10.1.1.1.1.1
              5 November 2013 at 1:32 pm

              Yes. I think there is a lot we don’t know about what the police have actually done. I appreciate they need some degree of privacy to be effective in their job, but this situation is sufficiently damaging to young people and the community that the police need to front up now and explain what the fuck they have been doing.

              • felix …
                5 November 2013 at 6:41 pm

                I think they already have. And the answer is “nothing”.

                • tinfoilhat …
                  5 November 2013 at 6:45 pm

                  You really do talk a lot of rubbish some times Felix.

                  • felix …
                    5 November 2013 at 7:05 pm

                    Then please enlighten me. What have the police said they have done?

                    • weka …
                      5 November 2013 at 7:14 pm

                      Apparently, they’ve had a team working on this for two years. You might think that that means they’ve sat in their offices doing nothing. I don’t. I want to know exactly what’s been done and by whom, because it will make it obvious to people that trust the police a lot what the problem is. Saying that the police have done nothing is a misleading, too easy copout.

                      (apologies for the pun).

                    • felix …
                      5 November 2013 at 10:31 pm

                      Well weka, in two years of knowing about these rapists they have either:

                      (a) prosecuted them, or

                      (b) done something else

                      Thing is, I don’t give a fuck about (b).

                    • weka …
                      5 November 2013 at 10:54 pm

                      For me, I want to a better analysis of the situation than “the police are crap”.

                • Murray Olsen …
                  5 November 2013 at 10:08 pm

                  They would have opened a file.

        • Mike S 10.1.1.2
          6 November 2013 at 12:15 am

          “That is evidence sufficient for a conviction in most all cases.”

          Ummm, no.

          A formal statement given to police admitting a crime is sufficient evidence. Posts on facebook aren’t.

  11. vto 11
    4 November 2013 at 9:48 pm

    Haven’t read all the comments above and the issues seem to have been canvassed all over the media. But if a few quick 2c could be added…

    – This issue has very long legs and high potential to blow up in the faces of both the police and this government. Big time.

    – The attitudes expressed by the arseholes concerned will be familiar to many males (and many females I’m sure). It is one of humankind’s most abhorrent features. It is most common in gangs. Ugly. The worldwide communication today has merely exposed it (like so many other issues).

    – Betcha we see the arseholes concerned in the news in the future – knee-capped or hung drawn and quartered. Would not like to be them at the moment – there will be some bad eggs hunting them down.

    – NZ culture has transformed at many points over the last 200 years, usually for the better. This event will hasten improvement in this area too.

  12. vto 12
    4 November 2013 at 9:49 pm

    John Key is again exhibiting his woefully inadequate and shallow nature in how he has attended to this.

    inadequate

    shallow

    woeful

  13. North 13
    4 November 2013 at 9:52 pm

    Lanthanide, you @ 1 in the Plutocrat v Populist post: I responded rather too dismissively I’m sorry. Having seen the subject of Karol’s post and read it (it’s now at lead as stipulated by you), you are completely right.

    I see this as a reflection of how spiritually and morally corrupt our society has become. Young men, good looking “now” dudes. They are powerful in the context and are thus persuaded of their “entitletment” to plunder the weak.

    Certainly according to many the right of the powerful to plunder is the new morality. It is the very foundation upon which rests neoliberalism and ShonKey Python’s cargo-cult. Even those of its practitioners who once believed that it was for the common good have been disabused in numbers. So for an excess of “self” they define their plunder as glamorous, reflective of their elevation to “more than equal”.

    Wonder if those guys who self-videod understand that they’re probably looking square in the eyes of an eight year starting point right now ? The fact of videoing and the whole Facebook thing is distinctly aggravating of course.

    Does make you wonder about the Police’s two year “hobby” investigation.

    • Lanthanide 13.1
      4 November 2013 at 9:59 pm

      You don’t need to apologise. No one should ever feel the need to apologise to me for anything they say on here.

    • Naturesong 13.2
      4 November 2013 at 10:10 pm

      North,

      This is not something new. Though the publishing of it on FB may be.

      When I was at school in the 80’s there were boys at my school who did this, and bragged about it. The girls who suffered were branded as sluts and had to change schools.
      There were much publicised pack rapes by gangs at that time.

      More recently (in the last 5 years), there have been a pack of boys around Pt Chev. doing this as well.

      The acceptance of this behaviour, or at least the feeling that nothing can be done about it, I’ve known all my life.

      I’m 45.

      • vto 13.2.1
        4 November 2013 at 10:16 pm

        Yes, it will be familiar to many people, as mentioned above. It is as old as humanity. Like murder, infanticide, on it goes …… one of humanity’s very ugly sides

        The reaction is due to its super-wide publicity.

        The super-wide publicity may bring about change for the better too though….. like the dangerous intersection that doesn’t get fixed until someone gets killed.

      • weka 13.2.2
        4 November 2013 at 10:25 pm

        I’m a similar age Naturesong. I had a friend in my mid-teens who was pack raped at a party while very drunk. It was years before we talked about it in terms of rape.

        “There were much publicised pack rapes by gangs at that time.”

        Yeah, but betting that they were proper gangs, hated by society. And that no-one was talking publicly about the school boys doing it. In my friend’s case the boys were all ‘normal’ middle-NZ guys.

        Rape is what Other people do, people who are distinctly different from us, not our brothers or mates or sons.

        • Naturesong 13.2.2.1
          4 November 2013 at 10:52 pm

          “Yeah, but betting that they were proper gangs, hated by society”

          Correct.

          Though they were happening at similar times, mid 80’s.

          One caused outrage, the other shamed the victems.

  14. weka 14
    4 November 2013 at 10:45 pm

    Idiot Savant, in reply to Rageaholic, About 8 hours ago

    “I genuinely don’t understand why no charges can be laid unless a victim makes a complaint.”

    Well, it makes it very difficult to bring a successful prosecution in a rape case (and its difficult enough when the victim is willing to testify, because rapists love to put their victims on trial). But given what’s been said publicly, they should be able to start with conspiracy to commit rape (7 year sentence) and move on from there.

    http://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/hard-news-narcissists-and-bullies/?p=299996#post299996

  15. sarah54 15
    5 November 2013 at 3:05 am

    This truly is an appalling case. Which is why we start changing our laws to make a serious effort to stamp out rape and rape culture once and for all: If a woman or girl says she has been raped, we accept her word for it and do not entertain any argument that the sex was consensual, as I’ve posted elsewhere.

    While I understand that it won’t directly solve this case, what it will do is make victims of cases such as this much more willing to come forward, because all they will have the confidence to know that if they do come forward, their word will be taken as fact by the justice system. They won’t be further slut-shamed by the justice system and the only legal avenue for the perpetrators to prove that they are not guilty will be to show that they were mistakenly identified (obviously this cannot happen in this case since the perpetrators have pretty much identified themselves).

    So that’s my proposal. If a woman says she was raped by a man, then she was raped by that man. That is all we need to know. A simple solution with absolutely no drawbacks, since false allegations are so rare they are pretty much non-existent, and all are discovered before they go to trial.

    I hope this idea gains support here an elsewhere, and if so maybe we will gain momentum to have the law changed. And for those of you who say this is treating rapists as “guilty until proven innocent”, I say rubbish – this is simple accepting a woman’s word as proof of guilt.

    • Not Another Sheep 15.1
      5 November 2013 at 3:30 am

      And if a man or a boy says he was raped by/sexually abused/ assaulted by a man or a woman, boy or girl; then “he was” too ?

      Big police SAT team hui in Wellington already this year. They are well onto it !

    • Lanthanide 15.2
      5 November 2013 at 7:31 am

      No. What you’re suggesting offends the basic principles of justice. There are no other crimes where an accusation is as good as a conviction, which is what you’re proposing.

      You definitely would be overhauling the existing rape culture, but you’d be replacing it with another where an accusation of rape is used as a weapon, rather than the current culture where rape itself is used as a weapon.

      Sure, at the moment there are very few false allegations, but in the system you’re proposing, there definitely will be because the only defense you’re allowing the accused is mistaken identity.

      The current system definitely needs to be overhauled and made much fairer and safer for the victims, but what you’re suggesting is not justice either.

      There is a bit of a weird ethical situation here, because I don’t doubt for a second that your proposed regime would actually see significantly less aggregate harm done on society than what we currently have, so in that sense it should be welcomed. But fundamentally what you’re suggesting isn’t justice.

      • KJT 15.2.1
        5 November 2013 at 8:45 am

        No question that, on the face of it, those boys should get jail time for what they did.

        But. Abrogating laws of evidence, repressing free speech, people should be allowed to condemn themselves out of their own mouth, and assuming that witnesses identification or statements are always correct is not the answer.
        Havn’t we just had an accused rapist freed because DNA evidence showed it could not possibly have been him.

        Bringing attitudes out into the open and changing young peoples perception and care for each other is!

    • emergency mike 15.3
      5 November 2013 at 1:56 pm

      “A simple solution with absolutely no drawbacks, since false allegations are so rare they are pretty much non-existent, and all are discovered before they go to trial.”

      While it’s obviously very difficult to get any meaningful statistics on false accusations of rape, that doesn’t mean that the are ‘so rare they are pretty much non-existent, and all are discovered before they go to trial.’

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape

      No drawbacks? You want a society where any woman has the power to destroy any man’s life any time she wants? Sorry sarah, but female psychopaths do exist. There are documented cases of women who falsely accuse men of rape on a serial basis. (There’s this thing called google.) Do you think there would be more if we did as you say? Mmm I think yeah, probably.

      As others have said, this goes against our concept of justice, innocent until proven guilty is there for a reason. Because even if it means that sometimes the guilty get off, that’s better than innocent people having their lives destroyed without proof. One person making an accusation is not proof, not even if it’s a woman.

      I agree that this case shows that something is flawed in our justice/police system, but this is not the solution.

      • Chooky 15.3.1
        5 November 2013 at 2:45 pm

        +1…guilt must be proven in a court of law

      • weka 15.3.2
        5 November 2013 at 3:06 pm

        Mike, while I agree with you generally (but no absolutely), I have to take issue with this

        “You want a society where any woman has the power to destroy any man’s life any time she wants?”

        As opposed to the current situation where any man has the power to destroy any woman’s life any time he wants? Why would reversing that be so bad?

        I think sarah is wrong, although I appreciate her comments because they make the issues starkly visible. But your argument is not the right one to comabt it because you are essentially saying that men’s safety is more important than women’s. We already knew that.

        I think Lanth’s last paragraph on ethics is most astute.

        Sarah,

        “If a woman says she was raped by a man, then she was raped by that man. That is all we need to know. A simple solution with absolutely no drawbacks, since false allegations are so rare they are pretty much non-existent, and all are discovered before they go to trial.”

        The problem here is that not all women know which man raped them, and sometimes women make mistakes ie the rape allegation isn’t false, but the identity of the rapist is wrong.

        There used to be a prominent NZ QC who suggested that rape trials be the one situation where the defendent wasn’t presumed innocent until proven guilty, that a different approach was used. I’d like to see discussion about how to change how law is tried so that the process is more equitable for victims and society. Rape seems a singularly distinct crime, from all others, and it’s worth looking at why. I think there are connections between how our justice system was set up and why rape is so hard to try ie if women had set up the justice system we would have different kinds of rape trials. I think this is a better path to explore than using the current system but just making women’s testimony absolute.

        • emergency mike 15.3.2.1
          5 November 2013 at 5:20 pm

          “Mike, while I agree with you generally (but no absolutely), I have to take issue with this

          “You want a society where any woman has the power to destroy any man’s life any time she wants?””

          You take issue with that? So you do want a society where any woman has the power to destroy any man’s life any time she wants? Each to their own I guess.

          “As opposed to the current situation where any man has the power to destroy any woman’s life any time he wants?”

          Wait what? Did we legalize rape? Anyone has the power to destroy anyone’s life – stab someone in the chest, poison their coffee, etc. However those things are illegal, there are consequences if you do it. Like rape is illegal, and like falsely accusing someone of rape is illegal, if you get caught there are consequences.

          But Sarah is talking about giving women the right to make their accusation of rape unquestionable and consequence free legal evidence of rape, whether it’s true or not. One could falsely accuse someone of rape, send them to jail, have have them be a ‘rapist’ for the rest of their life, no questions asked. That’s ridiculous.

          “Why would reversing that be so bad?”

          My comment was specifically to Sarah’s suggestion, you seem to be talking about the wider issue of how we currently deal with rape. I absolutely agree that the current situation is badly flawed. Would I like to see a system that better protects the victims put it place? Yes. Is Sarah’s suggestion the way to do it? No.

          I’m not sure what you mean exactly by ‘reversing that’ since you said you disagree with Sarah, so I fail to see how you can accuse me of doubting the merits of ‘reversing that’.

          “you are essentially saying that men’s safety is more important than women’s”

          No, I’m saying that ‘innocent until proven guilty’ is the cornerstone of our justice system for good reasons and we should keep it.

          • weka 15.3.2.1.1
            5 November 2013 at 6:39 pm

            Don’t be a reactive dick. You appear to be saying that the current state of affairs is preferable to changing it so that men are disadvantaged but women aren’t. Read Lanth’s comment above and then come back and talk about what’s fair.

            “As opposed to the current situation where any man has the power to destroy any woman’s life any time he wants?”

            Wait what? Did we legalize rape? Anyone has the power to destroy anyone’s life – stab someone in the chest, poison their coffee, etc. However those things are illegal, there are consequences if you do it. Like rape is illegal, and like falsely accusing someone of rape is illegal, if you get caught there are consequences.

            You really have no idea what you are talking about if you think how rape gets dealt with has any comparison with other crimes, esp murder. By far the majority of rape goes unpunished and unnoticed expect by the victim and those closest. Most rapists don’t face consequences. Please educate yourself before you start making such frankly stupid comparisons in conversations about rape and rape culture.

            “you are essentially saying that men’s safety is more important than women’s”

            No, I’m saying that ‘innocent until proven guilty’ is the cornerstone of our justice system for good reasons and we should keep it.

            Yep, and I don’t particularly disagree in general, but feel free to respond to my points about rape being a different kind of crime (whilst I didn’t agree with sarah). If you hold ‘innocent until proven guilty’ as the most important thing here, then you are saying that men are more important than women (because that’s how that principle of justice plays out in the real world).

            • emergency mike 15.3.2.1.1.1
              5 November 2013 at 7:46 pm

              “Don’t be a reactive dick.”

              I’m reactive but you’re the one calling me names? Irony much?

              “You appear to be saying that the current state of affairs is preferable to changing it so that men are disadvantaged but women aren’t.”

              Nope, I’m saying that Sarah’s suggestion is not the remedy for the current state of affairs. I’m not sure how much clearer I can make this for you. I’ve said more than once now that I’d like to see a system which fairer for and better protects the victims. But I’m not claiming to have a good idea about what that would look like. As you said, some discussion would be good.

              My comments were in the context of arguing against Sarah’s suggestion. You took them out of that context, made up some weird strawman about how I think rape is treated compared to other crimes, and then called me more names. Good fun. Let me reassure you: I didn’t mean to imply anything at all about the conviction rates for rape compared to other crimes. Here I’ll rephrase that if you really want:

              “However those things are illegal, there are consequences if you get convicted. Like rape is illegal, and like falsely accusing someone of rape is illegal, if you get convicted there are consequences”

              All better?

              “If you hold ‘innocent until proven guilty’ as the most important thing here, then you are saying that men are more important than women (because that’s how that principle of justice plays out in the real world).”

              I don’t think so. I think the problem is that the police/justice system does not have a good way of dealing with rape cases that is fair to both the victim and the accused. Due to the psychological trauma involved for the victim, we should give a better way of proceeding in rape cases. Yes, differently to other kinds of crime. But the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ isn’t the culprit and doesn’t have to be sacrificed. And I for one would like to see neither men nor women disadvantaged.

              • weka …
                5 November 2013 at 8:12 pm

                You do realise that I largely agreed with your original comment, with the exception of one sentence that I thought bore analysis?

                “All better?”

                No. It’s not valid to compare rape with other crimes, because rape doesn’t get treated like other crimes irrespective of what you discuss in the abstract.

                Making some changes to how rape trials are conducted would be good for sure, but I can’t see how you can do that without changing the advantage given to men via the ‘innocent’ principle. If you can see a way, please post it. This doesn’t mean throwing the principle out completely, but the value of what sarah wrote was that it points out how extreme this situation is for women and how completely lame society is at dealing with it. Again, I point to Lanth’s comment, and that yes if sarah’s idea were adopted (for rape cases) it would be unfair on men, but fairer on women, and on balance less damage would be done. You argue no to that, hence my view that you think that men are more valuable than women. I’m sure you don’t WANT it to be that way, but that’s the way it is under what you argue.

                • emergency mike …
                  5 November 2013 at 11:46 pm

                  I do realise that we are largely in agreement about the main points weka – the current system is not working and is unfair to women, but innocent until proven guilty can’t be abandoned. I just think that given that problems seem to be based around a hugely dated patrichial view about how to respond to this crime, there must be a solution which is fair, or at least fairer, to both victim and accused.

                  I don’t have the answers and I haven’t claimed to.

                  I feel like you think there is some kind of men/women ‘fairness’ scale, I think that’s a false dichotomy, this is a problem for the whole community. And if there is anything good to this roastbusters thing, it’s that people are talking about exactly this. That the status quo is crazy, something has to change if we really want to call ourselves a civilized society. (Oh that’s right, John Key’s gonna sort it with his cyberbullying law. Great.)

                  As for Lanth’s comment, I don’t think it would be ‘unfair’ on men, I think it would be an obscene injustice if someone could point the finger and say “He raped me.” and with no further evidence a man goes to jail for years and is a ‘rapist’ for life. Also ‘on balance less damage would be done’ is an blithe opinion unbacked by any argument. What would the social ramifications of sarah’s law be? Because I don’t agree with Lanth that means I think ‘men are more valuable’? Really? Or maybe I just think there must be a better way?

                  But back to our slavishly pedantic and largely pointless argument about ‘comparisons’. I said that rape, like murder, is illegal, and if convicted there are consequences. That’s not a comparison, that’s a statement of fact. I was making a point, you took it out of context, and tried to make it about something it wasn’t.

                  • weka …
                    6 November 2013 at 12:10 am

                    Ok, thanks for clarifying.

                    I don’t think it’s just the justice system that is the problem here, it’s the rape culture so deeply embedded in all sectors of society.

                    “As for Lanth’s comment, I don’t think it would be ‘unfair’ on men, I think it would be an obscene injustice if someone could point the finger and say “He raped me.” and with no further evidence a man goes to jail for years and is a ‘rapist’ for life.”

                    I agree, it would be an obscene injustice. But that is what happens to many women all the time. Their lives get destroyed in that way, and sweet fuck all is being done about it. So, just making some figures up here, let’s say with sarah’s idea we might have ten men per year wrongly imprisoned for rape. Compared to say 1,000 women raped with no chance of justice under the current system. Do you get it yet? Why are those ten men more important than those 1,000 women?

                    It’s not a false dichotomy. This is a VERY gendered issue, and the reason the above example exists is because our whole society, including our legal and justice systems, is structured so that the ten men are more important than the 1,000 women.

                    So to go back to your sentence ““You want a society where any woman has the power to destroy any man’s life any time she wants?” Do you see now why I reversed it? Because the situation that you find so obscene for men already exists for women. I want to know why it would be so terrible to reverse it.

                    • emergency mike …
                      6 November 2013 at 1:10 am

                      “I don’t think it’s just the justice system that is the problem here, it’s the rape culture so deeply embedded in all sectors of society.”

                      I totally agree, the way we currently deal with rape cases is sadly influenced by said culture.

                      weka, I’m not saying that the many women who are raped and let down by a justice system that is stacked against them are not the victims of a gross injustice. But sarah’s law is madness. Without even the appearance of justice, you’re heading for societal breakdown, forget civilized society.

                      Your made up figures are the same kind of Ethics 101 dilemma as ‘would you murder one man to save two? five? ten?’ Some of us don’t see easy answers to such questions. You want to talk about things that you can’t compare I think your 10 men vs 1000 women is one such.

                      “I want to know why it would be so terrible to reverse it.”

                      Again I’m a bit confused here. You’ve said you don’t agree with sarah’s law, but you want me to tell you why we shouldn’t ‘reverse it’. If you want me to argue against it then I have to ask what ‘reverse it’ entails exactly if not sarah’s law. The two situations you want to ‘swap’ are apples and oranges.

                      If you want me to imagine that men are the rape victims and women are the rapists and the system is skewed in their favour in just the same way, then sure, they are morally equivalent. Otherwise I’m not sure what you want.

          • QoT 15.3.2.1.2
            5 November 2013 at 10:30 pm

            So you do want a society where any woman has the power to destroy any man’s life any time she wants?

            It has been a fucking long day full of fucking rape proponents (at this stage I’m canning the word “apologist” as too moderate) so all I can say is: yeah, mike. That’s exactly it. Enjoy living in our fucking world.

            • emergency mike 15.3.2.1.2.1
              5 November 2013 at 11:51 pm

              I’m sorry you’ve had a busy day ‘n all QoT, but I’m not sure what your point is exactly.

    • Mike S 15.4
      6 November 2013 at 12:21 am

      “since false allegations are so rare they are pretty much non-existent”

      Ummm, no.

  16. Tracey 16
    5 November 2013 at 6:44 am

    Lanth

    a facilitator would be a parent bring uo children in an environment where women are under valued and seen as less-than men. Where boys learn women are weak and useless and most of their bad behaviour is boys being boys… and even applauded.

    I was appalled to see the police officer on tv saying in the end the girls have to give evidence and it wont be nice. He should just have been encouraging them to talk to the police and take it from there. I woukdnt have pressed charges based on what he said.

    bm

    sorry but what shit. Women and girls have been raped and gang raped long before gangsta stuff.

    my own sexual violation at age 11 was by a white man aged about 60 who was a granddad figure to us.

    my friend was raped from the age of 5 to 11 by her older brother. White and children of a school dp and teacher. That was also in the 70s.

    this incident is horrific. Most if not all victims of rape and sexual assault feel ashamed and that it was their fault. Hence they keep quiet. By publicising it the young men have raped them twice. I hope all the victims are on suicide watch.

    I also dont understand why the police didnt follow the ring leaders to get evidence.

    IF the actual raping is not recorded that cld be why the police cant act. Young men can claim what they like but its not evidence if in court they retract.

    I am appalled by the pm and collins equating it to their cyber bullying campaign. The young men dont need to grow up they need serious re-programming and the beginning of learning to face consequences. And some pressure put on their parents wouldn’t hurt.

    • felix 16.1
      5 November 2013 at 8:21 am

      “I was appalled to see the police officer on tv saying in the end the girls have to give evidence and it wont be nice. He should just have been encouraging them to talk to the police and take it from there. I woukdnt have pressed charges based on what he said.”

      Of course not, what he did was a deliberate threat. Live on tv. He should be charged with intimidating witnesses and obstruction of justice.

  17. Ad 17
    5 November 2013 at 6:52 am

    NZHerald reports one of the males was fired from his job as a result.

    That’s a nice blunt instrument for business to use to show its disapproval, other than criminal section.

    Hopefully they all lose their jobs.

    Another step would be for the Minister of Social Development to issue a directive that anyone caught doing this on Facebook (Twitter, Vine etc) will have their benefits stopped.

  18. RedBaronCV 18
    5 November 2013 at 7:07 am

    And the Herald managed to ignore and minimise the main issue – how could somebody possibly write this story and for it then to go through all the various edit layers- and then be printed – and nobody there noticed and said anything. What sort of culture does the place have?

  19. Tracey 19
    5 November 2013 at 7:13 am

    Some things bear repeating

    They were underage, so its rape.They were stupefied so its rape.They filmed their victims, so its child pornography.They put pictures up on social media sites, so its distribution of child pornography.They not only admitted to all this, they wore what they did as a badge of honor.They should be in jail right now and be listed as a child sex offender.

    brett please send this to the pm and the justice minister

  20. Pascal's bookie 20
    5 November 2013 at 7:26 am

    Posted this in open mike too, but please read these thoughts about what to do with your justified anger around this:

    http://thehandmirror.blogspot.co.nz/2013/11/the-baying-mob-or-how-i-carry-torch.html

    It’s not just one case. Forming a mob and hounding this case until it’s over one way or another won’t fix anything. these guys are not victims by any stretch, but they aren’t the whole problem.

    • karol 20.1
      5 November 2013 at 8:40 am

      Thanks, pb. I’ll add a link to it in my post.

      • weka 20.1.1
        5 November 2013 at 8:51 am

        Karol, any chance that Hand Mirror post can go up as a guest post? Very important post and it would be good if it got wide exposure. Not sure who manages the guest posts at ts, I’ll try emailing Lynn later too.

        • karol 20.1.1.1
          5 November 2013 at 9:00 am

          weka, I have never had anything to do with organising guest posts. emailing Lynn is probably seems a good way to go about it.

  21. anarcho 21
    5 November 2013 at 7:53 am

    Sure it is the system of rape culture in action…. but…

    I forwarded this tragedy to ‘anon’ hackers with a plea that they put their very effective spotlight on these boys – if the systems ‘justice’ fails then the community needs to act.

    Baying mobs achieve.

    • grumpy 21.1
      5 November 2013 at 9:20 am

      Dunno about “rape culture” but is sure appears that some “cultures” (such as gang culture) have rape as part of their “culture”.

      • weka 21.1.1
        5 November 2013 at 1:38 pm

        You obviously haven’t been paying attention grumpy. Yes gangs have rape as part of their culture, so do white boy rugby clubs and boarding schools. Rape is (predominantly) something that men do to people they have power over. The common denominator is gender and power relations, not ethnicity (although the ways that rape culture plays out varies from culture to culture).

  22. Win 22
    5 November 2013 at 8:03 am

    Didn’t they get Teina Pora on his word alone? I guess it just depends who you are.

    • grumpy 22.1
      5 November 2013 at 9:15 am

      No, it just depends if you make a confession. Hardly incomprehensible that if you confess to a crime you become a suspect? FFS

      • thatguynz 22.1.1
        5 November 2013 at 10:27 am

        No-one ever gets coerced into making a confession do they? ffs..

        • idlegus 22.1.1.1
          5 November 2013 at 2:24 pm

          bragging about stupefying young girls & giving other boys advice on how to ‘spit roast’ (first one guy starts, then the other sneaks in!) isnt some kind of confession? i see one guy lost his job, now with employers doing quick google searches on ppl before the employ then then these lads futures are stuffed. im amazed at how stupid they are online, the drug pics, the bragging, … you gotta be so careful about how much you share on the web.

  23. Tracey 23
    5 November 2013 at 8:13 am

    Pascals b

    I for one need no convincing this is not the story but rather the attitudes still held toward women and girls. Men have been raping women for millenia.

    people like bm shows how far we have yet to come… he thinks women have achieved full equality and then their are the people and parents who say derogatory things about wonen in front of their children say its just a joke… but children are more literal than that.

    • grumpy 23.1
      5 November 2013 at 9:16 am

      Hey, if you generalise as much as possible it all just becomes some great political bullshit fest – eh?

      • Pascal's bookie 23.1.1
        5 November 2013 at 9:20 am

        Instead of mindlessly slagging people off, why don’t you say what you are hinting at Grumps?

        • grumpy 23.1.1.1
          5 November 2013 at 9:24 am

          Thought it was clear. At the start of this thread the discussion was pretty straight to the point, the further it goes, the more generalised it gets until it just becomes a political wankfest and the original issue gets diluted to irrelevance.
          These women deserve better.

          • Pascal's bookie 23.1.1.1.1
            5 November 2013 at 9:33 am

            People are discussing why these things happen. They don’t happen becuase of isolated events. They are not isolated events. They are manifestations of really prevalent parts of society.

            it is a social problem. That’s worthy of discussion.

            • pollywog 23.1.1.1.1.1
              5 November 2013 at 11:43 am

              Ah yes, so in the wider context of culture and evolution…

              Has rape culture always existed or has it evolved ?

              • Rogue Trooper …
                5 November 2013 at 11:46 am

                latent

              • Tat Loo …
                5 November 2013 at 12:12 pm

                Has rape culture always existed or has it evolved ?

                Records of war rape and the usual conduct of armies of raping, pillaging and burning as they go have been around for a very very long time, back to the days of Homer and before.

              • Rogue Trooper …
                5 November 2013 at 12:19 pm

                as the schematic illustrates, prevailing social conditions excite, or inhibit, the penetration expressed.

              • weka …
                5 November 2013 at 1:46 pm

                “Has rape culture always existed or has it evolved ?”

                Some people believe that rape at the levels we see it now is a manifestation of the patriarchy (so around 5,000 years). This is based on the idea that rape is about power and control (which is why rape is so common during war). It makes sense to me that the more egalitarian a culture is, the less rape there is, and I don’t have a problem believing that rape is a relatively recent thing in terms of human evolution. I’m sure there has always been isolated instances of rape, but I don’t see the evidence that rape is a common phenomena across all cultures and all time.

                • Chooky …
                  5 November 2013 at 2:29 pm

                  +100….”a manifestation of the patriarchy” ….good points weka….

                • Robert M …
                  5 November 2013 at 3:34 pm

                  Bullshit. The military have always fought with their cocks as well as guns. The only difference between the SS and the German Army were the SS were selected as to be sufficiently good looking that ethnically and racially (sic) desirable women would remove their clothes and voluntarily have sex with them as soon as they arrived as conquerors. The strategy seemed to work in France, Holland, Roumania and the Baltic States. In France 8 million French citizens are now German possibly advancing European unity and peace more than the EEC. In reality many seemed to be attracted by the SS, elements of the NZ Maori army were apparently keen to sign up with the SS as long as they had the use of the SS Brothels.
                  Invasions have usually had an evolutionary effect, as did the British arrival in Tahiti and NZ.
                  There seems little difference between the roasters and any British rock group arriving in Australasia or the US in the 1960s or 1970s. Apparently hundreds of 14/15 years old girls were directed into the arms of Jagger, Wyman and Jones in Sydney and Melbourne hotels in 1964/5 and they were even out on the trawl in Invercargill
                  It would seem to me that most young men are highly sexed particularly if they are intelligent and the sexual activity comes out one way or another. In many of the good and second line , UK public schools most of the 13/14 yrs were raped by staff and the older boys ( eg nb Peter Cook bio- re Repton Public School and reflect on the general darkness at schools like Eton and Loretto were these activities peaked in the late 1940s. The introduction of women into public schools and the RN was to give the boys something softer to rape than their fellows. Actually although these things were probably only common in NZ at Kings, Christs and various Maori, Catholic and SW institutions. The propensity of rock stars, racing drivers and actors to have sex with 30/40 partners a night seems not unusual and has probably been typical since Roman and Greek Times. Apparently when Ronald Reagan was an advance man for GE in the states in 1950s the average female industrial worker was inclined to strip the moment he walked into the factory.
                  So I just think its exraordinary hypocrisy, crap from the feminists, anti men and headmasters. The idea that girls should not have sex before their 16 seems ludicrous and one would suggest male health declines if they don’t have sex by 17.

                  [karol: your first sentence was on the right track, but your comment was all downhill from there. Rape and consensual sex are two totally different things, which you are confusing. You seem keener to accept rape happens when it is males that are the victims. If you are incapable of learning the facts of rape and rape culture, any more comments like this will be deleted from this thread.

                  The hypocrisy is all yours]

  24. Tracey 24
    5 November 2013 at 8:21 am

    Win

    two young men have gone to the cops. If they confess in a formal interview like teina paul charges will be laid… I suspect the parents of some will be pressing for reduce charge for evidence against others.

    one girl has already attempted suicide…

    now turn your minds to the rape and sexual assaults committed everyday in nz with no reporting or charges.

    lets focus on how as a society we can change our talk and our actions so no victim feels they cant come forward. Vengeance may make some fathers feel better but it does nothing for victims.its about predominantly male power and violence those baying for blood are on the same spectrum as the rapist… just at the other end…

    it is not about how WE feel its about the victims

    • grumpy 24.1
      5 November 2013 at 9:14 am

      This is more about the evolving of an abhorrent culture, mainly in Auckland. There are specific issues here, some to “sensitive” for some to stomach. I find the lack of action by police very disturbing but also the attempts by some to deflect the responsibility and underlying causitive factors.

      [karol: it is you who are attempting to deflect away from the underlying causative factors – the wider rape culture. You are on a warning]

  25. uke 25
    5 November 2013 at 8:44 am

    So it emerges that one of the ringleaders is the son of a police officer:

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11151474

    Wonder if he bragged about this to his victims to stop them complaining to police? Another reason why none of the girls have been “brave enough” to lay formal charges…

  26. grumpy 26
    5 November 2013 at 9:11 am

    This is crazy. How can this be tolerated for so long in a decent society? I can understand the vigilante threats as it seems to only way these women will recieve any form of justice.

    However, from a lot of the comments on this thread, it appears many are only interested in this topic for political reasons. Their concern runs shallow and hopes of a constructive discussion doomed to failure.

    • Pascal's bookie 26.1
      5 November 2013 at 9:16 am

      Discuss away.

      here’s something to start with:

      https://medium.com/ladybits-on-medium/4c854eb591a5

      Lots of food for thought there about culture, and who needs to fix it.

      • grumpy 26.1.1
        5 November 2013 at 9:21 am

        Thanks for proving my point.

        • Pascal's bookie 26.1.1.1
          5 November 2013 at 9:23 am

          What point?

          Are you not being political Grumps? What is this sensitive issue that you think needs to remain unspoken.

          make your fucking point already.

          • grumpy 26.1.1.1.1
            5 November 2013 at 9:28 am

            Yeah, look how some commenters turned on poor old BM a bit further up for having the audacity to make the startlingly obvious comment that maybe, just maybe, the growing Auckland “Gangsta” culture might, just might, have something to do with this.
            Whine away if you like but to pretend otherwise just exposes those as politically motivated fuckwits just using these women’s plight to push a political philosophy and hide “inconvenient truths”.

            [karol: you are on a warning. It is you who are avoiding the politically inconvenient truth that you seem unwilling to face – rape culture is everywhere. Gangsta culture is a sub-set set of the wider rape culture. And your line is one that is an attempt to stifle that “inconvenient truth”. The evidence is everywhere. Any more along that line and such comments will be deleted from this thread.

            You have no idea of the way rape culture, along with the explicit examples and threats of rape, work to intimidate and silence women. Sometimes it’s time to stand up and say ENOUGH!.

            Here’s a clue, grumpy – maybe you could try listening/reading and taking notice of what many women say, like the one Pb linked to, instead of pushing your own, hands-over-ears, political agenda.]

            • fender 26.1.1.1.1.1
              5 November 2013 at 9:34 am

              Yeah poor BM, how unfair he gets a tune-up for being a racist prick.

            • Pascal's bookie 26.1.1.1.1.2
              5 November 2013 at 9:35 am

              Well he didn;t say ‘might just might’ or ‘maybe’ or anything like it. he said that gangsta culture was all it is about. That there is nothing to see here but black people.

              Why is that generalisation ok, but other generalisations not, Grumpy?

              • grumpy …
                5 November 2013 at 9:40 am

                Yep fender and PB. I just looked through the Roast Busters facebook pages and one thing does jump out. There’s a lot of poor bastards that can’t write, have their baseball caps on backwards and cover their bodies with scribbles.
                There also seems to be quite a few blaming the victims.
                Not all of them are male either.

                • Pascal's bookie …
                  5 November 2013 at 9:43 am

                  Clearly it’s all about hats and grammar then.

                  As you were.

                • fender …
                  5 November 2013 at 9:47 am

                  Remember the good old days before rap music when rape never occurred…Tui time Grumps.
                  Shock-horror but some rapists wear suits and listen to jazz or opera…

                  • grumpy …
                    5 November 2013 at 9:49 am

                    Agree completely. Some are also police officers…….

                    • framu …
                      5 November 2013 at 10:18 am

                      so why are you going on about gangsta culture? shit mate you cant even describe it!

                      So far you seem to think its poor grammer, badly worn hats and tattoos

                      fucks sake man

                • Tat Loo …
                  5 November 2013 at 9:52 am

                  I thought I heard on National Radio that FB had taken those pages down, grumpy.

                  • ropata …
                    5 November 2013 at 2:11 pm

                    I think the original page is gone but there are several hate pages seeking revenge on the little rapists, and a tasteless one that attempts to be funny. Excuse me while i go wash my hands…

              • BM …
                5 November 2013 at 9:56 am

                I may have been guilty of not quite covering all bases and should have mentioned young guys of all races are part of this gangsta culture.

                My apologies.

                • One Anonymous Knucklehead …
                  5 November 2013 at 10:03 am

                  You may have been guilty of not quite using any critical faculties and should have realised by now that rape culture is ubiquitous, and not confined to people who listen to music you don’t like.

                • framu …
                  5 November 2013 at 10:19 am

                  clint rickards – would you describe him as belonging to this black gangsta culture BM?

                • felix …
                  5 November 2013 at 10:26 am

                  Hi BM, let’s just revisit your original comment so everyone can see how it wasn’t really racist at all and how you just forgot to include a couple of races.

                  I disagree, it’s black gangsta culture, the same shit all the Maori, Polly boys are into.

                  • BM …
                    5 November 2013 at 10:44 am

                    How about we swap “all” with “a majority”, would that be acceptable.

                    Unfortunately I can’t really contribute to any further conversation because I’ve got to go change out the engine mounts on the car.

            • felix 26.1.1.1.1.3
              5 November 2013 at 9:38 am

              grumpy, your last sentence is a strikingly accurate description of what BM was trying to do.

              • grumpy …
                5 November 2013 at 9:47 am

                If you want to hold the police, Key and Collins to account for their inaction, then I’m your man. But………………..

            • grumpy 26.1.1.1.1.4
              5 November 2013 at 9:43 am

              Well, Karol, I just guess that having daughters and grandaughters must give me a little bit more focus on the immediate problem at hand. I accept that you have a more global perspective but my sympathies are with the abused girls and certainly with anyone who would seriously address the poor response from police and politicians.

              • miravox …
                5 November 2013 at 9:53 am

                “I just guess that having daughters and grandaughters must give me a little bit more focus …. Gangsta culture might, just might, have something to do with this”

                Maybe if you were a granddaughter or a daughter you’d know that it’s only gangsta culture because that’s the culture these girls came across. If you were in a private school it would be private school culture that created these rapists, it you were in an IT environment it would be geek culture, if you’re mates were car mechanics it would be a boy racer culture that had no respect for girls.. the list goes on and on and on and on….

              • karol …
                5 November 2013 at 9:53 am

                my sympathies are with the abused girls and certainly with anyone who would seriously address the poor response from police and politicians.

                I agree with you on this.

            • framu 26.1.1.1.1.5
              5 November 2013 at 10:16 am

              its not a black culture thing and its not an auckland culture thing – thats why BM got pounced on. He was being staggeringly thick and engaging in a gross generalisation.

              The exact thing your on here bitching about!

              Theres isnt a growing auckland gangsta culture you dick – young boys be acting all tuff and shit everywhere for ages

            • Ennui 26.1.1.1.1.6
              5 November 2013 at 12:09 pm

              K, you might as well tell me to take a flying hike as I find your statement “avoiding the politically inconvenient truth that you seem unwilling to face – rape culture is everywhere.” at total odds with my view of the human condition. I just cringe at materialist logic producing nice tidy models and labeling neatly all those considered within as defined players. This line of thinking leads inevitably to sanctioned acceptance of defined groups. They can then be “dealt with” inhumanly and with impunity by the labeling committee, dehumanised and sent to the camps. It mirrors the thinking of the perpetrators, the rapists, the power structures that rely upon violence for adherence.

              We are all individuals, we are not part of your model. It is how we as individuals interact with others and how we address being human that counts. having self awareness to be able to decide what is good, to treat others as you would be treated yourself.

              • Rogue Trooper …
                5 November 2013 at 12:12 pm

                as an aside, Simon Moore suggesting on Midday Report that the online statements of offenders (such as these pack-rapists) may be as, or more, admissible as statements given to Police.

              • McFlock …
                5 November 2013 at 12:29 pm

                Actually, I don’t mind sending rapists to a camp. We can surround it with walls and barbed wire and call it a “prison”.

              • karol …
                5 November 2013 at 12:32 pm

                Ennui, I do not agree that we are such islands on individualism, unaffected by the culture we live in. Yes we do need to take responsibility for our actions and the impact they have on others. But the route to understanding our own actions in the wider context can be a complicated one, as indicated by Scuba Nurse’s post.

                The case currently under the magnifying glass is, among other things, the example of a group action. And there’s a lot of research that shows how people get drawn into doing things in groups that they would not necessarily do on their on. These are social acts, in a social context with many contributing factors. It requires education and self awareness, based in research, to understand how such actions have become so prevalent in our society.

                I do not agree that these are isolated examples. And i do not agree that they exist in a bubble outside of the dominant culture.

                • Ennui …
                  5 November 2013 at 1:55 pm

                  Karol, I think you might read me again: at no point did I say we are unaffected by the broad and undefinable “culture” we live in, I agree we are. And yes the issue at hand is a group action specifically because we are affected by our culture (which rather proves the former point). And I agree these are not isolated incidents. You have missed the whole point: I don’t find your model and the labeling in the slightest bit useful. In fact I see inherent danger in it as I pointed out.

                  It is at this point I will concede that the bloggers all seem to be trying to address the evil that is rape: McFlock wants rapists incarcerated behind barbed wire. I want restorative justice where the perpetrator has to recognise the damage and to demonstrate empathy for the victim, to take responsibility. How else do we rebuild broken lives of victim and perpetrator? To change the “culture” with its basic building blocks : individual people.

                  • karol …
                    5 November 2013 at 2:10 pm

                    I’ve re-read it, Ennui.

                    Then I do not understand how you get from this:

                    I don’t find your model and the labeling in the slightest bit useful. In fact I see inherent danger in it as I pointed out.

                    To this:

                    I just cringe at materialist logic producing nice tidy models and labeling neatly all those considered within as defined players. This line of thinking leads inevitably to sanctioned acceptance of defined groups. They can then be “dealt with” inhumanly and with impunity by the labeling committee, dehumanised and sent to the camps. It mirrors the thinking of the perpetrators, the rapists, the power structures that rely upon violence for adherence.

                    In fact, from what you’ve written, I don’t understand what you mean by my model and labelling.

                    PS: Especially as my comments that you have quoted and bolded in your comment, refer to the general culture and not the labeling of individuals or groups within that culture.

                  • McFlock …
                    5 November 2013 at 2:15 pm

                    McFlock wants rapists incarcerated behind barbed wire. I want restorative justice where the perpetrator has to recognise the damage and to demonstrate empathy for the victim, to take responsibility

                    The two are not mutually exclusive.

                    • Chooky …
                      5 November 2013 at 2:24 pm

                      +1….I think they deserve to be incarcerated if found guilty( barbed wire wouldnt trouble me at all)

                      ….and then they must make an extended public apology to their victims and families on Facebook, or wherever the victims deem fit online.

    • TheContrarian 26.2
      5 November 2013 at 9:20 am

      Well said Grumpy. Making it political detracts from the real issue

    • QoT 26.3
      5 November 2013 at 10:35 pm

      How can this be tolerated for so long in a decent society?

      Because we don’t live in a decent fucking society for the majority of people, grumpy. You might call that statement “political” but I call it “acknowledging fucking reality”.

  27. Varity 27
    5 November 2013 at 9:34 am

    i am no fan of shonkey and am guilty of saying any old thing to have a wee dig at him …

    but i really don’t see where he’s said or done anything wrong in relation to this particularly highly emotive and sensitive story. i believe he would be as shocked and appalled as the rest of the nation about the actions of these young hoods and if he babbled a pile of twaddle when put on the spot and questioned about it then that just makes him as human as the rest of us.

    collins on the other hand (i have no link), i’ve heard implied and seemingly condoned, the “hoods”, being raped themselves in jail. as i said, i only heard it but wouldn’t be in the least surprised if something like that came from that rabid troll.

    sadly on social media – many of our countrymen are making similar comments re the hoods getting raped in jail or worse. they can’t see it makes them as bad as the offenders.

  28. Bob 28
    5 November 2013 at 9:41 am

    I am sorry Karol but do you support the GCSB bill which would allow the police to issue a warrant to invade these boys privacy to collect evidence? Otherwise this is not a case of rape until a victim comes forward and lays a complaint.
    The government and police hands are tied until there is a victim, and saying otherwise is simply politicising the issue as much as I just have which us unhelpful to the whole situation.

    This is a failure of our judicial system which puts rape victims in particular under such scrutiny that (according to stats that have been thrown around over the past 24 hours) 9/10 rape victims don’t come forward as the stress and fear of having to face their attacker in court, and having to re-live the attack is often seen as worse than just dealing with it privately and trying to move on, THIS is what is abhorrent. There needs to be a way of helping rape victims through the judicial system in a more sensitive manner. Why can’t we make exceptions for rape cases whereby the victims do not have to sit face-to-face with their attackers, where they have counsellors available to them throughout the process and both the victim and the attacker have name suppression right up until the release of the attacker from prison (at which point he goes on to a publically available sexual deviant list)?
    Maybe it is time for an advertising campaign similar to the John Kirwin depression campaign that reinforces the fact it is okay to come forward if you are a victim.
    This whole situation makes me so angry, and blatant politicising of it like you are Karol just helps to detract from the fundamental issues that need to be addressed.

    • Pascal's bookie 28.1
      5 November 2013 at 9:49 am

      The police can do a phone tap without the gcsb.

      • Tat Loo 28.1.1
        5 November 2013 at 10:16 am

        They can also do a search and seizure of hard drives without the gcsb.

        Mind you with all this fuss, I’m sure the boys have long deleted all the files they had.

        • idlegus 28.1.1.1
          5 November 2013 at 2:36 pm

          i dunno, these boys seem some kinda specially stupid, i would imagine they have left an online trail, the photos i saw of them online taking drugs & all that kinda thing will be still about somewhere, with their names & all that . (one idiot was bragging about how much morphine he shot up & there was his profile pic, him & i assume his small child! i mean how dumb is that.)

          & if the police really search those computers, they can still find things. but yes, the police should have done something a little while ago. so the police can raid news paper & media offices to search for some teapot tapes, but are not able do a search & seizure of these guys computers. big story, & been really good in some ways with ppl taking about ‘rape culture’, this could be a turning point. all we need is a leader to lead….

          • weka 28.1.1.1.1
            5 November 2013 at 11:02 pm

            “big story, & been really good in some ways with ppl taking about ‘rape culture’, this could be a turning point.”

            I’ve been thinking that all day too.

        • NickS 28.1.1.2
          5 November 2013 at 10:30 pm

          Nothing you upload to facebook is lost right away, even if you delete it and all easily available to the cops with the appropriate court order…

          • weka 28.1.1.2.1
            5 November 2013 at 11:04 pm

            Do you know if when FB close a page like they did with the rape club page, does the owner of the page lose access to all content? Or is it just hidden from view to the public and other FB users?

    • karol 28.2
      5 November 2013 at 9:51 am

      Bob, I agree there is a failure of our justice system.

      This whole situation makes me so angry, and blatant politicising of it like you are Karol just helps to detract from the fundamental issues that need to be addressed.

      There is so much contradiction in this statement I don’t know where to start. If something needs to be done, then how is it not political.

      The GCSB was fundamentally set up to protect the country and it’s people from threats outside NZ. It is (or should have) no relevance to cases of rape in NZ. What is your point in dragging this into the argument?

      This is a failure of our judicial system which puts rape victims in particular under such scrutiny that (according to stats that have been thrown around over the past 24 hours) 9/10 rape victims don’t come forward as the stress and fear of having to face their attacker in court, and having to re-live the attack is often seen as worse than just dealing with it privately and trying to move on, THIS is what is abhorrent.

      And a failure in our judicial system is NOT a political issue? And one that shouldn’t be addressed urgently by the government of the day?

      You do make some suggestions for improving the situation that are worth looking at, Bob. Your suggestion for an advertising campaign suggests the problem is wider than a broken justice system, but a deep-seated set of cultural attitudes. An advertising campaign would only scratch the surface. There needs to be a wider cultural change starting in the education system.

      • Varity 28.2.1
        5 November 2013 at 10:07 am

        i doubt very much he’s saying it shouldn’t be addressed by politicians but this is an unprecedented event so to blame a government or expect them to have answers on tap is unreasonable.

        • karol 28.2.1.1
          5 November 2013 at 10:19 am

          It’s not that unprecedented. I’ve read reports in recent years about how there’s been increasing evidence of young men deliberately getting women drunk in order to rape them. Politicians should already have been addressing the issue. Instead, our current government has been under-funding rape crisis centres, and not implementing Task Force recommendations.

          Even if the Roast Busters was unprecedented, rather than being the most extreme example or most visible evidence of such practices, I expect better answers than the ones we’ve seen from relevant ministers on the news so far.

          • Varity 28.2.1.1.1
            5 November 2013 at 10:24 am

            i’ve got like 5 minutes to get to work so no time to put this tactfully, but …

            that’s a bit like blaming George Bush for 911 unless you believe all the conspiracy theories.

            • Pascal's bookie 28.2.1.1.1.1
              5 November 2013 at 10:30 am

              I don’t think Karol was saying the government was underfunding rape centres as part of a conspiracy.

              They underfund it because they see higher priorities. If we want to fix the problem, we need to prioritise it.

              That will mean some money, but more importantly serious thought, from men, about how we talk to each other and how we bring up our boys.

              • weka …
                5 November 2013 at 1:54 pm

                They also underfund it because rape culture gives them privileges they wouldn’t have otherwise. I wouldn’t go so far as to say conspiracy (although I have no doubt at all that there are individual men in govt who actively support the withdrawal of funding from places like RC), but I do think that rape is still used as a collective tool of oppression of women, not just an individual tool.

          • Tat Loo 28.2.1.1.2
            5 November 2013 at 10:25 am

            In addition. No addressing of this issue will be complete or sufficiently effective unless there is also a thorough examination and phasing out of the massively harmful binge drinking culture that NZ society has hung on to for decades. Which includes the fact that parents need to take their share of responsibility if their 12, 13, 14 and 15 year olds are seriously abusing alcohol.

            Why so few people have remarked on this so far actually astounds me.

            • miravox 28.2.1.1.2.1
              5 November 2013 at 10:33 am

              Binge drinking culture is awful, harmful and an loosens social constraints. Agreed it needs to be challenged. But just like posting on Facebook, it’s something that is associated with rape. It doesn’t cause it.

              If booze wasn’t there people (?) would still form gangs and rape, they’d still spread the shame around the schools and other places where the victims go.

              • Tat Loo …
                5 November 2013 at 10:52 am

                But just like posting on Facebook, it’s something that is associated with rape. It doesn’t cause it.

                Which is actually fine, because when we are talking about alcohol abuse we never talk about it “causing” adverse consequences, we always talk about it being “associated” with adverse consequences, or being a “risk factor contributing to” adverse consequences. A road fatality isn’t usually said to be “caused” by alcohol, it is usually said that “alcohol was a factor involved.”

                Also I don’t think your Facebook example is quite appropriate. I’ve never seen usage of social media being identified in evidence as having an increased association with rape or sexual abuse.

                • weka …
                  5 November 2013 at 1:57 pm

                  It would be interesting to see what the rape stats are in countries without binge drinking.

                  My main problem Tat is that we are very bad at seeing things and dealing with them in isolation. I’m sure it could be done well, but until the mainstream actively acknowledges rape culture and builds prevention into its structures, the most likely thing we would see is young women being educated to keep themselves safe.

                • McFlock …
                  5 November 2013 at 2:41 pm

                  @TL: What’s this “we”?

                  There are significant semantic differences between “associated with”, “contributed to and “caused” – the first has no known causal link, the last is necessary and sufficient. Driver error might have caused the crash, and alcohol contributed to that error, but if the tyres weren’t bald and if the road weren’t soaked and if the camber hadn’t been at the wrong angle for the curve…

                  Binge drinking doesn’t cause rape.
                  There is an association with rape, but I’ve not seen any study that adequately addressed other factors for which “drinking” might be a confounding factor for other causal associations (such as being in the vicinity of rapists). For example, ISTR a college study that found a higher proportion of sexual assaults were committed at student dwelling parties where all the residents were male.

                  Like gangsta culture, I think drinking is a red herring that some folk latch on to because it fits their preconceptions. To me, the issue is rape and how we as a society minimise it and accept it as a problem, rather than addressing it front-on.

                  • Colonial Viper …
                    5 November 2013 at 3:08 pm

                    Binge drinking doesn’t cause rape.
                    There is an association with rape, but I’ve not seen any study that adequately addressed other factors for which “drinking” might be a confounding factor for other causal associations (such as being in the vicinity of rapists).

                    You sound like the National Government saying “more research is needed before concluding that alcohol is a true contributing factor to societal harms.”

                    The facts are clear and well established – there is a high degree of association and correlation between levels of intoxication and acts of violence or physical harm occurring, whether in the home or outside it, whether between strangers or between people who know each other.

                    The research which demonstrates this has been replicated over and over again across continents. It’s very easy to find. I hope it fits your “preconceptions.”

                    Dealing with alcohol abuse effectively is not going to stop all sexual violence. But it’s a bloody good start and should be part of any serious programme.

                    • McFlock …
                      5 November 2013 at 3:27 pm

                      Oh, I’m sorry, I thought we were talking about rape.

                      I think you will find a significant different between how significantly the offender is affected by alcohol in rapists vs other crime. I’m not calling them all sober by any stretch of the imagination, but if you’re near-paralytic you can still throw a punch. Maintaining an erection, on the other hand, is not so certain.

                      Funnily enough, I’ve not found too many studies that managed to get info on how drunk the woman was, how drunk the offender was, and what other confounding factors there might have been. But the one common factor in all of those situations would be exposure to at least one rapist. And being drunk is no excuse or explanation for being a rapist.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      5 November 2013 at 3:37 pm

                      You can make all the assumptions about the research that you like McFlock, but its there, and there is a vast body of it. The higher the levels of intoxication the more likely and worse the physical harm and violence that people experience.

                      As for “excuses” and “explanations” that is not what the research is centred on; it merely states association and correlation.

                    • McFlock …
                      5 November 2013 at 4:03 pm

                      and yet you presented none of it to support your point, but you say it so it must be true.

                      For example, A. Abbey(J. Stud. Alcohol, Supplement No. 14: 118-128, 2002) reviewed some literature about sexual assault and alcohol, and mentioned that “At least half of these sexual assaults involve alcohol consumption by the perpetrator, the victim or both.” The study went into descriptions about why this might be, but never mentioned the basic issue: is it associated with alcohol simply because that’s how college students socialise? Greater socialising means greater intermingling between social groups, and greater probabilities that a person will encounter a rapist.

                      But of course, if we can just blame alcohol, or gangs, or the parents, then we can ignore any responsibility that we might have ourselves.

                • miravox …
                  5 November 2013 at 5:23 pm

                  ” I’ve never seen usage of social media being identified in evidence as having an increased association with rape or sexual abuse.”

                  The Facebook page indicates that the thought processes that lead to the rapes are not spur of the moment, caused by booze, thoughts.

                  The Facebook pages may also be associated with normalising, within their own social network, what these guys are doing. In other cases that normalisation could occur through watching hardcore porn, reading lads mags, having friends who are rapists… all sorts of input.

                  Focusing on booze is not going to bring about a change in how some people think it’s ok to rape other people.

                  Having said that, I do agree we have an enormously destructive drinking culture and that needs attention too.

            • greywarbler 28.2.1.1.2.2
              5 November 2013 at 12:56 pm

              I have put up two posts and had no one comment on them. My long posts often are trying to put things in context not just vent emotion. Perhaps that is why they get
              by-passed.
              I was thinking of the strength of the alcohol lobby and the way that government assists it. And went back to Hogarth as a parallel to where we are getting today with it degrading many people’s lives.
              Gin for Sale. Drunk for a penny. Dead drunk for tuppence. Straw (bedding) free.
              http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-04112013/#comment-721712

              And on the parents role. There has been some critical comment as usual about parents not doing their job. So I’ve mentioned that social scientists say that parents may have a very small voice these days when competing with the loud media messages to the young, and its sexualisation from an early age. (Little children can’t run around naked on the beach these days because we are at once puritanical and over-sexualised and frightened of the warped in our midst.)
              http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-04112013/ #comment-721693

              And boys parents – what do they say to them about behaviour to others? Is it enough to have them do well at school and force their way into the rugby team, head butting, eye gouging, and spear tackling, and perhaps grabbing an opponents privates in a ruck? Anything goes and can be excused if it helps you win.

              What standards of behaviour and respect do the boys have for just anybody – the vulnerable, the animal, do they club the seals and sit in Court arguing they had a right for this blood lust, this bloody deed, and the child, the woman, the guy tottering towards them with a walking stick, do they kick it out from under him for a joke? And what concept do they have of their inner being, their good self, their life force, their mauri? What’s right, what’s fair, and what makes a strong, good man so that they feel respect for the self they have created

              • Colonial Viper …
                5 November 2013 at 3:11 pm

                I have read your comments mate, and they are good.

                If parents, immediate family, and extended family are not going to be around to teach youths “what concept do they have of their inner being, their good self, their life force, their mauri? What’s right, what’s fair, and what makes a strong, good man so that they feel respect for the self they have created…” then the young lads are pretty much stuffed from the start, right.

                • karol …
                  5 November 2013 at 3:26 pm

                  Ah, CV and gw, you have reminded me of when I used to teach young children a couple of decades back. I have seen boys of 5 and 6 years old, behaving in ways that can only be a copy of adult male behaviour they have witnessed, and thought was in some way cool. for instance picking up a little school milk bottle and starting to drink from it with hand on hip just like a guy drinking from a beer bottle.

                  And some of the same 5 & 6 year old boys sexually harassing girls – aggressively putting their hands up the girls skirts. Something that happened too often. Maybe not as often as the “kiss – chase” game, but enough for it to be clearly a modelling of adult male behaviour.

                  • Colonial Viper …
                    5 November 2013 at 3:49 pm

                    Yep…parental units can be the best of role models…and the worst.

                    • karol …
                      5 November 2013 at 4:11 pm

                      Actually it is not just a child’s parents that provide poor models. The milk bottle incident I described above also involved putting an arm around another boy’s shoulders and chanting. Most likely copying behaviour of a group of adult males.

                • greywarbler …
                  5 November 2013 at 4:24 pm

                  Hey CV
                  Your back, visiting. Where’s that Tat Loo who said he was your twin or something?

                  @karol
                  That mimicking of adults is a problem. My grandchild can pick up a phrase and the inflection just like a parrot. I have to tidy up my language. By the time she is 5 or 6?

              • Chooky …
                5 November 2013 at 3:34 pm

                +!00 greywarbler…your comments/musings are always well thought through!…so much so that there is really very little that one can often add….but here is my attempt

                ….to bring up a boy or girl…. takes a society …and the more caring and better that society is at respecting and supporting children /teenagers and parents …the better the chances are that they the teenagers will turn out well because they will be imbued with the values of that society ( one could ask questions about Auckland and the values of this present Nact government )

                …as a parent all I can say is that teenagers can be damned difficult !!!….Nigel Latta’s book “Before Your Teenager Drives You Crazy ” was a life saver for me….his thesis is emphatically that… physiologically as well as psychologically teenagers ain’t the full biscuit….brain development does not reach maturity until about 25 years old

                ….so parents ( even with the best will in the world and with all their best attention) cant be blamed for everything….add to this …(.reincarnationally speaking or not ) …..some kids are born wise… and some kids are born stupid….. and some kids are born for trouble ( this goes for the parents as well )

                …outside parental control… teenagers are all about raging hormones, see-sawing emotions, peer group pressure in school and out , alcohol, social experimenting, and media modelling( unsavoury ..or savoury if you are lucky)…music/ DVDs/computer games / interactive social media sites /fortran/facebook/commercial radio …..all have huge impacts …which often parents can only guess at.

                • greywarbler …
                  5 November 2013 at 4:05 pm

                  Chooky
                  +1
                  My feeling is I’m all for parents getting respect in society and from government, and being given advice to help and advise what they need as far as rules and guidelines (up to a point). Expecting parents of boys to do a better job and ensuring that boys do get a message of self-management and self-respect should be mandatory. Self respect that doesn’t rely on doing well at sport, that stands on its own legs so to speak which includes respect and understanding of others and oneself.

                  • Chooky …
                    5 November 2013 at 5:59 pm

                    greywarbler ….agree….I dont think that boys get enough encouragement to be nurturing as opposed to being destructive….i think pets and animals are a great way to encourage care in boys

                    …incidentally my son at age eight found an injured young hawk( a common Australasian falcon, that you often see dead on the side of the road)…one leg was damaged but could have been saved with antibiotics and plasters) and we cared for it over a weekend using long leather gloves and feeding it mince and got very fond of it….we took it to a city bird vet on the Monday to get its leg seen to and the woman at the desk……. young and officious , who told us her father used to shoot them….virtually whipped it out of my son’s arms citing DOC regulations….she said we couldnt have it back and even if it was cured we would not be allowed to keep it…it would be released somewhere else….I was furious but didnt have the wits to grab it back and make run for it…i complained to Doc and they gave all sorts of spurious reasons why we were not fit to look after it ( years ago New Zealanders would not have had to have permission from such bureaucracy)

                    Several years later when a young boy at Arthurs Pass threw rocks at Keas and came in for social approbrium from Doc on the front page of the Christchurch Press ….I thought how ironic this was …on the one hand they would not allow a young boy to look after a wild animal…and on the other hand, another young boy trying to make some sort of contact with wild animals ( albeit in the wrong way) was publically humiliated

                    I guess my point is that we need to treat young boys with respect and sensitivity and encourage them to be caring

                    • Chooky …
                      5 November 2013 at 6:35 pm

                      …teaching boys ( if they will let you) …and/or allowing them to cook their own meals and yours ( if you are lucky) is another good scheme ….because at a later stage they will know how to woo a girl by cooking/feeding her a lovely meal ( ha ha) …..of course this applies to girls as well ….( cooking for boys) …instead of just……

                      …and then we get down to the issue of drinking…..why is it that the French seem so refined when it comes to drinking?……for them eating and drinking are an art form to be shared with the opposite sex….an important part of socialising and intimacy and conversation

                      …it often seems in NZ that the young just drink to get out of control and/or blotto

                  • KJT …
                    5 November 2013 at 6:09 pm

                    What some schools are doing, in teaching relationships, is a step in the right direction.

                    Teenagers almost by definition are brainless and impulsive, male and female, and it can be very difficult as a parent to do anything about behaviors. Our influence is often minimal, compared with their peer group.

                    • BM …
                      5 November 2013 at 6:16 pm

                      From what I’ve heard it’s not until around 24 -26 that the human brain completes all the necessary wiring.

                      Goes along way toward explaining the appalling decision making of young people.

                    • felix …
                      5 November 2013 at 7:02 pm

                      Doesn’t explain the shit that pours non-stop out of your supposedly fully wired brain though, BM.

                    • BM …
                      5 November 2013 at 7:10 pm

                      Ha ha, I was waiting for a reply like that.

                    • greywarbler …
                      5 November 2013 at 9:35 pm

                      BM We aim to please. But your point falls down. It’s not only 24-26 or around that, that make appalling decisions.

      • greywarbler 28.2.2
        5 November 2013 at 10:17 am

        Gee Bob
        I am sorry that you feel sorry that you can’t see any way that anything should be done by the police until the apple falls into their hands. And by the way – everything that we do is related to politics. As soon as we live in groups we make political decisions on how the group should act.

        The free dictionary – The art or science of government or governing, especially the governing of a political entity, such as a nation, and the administration and control of its internal and external affairs.
        Wikipedia – Politics (from Greek: politikos, meaning “of, for, or relating to citizens”) is the practice and theory of influencing other people on a civic or individual level. More narrowly, it refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance — organized control over a human community, particularly a state.

        Years ago in Canada at La Paz I think, a Canadian Indian woman was hussled into a car by some likely lads of the neighborhood and raped and ended up dead. The whole small town knew about it but no-one liked to come forward and inform on everybody else’s knowledge. The police did very little to press for evidence. They put an advertisement in the paper asking for anyone with possible information to come forward. It took a crusading journalist to break the guilty official silence. The unofficial silence had been broken by some of the perpetrators weighed down by guilt and talking about it. I think they often were listened to by people of the town who would let them talk, and then pass on to everyday matters, archiving the information under not to be released. It was a conspiracy against this poor woman and her family and racism came into it also. Being not one of us, being from out of town, being a Canadian Indian. There were numerous aspects as to why people shouldn’t admit guilt and face the consequences.

        • greywarbler 28.2.2.1
          5 November 2013 at 11:27 am

          If anyone is interested in reading about this Le Pas (logging town) rape and murder case, that is announced as one of the most notorious in Canada – here are more links. Have a look at the fun trivia one and consider whether this shock method of getting information into the general public’s mind is one that works.

          Helen Betty Osborne in The Pas, Manitoba, died November 13 1971?
          (a strange way of getting information across- effective?)
          http://www.funtrivia.com/en/subtopics/Conspiracy-of-Silence—Murder-in-The-Pas-157915.html
          and
          http://www.ajic.mb.ca/volumell/chapter4.html
          and
          http://business.highbeam.com/435424/article-1G1-54169504/osborne-murder-case-closed-again
          Aboriginal family’s quest for truth dies as Manitoba’s Justice Department and RCMP decline to lay new charges in one of Canada’s most controversial and long-investigated killings

          She began the week speaking of closure and healing, but yesterday Cecelia Osborne found herself back at the beginning of her family seemingly endless ordeal, wondering whether she and Manitoba’s aboriginal community would ever see justice done.

          Ms. Osborne, sister of Helen Betty Osborne – the victim in one of Canada’s most controversial and long-investigated murders choked back tears as she denounced a decision by RCMP and Manitoba Justice Department officials to close the case. Their decision came after the latest renew of the 28-year-old murder, which took a fresh look at blood spatters, wiretap evidence, and photographs of the crime scene.

          But for the Osborne family, it was not enough.
          “I feet frustrated, very disappointed,” Ms. Osborne told reporters in Winnipeg, after receiving the news. “Put it this way: We’ll fight it for the next 28 years if we have to.”

          Thus begins yet another chapter in the slaying of Helen Betty Osborne, a 19-year-old aboriginal woman who was abducted, sexually assaulted, then stabbed 56 times with a screwdriver in November 1971 by four white, male attackers.
          Four suspects were eventually implicated in the case. But from the beginning, the investigation was hamstrung by unco-operative witnesses in The Pas, the northern logging town of 6,000 near where the murder occurred. While the identity of Ms. …
          and
          Pleading against parole. (residents of a northern Manitoba reserve …
          business.highbeam.com › … › Education magazines › Maclean’s‎
          Jan 29, 1996 – (residents of a northern Manitoba reserve beg board not to grant parole to … The murder is one of the most notorious in Canadian history-and last week it got more … Dwayne Archie Johnston, the convicted killer of Helen Betty Osborne from …

        • greywarbler 28.2.2.2
          5 November 2013 at 12:23 pm

          And I think it wasn’t a crusading journalist that brought the Canadian woman’s murderers to the fore so they could be confronted and tried. I think it was a policeman who still had soul and guts. And he needed them.

    • One Anonymous Knucklehead 28.3
      5 November 2013 at 9:58 am

      The police can already get a warrant to monitor people’s communications without recourse to the GCSB.

      Facilities for remote witnesses are already available.

      Karol didn’t politicise this issue. It’s already politicised. In any case this is a political forum.

  29. felix 29
    5 November 2013 at 9:49 am

    What’s with the blurred-out guy in the back seat?

    • One Anonymous Knucklehead 29.1
      5 November 2013 at 9:59 am

      He’s innocent until proven guilty?

    • karol 29.2
      5 November 2013 at 10:01 am

      Interesting. Maybe because the 2 in the front have been cooperating with the police and agreed to have the video shown on TV – the person in the back may not be cooperating and not have admitted guilt? May have not agreed to being shown on TV?

      • TheContrarian 29.2.1
        5 November 2013 at 10:05 am

        May be a witness or someone the police are talking to (or who approached the police themselves) and they don’t want the viewer to think they are part of group?

    • fender 29.3
      5 November 2013 at 10:02 am

      Maybe his dad is a cop, or like TC he just wants to stay out of it, or is just too out of it…

      • idlegus 29.3.1
        5 November 2013 at 2:39 pm

        i thought it was because he doesn’t talk, so doesn’t incriminate himself. i think in some ways the media are being very responsible with this story. (so far)

  30. greywarbler 30
    5 November 2013 at 10:02 am

    This morning on radio – The police spokesman says that police don’t want to victimise anyone (involved in the sexual porn case).

  31. vto 31
    5 November 2013 at 10:03 am

    So the police can’t lay a charge until the victim makes a complaint.

    How do police lay charges in murder cases then?

    (apologies for repeat of question above but curious if anyone knows…)

    • miravox 31.1
      5 November 2013 at 10:05 am

      “How do police lay charges in murder cases then?”

      Because they don’t dis-believe the victim?

    • karol 31.2
      5 November 2013 at 10:07 am

      I think that with a murder, they have a body or some other hard evidence to show a murder took place. With rape, the only usual evidence is from the people who were present – the victims word against that of the alleged perp. The forensic evidence most often does not provide irrefutable evidence a rape has taken place.

      • vto 31.2.1
        5 November 2013 at 10:16 am

        Not with Olivia Hope and Ben Smart – no body, no hard evidence, just a crooked copper in Rob Pope

        • Varity 31.2.1.1
          5 November 2013 at 10:58 am

          yes this is what the story should be about. the police – not the government.

          they can make a case against watson with no bodies and only manufactured evidence but they can’t make a case against these hoods with videoed confessions?

  32. Tracey 32
    5 November 2013 at 10:28 am

    Grump when your daughters or grand daughters were raped or sexually assaulted how did you react.

    how dare you accuse anyone trying to get to tge root of this behaviour to try and stop it in the future. It is you being shallow and frankly ignorant if you think this is about caps on backwards and rap music..

    in some ways we are lucky to have the internet to reveal these attitudes to women because everyday girls are being sexually abused by people who dont wear caps backwards or listen to rap music. Until that is addressed the young women you claim to champion, the one being raped as I write this or sexually assaulted while you type your reply will continue to have no voice.

    its not about YOUR reaction to one incident tgat eithat natters or will make any difference.

    no one other than me has asked about the boys parents.where were they when these young men were doing this? Where is their internet oversight… havnt they ever noticed their offsprings attitude to females or was it just their boys being boys.

    • karol 32.1
      5 November 2013 at 10:42 am

      Tracey, the point about the boy’s parents is a good one. How could they not have known about the facebook stuff? Why did they seem to do nothing about it?

      The main thing we know so far about their parents is that one parent is a police officer, and one some sort of celebrity.

      People have questioned the role of those two parents.

      I’m not a parent, and know it can be a difficult but important job. I’d like to know more about the roles of parents who have sons who rape, and pack rape. And about how parents can bring up boys to be non-rapists, to counter rape culture, and to be more empathetic and respectful of women.

      • KJT 32.1.1
        5 November 2013 at 6:17 pm

        Unfortunately teenagers are often able to pull the wool over their parents eyes.

        And whatever you have taught them it tends to be overruled by their peer group.

        You just have to hope that some of the things you told them when they were younger, stick.

        Unlike toddlers, you cannot watch and look after them 24 hours a day.

    • greywarbler 32.2
      5 November 2013 at 1:01 pm

      Tracey I referred to the boys parents too.
      http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-04112013/ #comment-721693

  33. Sable 33
    5 November 2013 at 10:31 am

    Keys and his masters in the US want to control the internet because its the only information medium that is open and free from the lies and half truths that keep these clowns in office.

    Actual abuse of people is of little interest to these people as it does not serve their interests.

    To be balanced and fair however if the police do not have enough evidence to move forward with a prosecution then that’s reality as well. If people wont confess to crimes “bending the law” to meet the demands of politicians and interest groups is also very wrong as it creates a dangerous precedent that is open to further abuse.

  34. Tracey 34
    5 November 2013 at 10:38 am

    “unprecedented event ”

    first known and publicised.

    girls are raoed and abused regularly by single and multiple perpetrator.

    Girls massively under report

    about 5% charged are convicted.

    of course its political and social.

    those of you hang wringing about this one awful example while haranging those wishing to highlight the iceberg below the tip are part of why it will happen again…. and is happening to a girl or woman right now.

    Labelling a desire to get a solution to all rape and abuse of children political, as a negative thing, is worse than shortsighted.

    • Rhinocrates 34.1
      5 November 2013 at 1:22 pm

      The etymology of the word itself reveals that it is political. It’s original meaning is to seize or plunder (hence the birds called raptors – because they seize prey in their claws) – ie., to treat women as property to be taken.

      In a lot of classical and renaissance artworks with “rape” in the title, what is depicted is usually an abduction or even an elopement, again treating the victims as property. That ingrained view of women as objects or dependents extends to Bob Jones’ recent columns and that’s just another facet of the iceberg.

      Rape is intended to humiliate and destroy the victim. The boasting on Facebook is not a record of an assault, but the continuation of the assault. The police facilitated those rapes by allowing those pages to remain up for “tactical and operational reasons”. The had absolutely no cognisance of those girls continued suffering.

      The reflexes of the vigilantes is… er, “understandable”… but it’s sadly telling that they’re offering their bounty for footage of the perpetrators being beaten rather than setting up a fund to help in the victims’ counselling. Revenge will give power to the “white knights” but will notably not help the girls, instead it keeps them as passive objects to be fought over.

      • Chooky 34.1.1
        5 November 2013 at 1:56 pm

        +1 Rhinocrates…also dont agree with the physical whipping, although can understand how parents would feel

        …..personally, i would like to see all those males found guilty put away for a time to think about what they have done , receive counselling themselves ….and then maybe videos of them in prison making abject apologies to the girls and their families…. for their crimes of misogyny, humiliation , and sexual and psychological violence ……these could be put up online….maybe on the same Facebook pages used to humiliate their victims.

    • Sable 34.2
      5 November 2013 at 1:52 pm

      Quick break out the pitch forks and the flaming torches, chuck the law and reason out the window and lets have on old fashioned style lynching.

      Whilst rape is abhorrent giving in to hysteria and hate is equally repellent and dangerous.

      • weka 34.2.1
        5 November 2013 at 2:04 pm

        I think the point is that the law and reason have not been applied hence some people wanting to take justice into their own hands.

        Giving into hysteria (very interesting choice of marginalising, gendered language btw) is NOT equally repellant and dangerous as rape by a long stretch.

        I don’t support vigilantes in general, because (a) they often aren’t listening to what the victims need and (b) they up the ante and/or reinforce domination as a valid mode of behaviour. I think in some cases they prevent offending, and in others they just perpetuate it.

  35. Rogue Trooper 35
    5 November 2013 at 11:06 am

    as uke linked Above , one of the offenders is the son of a police officer.
    Furthermore, violence begat and all that, people are offering to pay for footage of the offenders getting desserts (beaten, not whipped).

    • Ennui 35.1
      5 November 2013 at 11:35 am

      “Justice is mine, says the Lord, I will repay”…..”Let he who is without sin…..”

    • greywarbler 35.2
      5 November 2013 at 12:07 pm

      “Whilst we acknowledge it was upsetting for the victims, it was being monitored for information or evidence that would assist our investigation.”
      Police comment from report on TV3.
      The whole sentence could have been expressed like this, ‘it was being monitored for information or evidence (and some of our officers found it quite exciting but would never admit this outside our circle).

      Police managers should realise how this would look even if they are innocent. And there must be doubts about that, there have been too many scandals that have shaken faith in the cops. You can’t be innocent and cope with police work, true, but you do have to hold onto your basic standards not slide and get dirty minded and hardened by the times of unpleasantness, with some filthy stuff too, that is part of the job. Otherwise what are yah eh? Just another street sh.t.

  36. captain hook 36
    5 November 2013 at 12:16 pm

    post modernistic bullshit.
    nobody wants to do anything in case they get their hands dirty.
    it all turns to custard and nobody gives a fuck.
    too busy salivating over the salacaious details of how LB knew exactly what to do with me.
    keep it up and some geek will make a programme out of it or a short story for Radio New Zealand.

  37. Tigger 37
    5 November 2013 at 12:29 pm

    ‘Grow up’? So Mr Key, rape is something you do if you’re not ‘grown up’? There’s the rape culture right there. It’s men saying ‘this is a younger guy thing, this is guys sowing their wild oats’ blah blah blah.

    How about saying to men, as a man, stop raping. Just stop. Stop! It’s unacceptable. It’s sick. It’s wrong.

    • emergency mike 37.1
      5 November 2013 at 1:27 pm

      +1 Our PM saying effectively “Some boys get rapey and form rape clubs when they are young and stupid, but at least we have some new cyberbullying laws on the way so they won’t be able to brag about their raping so much,” just isn’t good enough.

      For an intelligent guy this further evidence that Key’s emotional intelligence is seriously retarded.

      • Rhinocrates 37.1.1
        5 November 2013 at 5:54 pm

        Key is not an intelligent guy. He’s proof of Arthur Conan Doyle’s maxim that mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself. He’s mediocre on every level (that is, one, since he has no other dimensions) and is simply possessed of an excess of smarm.

        • emergency mike 37.1.1.1
          5 November 2013 at 6:30 pm

          You’re right Rhino. I think he is intelligent in certain narrow areas, like as a politician, a debater, and a money maker (for himself). Others have commented that he is easy to underestimate, and it’s a mistake that the opposition have made time and time again, (I think they are catching on now).

          But to call him an ‘intelligent guy’ is not at all accurate since in other, more meaningful areas, he’s mediocre at best. In some ways, as I said, quite retarded.

          • Rhinocrates 37.1.1.1.1
            5 November 2013 at 7:47 pm

            Yes, in terms of empathy, he’s definitely not even mediocre, but deficient. Like Bob Jones, he has precisely one skill: making himself somewhat rich and that’s all.

  38. Tracey 38
    5 November 2013 at 12:57 pm

    Yup. Men telling men to stop raping… to stop “jokingly” denigrating women… they wont do the latter cos they consider its “pc gone wrong” …

  39. captain hook 39
    5 November 2013 at 12:57 pm

    hey this is what ultra fast broadband is for.
    [deleted]
    groovy.

    [karol: yep. Not funny.]

  40. Tracey 40
    5 November 2013 at 1:40 pm

    My comment about parentsv is in relation to now they know what their sons are involved in.

    • weka 41.1
      5 November 2013 at 9:08 pm

      Thanks Brett. It probably pays to remember that Willie Jackson thinks Clint Rickard is innocent. Jackson is a rape enabler. What interests me is that the Herald article is basically condemning Jackson and Henare, and uses a headline that names victim blaming. That’s a good sign.

  42. Treetop 42
    5 November 2013 at 8:53 pm

    Where is the funding minister?

  43. SPC 43
    6 November 2013 at 12:22 am

    The government’s cyber bullying bill only covers named people

    “He said that their practice of naming a particular young woman would be unlawful under a law the Government is about to introduce, the Harmful Digital Communications Bill.”

    The legislation needs to be extended to criminalise boasting in any public media (such as on-line) where this would be an offense against the victims of the said crime. This boasting can occur without naming the victims, such legislation would allow police to prosecute on this charge at least without even knowing who the victims were.

  44. Tracey 44
    6 November 2013 at 7:01 am

    The cyber bullying law is the red herring. The behaviour has been brought to the nations consciousness, we can thank the internet for that. Believing that this law will prevent rape or punish rapists will allow the nation to sigh and think “phew thats taken care of that”

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  • What’s the outfit you can hear going down the gurgler? Probably it’s David Parker’s Oceans Sec...
    Buzz from the Beehive Point  of Order first heard of the Oceans Secretariat in June 2021, when David Parker (remember him?) announced a multi-agency approach to protecting New Zealand’s marine ecosystems and fisheries. Parker (holding the Environment, and Oceans and Fisheries portfolios) broke the news at the annual Forest & ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    2 days ago

  • Will politicians let democracy die in the darkness?
    Bryce Edwards writes  – Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    2 days ago

  • Matt Doocey doubles down on trans “healthcare”
    Citizen Science writes –  Last week saw two significant developments in the debate over the treatment of trans-identifying children and young people – the release in Britain of the final report of Dr Hilary Cass’s review into gender healthcare, and here in New Zealand, the news that the ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    2 days ago

  • A TikTok Prime Minister.
    One night while sleeping in my bed I had a beautiful dreamThat all the people of the world got together on the same wavelengthAnd began helping one anotherNow in this dream, universal love was the theme of the dayPeace and understanding and it happened this wayAfter such an eventful day ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    2 days ago

  • Texas Lessons
    This is a guest post by Oscar Simms who is a housing activist, volunteer for the Coalition for More Homes, and was the Labour Party candidate for Auckland Central at the last election. ...
    Greater AucklandBy Guest Post
    2 days ago

  • Bernard's pick 'n' mix of the news links at 6:06 am
    The top six news links I’ve seen elsewhere in the last 24 hours as of 6:06 am on Wednesday, April 17 are:Must read: Secrecy shrouds which projects might be fast-tracked RNZ Farah HancockScoop: Revealed: Luxon has seven staffers working on social media content - partly paid for by taxpayer Newshub ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago

  • Fighting poverty on the holiday highway
    Turning what Labour called the “holiday highway” into a four-lane expressway from Auckland to Whangarei could bring at least an economic benefit of nearly two billion a year for Northland each year. And it could help bring an end to poverty in one of New Zealand’s most deprived regions. The ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    2 days ago

  • Bernard's six-stack of substacks at 6:26 pm
    Tonight’s six-stack includes: launching his substack with a bunch of his previous documentaries, including this 1992 interview with Dame Whina Cooper. and here crew give climate activists plenty to do, including this call to submit against the Fast Track Approvals bill. writes brilliantly here on his substack ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 days ago

  • At a glance – Is the science settled?
    On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
    Skeptical Science
    3 days ago

  • Apposite Quotations.
    How Long Is Long Enough? Gaza under Israeli bombardment, July 2014. This posting is exclusive to Bowalley Road. ...
    Bowalley Road
    3 days ago

  • What’s a life worth now?
    You're in the mall when you hear it: some kind of popping sound in the distance, kids with fireworks, maybe. But then a moment of eerie stillness is followed by more of the fireworks sound and there’s also screaming and shrieking and now here come people running for their lives.Does ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago

  • Howling at the Moon
    Karl du Fresne writes –  There’s a crisis in the news media and the media are blaming it on everyone except themselves. Culpability is being deflected elsewhere – mainly to the hapless Minister of Communications, Melissa Lee, and the big social media platforms that are accused of hoovering ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    3 days ago

  • Newshub is Dead.
    I don’t normally send out two newsletters in a day but I figured I’d say something about… the news. If two newsletters is a bit much then maybe just skip one, I don’t want to overload people. Alternatively if you’d be interested in sometimes receiving multiple, smaller updates from me, ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    3 days ago

  • Seymour is chuffed about cutting early-learning red tape – but we hear, too, that Jones has loose...
    Buzz from the Beehive David Seymour and Winston Peters today signalled that at least two ministers of the Crown might be in Wellington today. Seymour (as Associate Minister of Education) announced the removal of more red tape, this time to make it easier for new early learning services to be ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    3 days ago

  • Bryce Edwards: Will politicians let democracy die in the darkness?
    Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. Our political system is suffering from the ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    3 days ago

  • Was Hawkesby entirely wrong?
    David Farrar  writes –  The Broadcasting Standards Authority ruled: Comments by radio host Kate Hawkesby suggesting Māori and Pacific patients were being prioritised for surgery due to their ethnicity were misleading and discriminatory, the Broadcasting Standards Authority has found. It is a fact such patients are prioritised. ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    3 days ago

  • PRC shadow looms as the Solomons head for election
    PRC and its proxies in Solomons have been preparing for these elections for a long time. A lot of money, effort and intelligence have gone into ensuring an outcome that won’t compromise Beijing’s plans. Cleo Paskall writes – On April 17th the Solomon Islands, a country of ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    3 days ago

  • Climate Change: Criminal ecocide
    We are in the middle of a climate crisis. Last year was (again) the hottest year on record. NOAA has just announced another global coral bleaching event. Floods are threatening UK food security. So naturally, Shane Jones wants to make it easier to mine coal: Resources Minister Shane Jones ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    3 days ago

  • Is saving one minute of a politician's time worth nearly $1 billion?
    Is speeding up the trip to and from Wellington airport by 12 minutes worth spending up more than $10 billion? Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The six news items that stood out to me in the last day to 8:26 am today are:The Lead: Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 days ago

  • Long Tunnel or Long Con?
    Yesterday it was revealed that Transport Minister had asked Waka Kotahi to look at the options for a long tunnel through Wellington. State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the ...
    Greater AucklandBy Matt L
    3 days ago

  • Smoke And Mirrors.
    You're a fraud, and you know itBut it's too good to throw it all awayAnyone would do the sameYou've got 'em goingAnd you're careful not to show itSometimes you even fool yourself a bitIt's like magicBut it's always been a smoke and mirrors gameAnyone would do the sameForty six billion ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    3 days ago

  • What is Mexico doing about climate change?
    This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The June general election in Mexico could mark a turning point in ensuring that the country’s climate policies better reflect the desire of its citizens to address the climate crisis, with both leading presidential candidates expressing support for renewable energy. Mexico is the ...
    Skeptical Science
    3 days ago

  • State of humanity, 2024
    2024, it feels, keeps presenting us with ever more challenges, ever more dismay.Do you give up yet? It seems to ask.No? How about this? Or this?How about this?When I say 2024 I really mean the state of humanity in 2024.Saturday night, we watched Civil War because that is one terrifying cliff we've ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    4 days ago

  • Govt’s Wellington tunnel vision aims to ease the way to the airport (but zealous promoters of cycl...
    Buzz from the Beehive A pet project and governmental tunnel vision jump out from the latest batch of ministerial announcements. The government is keen to assure us of its concern for the wellbeing of our pets. It will be introducing pet bonds in a change to the Residential Tenancies Act ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    4 days ago

  • The case for cultural connectedness
    A recent report generated from a Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) survey of 1,224 rangatahi Māori aged 11-12 found: Cultural connectedness was associated with fewer depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms and better quality of life. That sounds cut and dry. But further into the report the following appears: Cultural connectedness is ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago

  • Useful context on public sector job cuts
    David Farrar writes –    The Herald reports: From the gory details of job-cuts news, you’d think the public service was being eviscerated.   While the media’s view of the cuts is incomplete, it’s also true that departments have been leaking the particulars faster than a Wellington ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago

  • Gordon Campbell On When Racism Comes Disguised As Anti-racism
    Remember the good old days, back when New Zealand had a PM who could think and speak calmly and intelligently in whole sentences without blustering? Even while Iran’s drones and missiles were still being launched, Helen Clark was live on TVNZ expertly summing up the latest crisis in the Middle ...
    Gordon CampbellBy lyndon
    4 days ago

  • Govt ignored economic analysis of smokefree reversal
    Costello did not pass on analysis of the benefits of the smokefree reforms to Cabinet, emphasising instead the extra tax revenues of repealing them. Photo: Hagen Hopkins, Getty Images TL;DR: The six news items that stood out to me at 7:26 am today are:The Lead: Casey Costello never passed on ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago

  • True Blue.
    True loveYou're the one I'm dreaming ofYour heart fits me like a gloveAnd I'm gonna be true blueBaby, I love youI’ve written about the job cuts in our news media last week. The impact on individuals, and the loss to Aotearoa of voices covering our news from different angles.That by ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    4 days ago

  • Who is running New Zealand’s foreign policy?
    While commentators, including former Prime Minister Helen Clark, are noting a subtle shift in New Zealand’s foreign policy, which now places more emphasis on the United States, many have missed a key element of the shift. What National said before the election is not what the government is doing now. ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    4 days ago

  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
    A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 7, 2024 thru Sat, April 13, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week is about adults in the room setting terms and conditions of ...
    Skeptical Science
    4 days ago

  • Feline Friends and Fragile Fauna The Complexities of Cats in New Zealand’s Conservation Efforts

    Cats, with their independent spirit and beguiling purrs, have captured the hearts of humans for millennia. In New Zealand, felines are no exception, boasting the highest national cat ownership rate globally [definition cat nz cat foundation]. An estimated 1.134 million pet cats grace Kiwi households, compared to 683,000 dogs ...

    Gareth’s WorldBy admin
    5 days ago

  • Or is that just they want us to think?
    Nice guy, that Peter Williams. Amiable, a calm air of no-nonsense capability, a winning smile. Everything you look for in a TV presenter and newsreader.I used to see him sometimes when I went to TVNZ to be a talking head or a panellist and we would yarn. Nice guy, that ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    5 days ago

  • Fact Brief – Did global warming stop in 1998?
    Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Did global warming stop in ...
    Skeptical Science
    5 days ago

  • Arguing over a moot point.
    I have been following recent debates in the corporate and social media about whether it is a good idea for NZ to join what is known as “AUKUS Pillar Two.” AUKUS is the Australian-UK-US nuclear submarine building agreement in which … Continue reading → ...
    KiwipoliticoBy Pablo
    6 days ago

  • No Longer Trusted: Ageing Boomers, Laurie & Les, Talk Politics.
    Turning Point: “What has turned me away from the mainstream news media is the very strong message that its been sending out for the last few years.” “And what message might that be?” “That the people who own it, the people who run it, and the people who provide its content, really don’t ...
    Bowalley Road
    6 days ago

  • Mortgage rates at 10% anyone?
    No – nothing about that in PM Luxon’s nine-point plan to improve the lives of New Zealanders. But beyond our shores Jamie Dimon, the long-serving head of global bank J.P. Morgan Chase, reckons that the chances of a goldilocks soft landing for the economy are “a lot lower” than the ...
    Point of OrderBy xtrdnry
    6 days ago

  • Sad tales from the left
    Michael Bassett writes –  Have you noticed the odd way in which the media are handling the government’s crackdown on surplus employees in the Public Service? Very few reporters mention the crazy way in which State Service numbers rocketed ahead by more than 16,000 during Labour’s six years, ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    6 days ago

  • In Whose Best Interests?
    On The Spot: The question Q+A host, Jack Tame, put to the Workplace & Safety Minister, Act’s Brooke van Velden, was disarmingly simple: “Are income tax cuts right now in the best interests of lowering inflation?”JACK TAME has tested another MP on his Sunday morning current affairs show, Q+A. Minister for Workplace ...
    Bowalley Road
    6 days ago

  • Don’t Question, Don’t Complain.
    It has to start somewhereIt has to start sometimeWhat better place than here?What better time than now?So it turns out that I owe you all an apology.It seems that all of the terrible things this government is doing, impacting the lives of many, aren’t necessarily ‘bad’ per se. Those things ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    6 days ago

  • Auckland faces 25% water inflation shock
    Three Waters became a focus of anti-Government protests under Labour, but its dumping by the new Government hasn’t solved councils’ funding problems and will eventually hit the back pockets of everyone. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The six news items that stood out to me at 8:06 am today are:The Government ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    6 days ago

  • Small accomplishments and large ironies
    Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.Share Read more ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    6 days ago

  • The Song of Saqua: Volume VII
    In order to catch up to the actual progress of the D&D campaign, I present you with another couple of sessions. These were actually held back to back, on a Monday and Tuesday evening. Session XV Alas, Goatslayer had another lycanthropic transformation… though this time, he ran off into the ...
    A Phuulish FellowBy strda221
    6 days ago

  • Accelerating the Growth Rate?
    There is a constant theme from the economic commentariat that New Zealand needs to lift its economic growth rate, coupled with policies which they are certain will attain that objective. Their prescriptions are usually characterised by two features. First, they tend to be in their advocate’s self-interest. Second, they are ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    7 days ago

  • Comprehensive Partnership the goal for NZ and the Philippines
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr.  The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    9 hours ago

  • Government commits $20m to Westport flood protection
    The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    15 hours ago

  • Taupō takes pole position
    The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    16 hours ago

  • Cost of living support for low-income homeowners
    Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners.  “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    18 hours ago

  • Government backing mussel spat project
    The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    18 hours ago

  • Government focused on getting people into work
    Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    21 hours ago

  • Clean energy key driver to reducing emissions
    The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    22 hours ago

  • Earthquake-prone buildings review brought forward
    The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago

  • Thailand and NZ to agree to Strategic Partnership
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • Government consults on extending coastal permits for ports
    RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • Inflation coming down, but more work to do
    Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • School attendance restored as a priority in health advice
    Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • Unnecessary bureaucracy cut in oceans sector
    Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • Patterson promoting NZ’s wool sector at International Congress
    Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector.    "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago

  • Removing red tape to help early learners thrive
    The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago

  • RMA changes to cut coal mining consent red tape
    Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago

  • McClay reaffirms strong NZ-China trade relationship
    Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago

  • Prime Minister Luxon acknowledges legacy of Singapore Prime Minister Lee
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.   Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago

  • PMs Luxon and Lee deepen Singapore-NZ ties
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong.  During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago

  • Antarctica New Zealand Board appointments
    Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made further appointments to the Board of Antarctica New Zealand as part of a continued effort to ensure the Scott Base Redevelopment project is delivered in a cost-effective and efficient manner.  The Minister has appointed Neville Harris as a new member of the Board. Mr ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago

  • Finance Minister travels to Washington DC
    Finance Minister Nicola Willis will travel to the United States on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers group, with counterparts from Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.  “I am looking forward to meeting with our Five Finance partners on how we can work ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago

  • Pet bonds a win/win for renters and landlords
    The coalition Government has today announced purrfect and pawsitive changes to the Residential Tenancies Act to give tenants with pets greater choice when looking for a rental property, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Pets are important members of many Kiwi families. It’s estimated that around 64 per cent of New ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago

  • Long Tunnel for SH1 Wellington being considered
    State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the Government has also asked NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to consider and provide advice on a Long Tunnel option, Transport Minister Simeon Brown ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago

  • New Zealand condemns Iranian strikes
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have condemned Iran’s shocking and illegal strikes against Israel.    “These attacks are a major challenge to peace and stability in a region already under enormous pressure," Mr Luxon says.    "We are deeply concerned that miscalculation on any side could ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago

  • Huge interest in Government’s infrastructure plans
    Hundreds of people in little over a week have turned out in Northland to hear Regional Development Minister Shane Jones speak about plans for boosting the regional economy through infrastructure. About 200 people from the infrastructure and associated sectors attended an event headlined by Mr Jones in Whangarei today. Last ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago

  • Health Minister thanks outgoing Health New Zealand Chair
    Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has today thanked outgoing Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora Chair Dame Karen Poutasi for her service on the Board.   “Dame Karen tendered her resignation as Chair and as a member of the Board today,” says Dr Reti.  “I have asked her to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago

  • Roads of National Significance planning underway
    The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has signalled their proposed delivery approach for the Government’s 15 Roads of National Significance (RoNS), with the release of the State Highway Investment Proposal (SHIP) today, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.  “Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago

  • Navigating an unstable global environment
    New Zealand is renewing its connections with a world facing urgent challenges by pursuing an active, energetic foreign policy, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says.   “Our country faces the most unstable global environment in decades,” Mr Peters says at the conclusion of two weeks of engagements in Egypt, Europe and the United States.    “We cannot afford to sit back in splendid ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago

  • NZ welcomes Australian Governor-General
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced the Australian Governor-General, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley and his wife Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, will make a State visit to New Zealand from Tuesday 16 April to Thursday 18 April. The visit reciprocates the State visit of former Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago

  • Pseudoephedrine back on shelves for Winter
    Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced that Medsafe has approved 11 cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Pharmaceutical suppliers have indicated they may be able to supply the first products in June. “This is much earlier than the original expectation of medicines being available by 2025. The Government recognised ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago

  • NZ and the US: an ever closer partnership
    New Zealand and the United States have recommitted to their strategic partnership in Washington DC today, pledging to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says.    “The strategic environment that New Zealand and the United States face is considerably more ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Joint US and NZ declaration
    April 11, 2024 Joint Declaration by United States Secretary of State the Honorable Antony J. Blinken and New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs the Right Honourable Winston Peters We met today in Washington, D.C. to recommit to the historic partnership between our two countries and the principles that underpin it—rule ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • NZ and US to undertake further practical Pacific cooperation
    Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced further New Zealand cooperation with the United States in the Pacific Islands region through $16.4 million in funding for initiatives in digital connectivity and oceans and fisheries research.   “New Zealand can achieve more in the Pacific if we work together more urgently and ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Government redress for Te Korowai o Wainuiārua
    The Government is continuing the bipartisan effort to restore its relationship with iwi as the Te Korowai o Wainuiārua Claims Settlement Bill passed its first reading in Parliament today, says Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith. “Historical grievances of Te Korowai o Wainuiārua relate to 19th century warfare, land purchased or taken ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Focus on outstanding minerals permit applications
    New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals is working to resolve almost 150 outstanding minerals permit applications by the end of the financial year, enabling valuable mining activity and signalling to the sector that New Zealand is open for business, Resources Minister Shane Jones says.  “While there are no set timeframes for ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Applications open for NZ-Ireland Research Call
    The New Zealand and Irish governments have today announced that applications for the 2024 New Zealand-Ireland Joint Research Call on Agriculture and Climate Change are now open. This is the third research call in the three-year Joint Research Initiative pilot launched in 2022 by the Ministry for Primary Industries and Ireland’s ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Tenancy rules changes to improve rental market
    The coalition Government has today announced changes to the Residential Tenancies Act to encourage landlords back to the rental property market, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “The previous Government waged a war on landlords. Many landlords told us this caused them to exit the rental market altogether. It caused worse ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Boosting NZ’s trade and agricultural relationship with China
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  • Freshwater farm plan systems to be improved
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