Key’s promises on crime

Written By: - Date published: 6:53 am, April 5th, 2010 - 58 comments
Categories: crime, john key, national - Tags:

John Key makes big promises and he doesn’t deliver. Tax cuts North of $50? Jobs summit? Close the gap with Australia? If I was a Texan I’d have to say that John was all hat and no cattle. His rhetoric on crime is another example. Here’s what John said before the election:

“New Zealanders are sick of waiting for promises on law and order to be delivered,” … “That will change under a National Government, and it will change from day 1. “The time for talk is over. It’s time for action. …

“National’s Action Plan for Violent Crime will take the practical steps necessary to start addressing these failures and to squarely face the challenge of escalating violent crime.”

Just for good measure, John Key also personally declared war on P (as gushingly reported by his adoring fans):

My message to the gangs is clear. This Government is coming after your business and we will use every tool we have to destroy it. We will be ruthless in our pursuit of you and the evil drug you push.

Well, Key’s first report card is now in, and it doesn’t look good:

Police minister ‘shocked’ at NZ’s level of violent crime

Violence and drug-related offences are largely responsible for increased crime rates, according to 2009 crime statistics released by police today. The figures show a 4.6 per cent increase in recorded crime in 2009, with 451,405 offences recorded last year compared to 431,383 in 2008. …

Violent offending continued to be a concern, [Assistant Police Commissioner] Mr Nicholls said, with a 9.2 per cent increase to 65,465 offences being recorded. The recorded homicide offences jumped from 23 to 134, with 65 recorded murders in 2009 compared to 13 in 2008. The increase in violent crime was driven largely by family violence, which increased 18.6 per cent (5061 offences), Mr Nicholls said.

The promises to reduce violent crime are a bust. Unfortunately, John’s war on P is doing no better:

Ms Collins said the ongoing spread of the drug P, despite Government attempts to rein it in, and a rise in violent youth offending had contributed to higher violent crime.

Is National capable of acknowledging the evidence? Is Key capable of recognising that his policies are a failure? Strictly rhetorical questions of course, that would be a cold day in hell. Blinkers firmly in place, all the Nats can do is plead that the policies need more time to work. (What happened to “change from day 1”? What happened to “ruthless in our pursuit”?)

So we’re destined to keep charging down the wrong path. National will refuse to listen to the police: “Legislation changes during 2009 have generally had negligible impact on total recorded crime statistics”. National will refuse to listen to the bleeding obvious: “Regular readers of The Standard will know that a primary driver of crime is joblessness”. National will refuse to listen to the wiser voices:

No one in the Beehive seems keen to explain why, if the threat of punishment does not deter an offender, the threat of a putative worse punishment for a future third crime would. Still less does anyone want to wonder whether crime might be an index of social deprivation and despair, not of dark-hearted evil that will be eradicated only by longer and longer terms of imprisonment. Like it or not, we need to address the social disadvantage that spawns crime rather than just punishing it more severely.

National will refuse to listen because addressing social disadvantage is hard. Easier to make big empty promises and ignore the evidence of failure. Easier to smile and wave.

58 comments on “Key’s promises on crime ”

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  1. Cnr Joe 1
    5 April 2010 at 7:50 am

    Easier – but for how long? Voters will lie to themselves up to a point. Once tipped over that ‘point’ pin-the-policy-on-the-Jonkey will have to find other more enticing promises surely? Then we can relax and keep our illusion ticking over some more.
    Ummmmm, perhaps our scientists could engineer cows to shit burger patties and cut out the middle man? solve First world child fast-food poverty and curb some methane emissions @ the same time?- I believe they come out cooked..

  2. Lanthanide 2
    5 April 2010 at 8:27 am

    “My message to the gangs is clear. This Government is coming after your business and we will use every tool we have to destroy it. We will be ruthless in our pursuit of you and the evil drug you push.”

    And yet they did not simply make gangs outright illegal?

    • Draco T Bastard 2.1
      5 April 2010 at 12:39 pm

      No, that would be against the right of free-association.

      • Draco T Bastard 2.1.1
        5 April 2010 at 12:40 pm

        Although, criminal association surly doesn’t come under that protection.

        PS, Edit missing.

        [lprent: Off – there is a caching bug related to it that I will be getting around to address in about 45 minutes. (or more).. ]

  3. Peter Johns 3
    5 April 2010 at 9:37 am

    If you made gangs outlawed you labour voters will go on about their rights. What did Labour do in 9 years about P where it balloned out of control. NOTHING. If people still make P it os not the fault of National, but they should put more draconian laws in to stop it ah. Civil liberties anyone?

  4. Peter 4
    5 April 2010 at 9:47 am

    My son was stabbed to death on Thursday night. Try and imagine what the family is going through. How about pulling you head out of your arse and get into the real world. Crime isn’t a political football. It is a tragic part of society since the caveman discovered the club. When you generalise crime into being caused by social disadvantage then you miss the other varied reasons.

    That aside, punishment is demanded by the majority of society. It always has. Your political leaning blinds you to the clear fact that as society has lessoned the application of punishment to persons committing crimes, it has actually created more crime and so victims. Show me the data where VICTIMS of crime go on to commit other crime. In many many cases, if not most, the person committing the crime is also a victim of a crime in their past. If their need for revenge, in whatever form, had been addressed then perhaps they would not have gone on to be the angry soul that they are.

    The clear fact that is hard for the left to understand is that as punishment has decreased, offending has increased. You guys point to stats that show that increased sentancing does no good. I argue that it does, it just takes time. Victims do not become slow cookers of anger. It is not that the poor commit crime because they are poor. It is because those who are themselves victims in many different forms, have not sense of justice. And so that sense of injustice slow boils inside. To the point where punishment isn’t even a focus or even mentioned for our justice system anymore. The word ‘justice’ however still lends us to the past where that word was important. In trying to be more focused on rehabiltation of crime we have actually caused society to become worse.

    I have to bury my son on Thursday. And following that, I will be looking for justice and as severe as it can be dealt. And if that does not happen, who knows what I will become.

    • Peter+Johns 4.1
      5 April 2010 at 9:59 am

      My condolences to your family.

    • r0b 4.2
      5 April 2010 at 10:22 am

      My son was stabbed to death on Thursday night

      You are living every parent’s nightmare. As a parent I can only imagine the pain. Our disagreements on cause and solution are very real, but they can wait for some other time. My sincere condolences to you and to your family.

    • Bill 4.3
      5 April 2010 at 10:30 am

      That’s a really confused and contradictory comment. Putting aside the obvious fictional component of your comment…

      [Bill – I can’t believe that anyone would be despicable enough to impersonate the parents of the Oamaru stabbing victim in this way. From what I can tell Peter appears to be a first time commenter, and his details appear to be genuine. Please let’s all of us give him the respect of taking his comment at face value. — r0b]

      Crime is not traceable back to ‘cavemen’ with clubs. There is evidence that in less stressful societies, disruptive acts by individuals are much less prevalent than in so-called modern society.

      Anyway, putting that aside too, isn’t deliberately consigning people to poverty a crime? ( Moral if not legislative) And as such, aren’t poor people victims…’slow cookers of anger’, ‘in need of revenge, in whatever form’. And as the socio/political reasons for lives being blighted are increasingly obscured and dismissed; as the blame is placed more and more on the shoulders of the individual, then isn’t it reasonable to assume that the individual will lash out blindly anyway and damage things and people that are not the cause of their sense of injustice?

      As you say. Victims seek justice. But then you want to lock them up and throw away the key. Why not help victims see the criminality that determines their place and expected function in society…ie why not help lay bare the dynamics of capitalism, racism and sexism?

    • Draco T Bastard 4.4
      5 April 2010 at 1:03 pm

      Crime isn’t a political football.

      Yes it is and it has been for some time.

      Your political leaning blinds you to the clear fact that as society has lessoned the application of punishment to persons committing crimes, it has actually created more crime and so victims.

      Actually, the evidence is that the more people in society who are well off the less crime there is. This even applies to violent crime within families as the financial stress is reduced.

      Show me the data where VICTIMS of crime go on to commit other crime. In many many cases, if not most, the person committing the crime is also a victim of a crime in their past.

      It is because those who are themselves victims in many different forms, have not sense of justice.

      How about you show the evidence as you’re the one making the assertion.

      The clear fact that is hard for the left to understand is that as punishment has decreased, offending has increased.

      Punishment over the last ten years has increased. Crime over that time was decreasing and peoples living standards were increasing. The increase in crime over the last year or so though correlates to the decrease in income and living standards.

      In trying to be more focused on rehabiltation of crime we have actually caused society to become worse.

      Except for the successful rehabilitation centres that cut re-offending of the people who went through them from 90% to ~ 20%. The evidence really is against you. BTW, NACT cut funding to those programs.

      And if that does not happen, who knows what I will become.

      I would suggest seeing a psychiatrist/councillor to help you through this rough patch.

      Cut inequality and the poverty that capitalism breeds and we’ll get less crime.

      • Dean 4.4.1
        5 April 2010 at 5:51 pm

        Oh, the compassion!

        You could have followed r0b’s example, and left the politics out of it, but oh no. Not you. You’re so completely obsessed that you can’t reply to a post made by a grieving parent without trying to score some points on your great crusade.

        • Bill 4.4.1.1
          5 April 2010 at 6:17 pm

          @ Dean

          The post is about the politics surrounding crime.

          That somebody is claiming to be the father of a stabbing fatality while positing political arguments means that a political response is warranted

          Seems to me that it is you who is looking to score points.

          • RedLogix 4.4.1.1.1
            5 April 2010 at 6:44 pm

            Sorry Bill, but I’m thinking Dean has a point. Whatever we choose to make of Peter’s post (and as r0b says there is no reason not to take it at face value) there are some things more vital, more visceral… than making an abstract political points.

            Any parent who faces the task Peter has tomorrow is consumed with grief, anger and loss. The only human thing to do is bow our heads in respect and offer what small consolance we can. The politics can wait till …much later.

            I’m offering this thought Bill with sincerity and trust.

            • Bill 4.4.1.1.1.1
              5 April 2010 at 7:46 pm

              Here’s the thing.

              I’m being asked to believe that a family asked for privacy and then the father goes out on some minor commenting crusade on blogs here and at blubber boy’s (where ‘the standard’ comment is instead a verbatim email sent to BB with the political attacks reiterated and broadened in a preface to the reproduced email.) in a way that uses tragedy as a cover for some pretty trashy politics.

              That’s possible, but given the circumstances, not too likely in my book.

              Why would a father be reading blogs, never mind ‘the standard’ at a time of grieving, given that he finds the general political thrust here so distasteful?

              Again. It’s possible, but not too likely.

              Had the post been about the fatal stabbing in Oamaru, I’d have given the comment more credence, but it wasn’t.

              And the language used is plain bloody suspect to my eye. The shift from ‘my son’ to ‘the family’ in the space of a sentence is, I admit, what made me suspicious about the authenticity of the comment in the first place. How can you, given the circumstances, go from personal possession to dispassionate distance like that? Had the comment read ‘my family’ or ‘his family’ or some such, then I’d have been more inclined to believe that part of the comment was genuine.

              And I understand that I’m alone among this threads commentators in believing that an individual could be so despicable (to use r0bs term) as to put out such a comment as a have.

              And I could be completely wrong. The comment could be genuine…but given the thrust of the post over at the blubber boy blog when most of the comments here have been offering condolences?

              I feel a genuine empathy as opposed to a mawkish ‘led by the nose sentimentality’ for all the, to me, anonymous family members and close friends affected by the death of William Lewis. But that empathy is rightly informed by distance and the knowledge that the happenings in Oamaru are not so unusual and that 1001 other tragedies I know nothing about unfolded that night.

              But I don’t believe the comment is genuine.

              And even if I am wrong and the comment is genuine, it should not carry with it an expectation that debate on the wider issues be shut down or that the pathetic politics it expresses should go unchallenged.

              • RedLogix …
                5 April 2010 at 8:08 pm

                I do see where you are coming from, but if you are right and it is some kind of appalling spoof to setup “The Standard” then until we know this for certain, I’m picking the safest path is to treat it as genuine.

                I really don’t want to get into a ding-dong about this Bill, I’m beginning to regret saying anything at all. That’s it from me on this one.

              • Bill …
                5 April 2010 at 8:24 pm

                No ding-dong sought.

        • Draco T Bastard 4.4.1.2
          5 April 2010 at 8:39 pm

          For the death of his son he has my condolences. For using that as a vehicle to propagate misinformation and blind assertions that go against fact, well, he can go to hell.

      • Clint Heine 4.4.2
        5 April 2010 at 9:08 pm

        Thanks Bill and Draco! You have now made this blog into something far worse than what you refer the “sewer” as. I am sure the blog owners are really proud of you – although perhaps I am giving them too much credit as they allowed your comments to stay here.

        • Bill 4.4.2.1
          5 April 2010 at 9:10 pm

          Care to explain yourself there Clint?

        • RedLogix 4.4.2.2
          5 April 2010 at 9:22 pm

          Clint

          Curious you should show up here. Can you help us out … are you in a postion to assure us that this comment from ‘Peter’ is genuine or not? It’s kind of hard to tell.

          Most have been willing to take it at face value because that seems the decent thing to do, but there remains the realistic possibility that it is not. Know anything?

          • lprent 4.4.2.2.1
            5 April 2010 at 10:26 pm

            He is in the UK. Why would he have any better idea than anyone else. Probably the only one who would is blubberboy because he claims he has an actual e-mail from the guy, and therefore an e-mail address that is traceable. But really you’d have to be desperate to takes Slaters words as being accurate.

            Let me just backtrack the IP and see where it leads..

            • lprent 4.4.2.2.1.1
              5 April 2010 at 10:50 pm

              It looks like xtra has it listed as being a dynamic address currently out of Balclutha exchange, around Johnston (the latter bits are frequently inaccurate). It is a fair way from Oamaru.

              That isn’t conclusive, but is suggestive.

              Other dynamic C range address blocks around that group seem to be in Invercargill to Dunedin. I’ll have a lookup to see what address blocks are in use around Oamaru…

    • mickysavage 4.5
      5 April 2010 at 2:28 pm

      To Peter

      My deepest condolences on your loss.

      With the greatest of respect if our society is going to have a cold dispassionate view on the causes of crime and a workable plan on how to deal with crime the views of victims should not be paramount and it should be acknowledged that their views are deeply affected by their experience which most of us hope not to ever have to suffer.

    • Kiwiteen123 4.6
      5 April 2010 at 4:17 pm

      Peter,
      You have suffered an unimaginable loss and the country’s thoughts are with you and your family.

      I do, however, feel that we in NZ do have a crime problem. I also feel that neither the current government, nor former governments have done enough to solve the problems we, as a country, face.

      Crime will always be a political thing, but I believe that it should be.

      It is shocking what some families go through, we can not know exactly what you have been through until we go through it ourselves, but we as a country need to punish these criminals then pick ourselves up, move on and try and prevent it in the future. Politics is a way to do this.

      Once again, my condolences to you and your family.

      [lprent: I’ll let that through. ]

      • lprent 4.6.1
        5 April 2010 at 6:47 pm

        Hey kt, I just noticed your comment at blubberboys hole…

        It is Peter for those of us who avoid The Stan­dard at all cost.

        It is truly shock­ing to turn this into a polit­i­cal mud-flinging match.
        I do, how­ever, think that we need to use Pol­i­tics to solve this.

        Ummm a certain shading of the facts there boy… A few points..

        1. ..for those of us who avoid The Stan­dard at all cost.
        You were permanently banned from here by Irish for being a noisy nuisance. It isn’t like you have a choice..

        2. It is truly shock­ing to turn this into a polit­i­cal mud-flinging match.
        According to my recollection when comment scanning, you were the first one to even raise political points here in response. I almost turfed your comment into trash because of it.

        3. Systematic institutional crime is a political issue (sociopaths and psychopaths are a just a minor blip on the bulk of crime, violent or otherwise). However not in the way you appear to want to think about it. After being associated indirectly with womens refuges, you soon recognize that the main problem is simple boredom and frustration. I’ve watched politicians talk and act tough on crime for a few decades. It makes no frigging difference. What does is having jobs available. That is why our crime figures are going up now. Perhaps you should get off your lazy arse and go and find out what the real issues are.

        4. The preferred solution you seem to espouse of harsher penalties doesn’t seem to ever affect crime figures. I’d ask to to prove your assertion, but you’re already sentenced and banned from here for bad behaviour… I bet that harsh penalty hasn’t changed your behaviour…

        • Kiwiteen123 4.6.1.1
          5 April 2010 at 7:46 pm

          Hello.
          i. bluberboy’s*
          1. I was referring to the reading of The Standard. I do not read it very often as I get my dose of left-wing propaganda from my teachers.
          2. How about Draco T Bastard at 1.03pm?
          2.1 “Perhaps you should get off your lazy arse and go and find out what the real issues are.”
          Is this not mud-slinging?
          3. I have. I am. I will.
          4. I did not advocate harsher penalties. I advocate for PREVENTION. There are many ways to do this e.g education, job opportunities, etc.
          4.1 It has changed my behaviour.

          • lprent 4.6.1.1.1
            5 April 2010 at 8:33 pm

            I didn’t notice Draco’s comment – I was coding at the time.

            I always rev people up to challenge them. It isn’t mudslinging. It is a question.

            4.1 It has changed my behaviour.

            Hell I’ve just had a dose of Patti Smith. Lets test that assertion out. Probation…

            But don’t get excited about beating any damn records this time.

            • Kiwiteen123 4.6.1.1.1.1
              5 April 2010 at 8:41 pm

              Ok. Will do.

            • Kiwiteen123 4.6.1.1.1.2
              5 April 2010 at 9:40 pm

              May I suggest you could get a script that restricts more than x number of comments over x amount of time. Red Alert has it.

              • lprent …
                5 April 2010 at 10:21 pm

                But that would spoil my fun. I like being nasty when people give reason to be so…. So relaxing to drop the politeness. 😈

                It is easy enough to put in a script to do it and I’ve looked at it several times. However it would increase the number of data queries during posting a comment, which are pretty high already. Posting a comment is almost as expensive in server CPU cycles as posting a post.

                Furthermore it is an inherently uncacheable query because if the comment is allowed then the total is different next time. The extra overhead doesn’t justify the penalty cost to all of the other people that comment. We could do it on a faster server but it really isn’t worth it. I prefer just to educate in my own style.

                Red Alert can do it at present because their loadings are a lot less and I suspect they’re using a better system than we limp on. After all we pay them quite a lot, and communicating with people is their job 🙂

              • Kiwiteen123 …
                6 April 2010 at 10:37 am

                I’ve been told that no Parliamentary Services money is spent on Red Alert and that it is just personal salaries used.

              • Kiwiteen123 …
                7 April 2010 at 2:33 pm

                Perhaps you could try a three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy? Just a thought.

  5. Bill 5
    5 April 2010 at 10:05 am

    Leaving aside the 18% of the increase to violent crime that is domestic as that is largely a simple matter of families choosing to get their shit together….or not, as the case may be… and we can still see encouraging signs.

    We can see that since the ‘Crusade on P’ was launched…the police have been empowered enough to start ‘going after their business’ and ‘using every tool’ to ‘destroy it’. Their ‘ruthlessness’ in ‘pursuit of (…) the evil drug’ is yielding results as evinced by the rise in crime stats.

    Now if we get even tougher on crime we will see more encouraging increases on the violent crime front.

    • RedLogix 5.1
      5 April 2010 at 12:54 pm

      Bill,

      The link goes in three steps.

      The prime driver of most crime is a lack of belonging and investment in society caused by intergenerational poverty and lack of values

      The cause of intergenerational poverty and commitment to society is the failure to form stable families.

      Failure to form stable families happens when young men do not have stable jobs with decent incomes.

      As a result young women make do with a string of make-do, feckless men in the lives (I only have to look across the fence to spot a couple) and have their children in socially and emotionally impoverished environments. And so it goes.

      The circuit breaker is meaningful employment for young men.

      • Bill 5.1.1
        5 April 2010 at 1:40 pm

        Alienation and a sometimes misplaced sense of entitlement as well as poverty and a whole basket of other things in isolation and combination, plus accepted societal values drive crime.

        I don’t think that families ( in the nuclear context) have bugger all to do with anything. Those family units were only ever the result of degenerated communities and a strange aspirational myth sold us by our masters rather than that much of a widespread reality.

        Jobs destroyed communities. First through the process of enclosure and secondly by tearing apart the communities that came together following enclosure as job prospects became geographically dislocated from post enclosure communities.

        Meanwhile, a sense of empowerment and of having a meaningful existence (however illusory) would be a circuit breaker. And in certain contexts you might argue that the empowerment and meaning comes from ‘meaningful employment’. But that is too narrow a pitch and doesn’t deliver on at least half of the required formula.

        Empowerment and meaning come in many ways shapes and forms and contemporary job environments do nothing for empowerment ( worse, they are positively detrimental) unless you are in a managerial position.

      • lprent 5.1.2
        5 April 2010 at 6:06 pm

        The circuit breaker is meaningful employment for young men.

        (and women)

        Even then it usually takes a generation… As we know NACT are short-term thinkers. They prefer the dumb and ineffective simplicity of 3 strikes and other such placebos.

      • Rex Widerstrom 5.1.3
        5 April 2010 at 7:31 pm

        RedLogix posits:

        The circuit breaker is meaningful employment for young men.

        Is it ever. Along with mental illness and a less-than-optimal childhood. And what do those three things have in common? The person afflicted can in now way be held to blame. But hell, let’s punish them anyway… it makes us feel better, after all.

        The features in common that emerged in more than 70 per cent of criminal cases are these: the person before the court was male, under 35, unemployed, with relatively low intelligence, a history of mental illness, addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, a history of a dysfunctional childhood family plus a current domestic situation that is dysfunctional, poor education and a bad driving record.

        In other words, the reason the alleged offender is before the court is rarely due to some isolated or aberrant behaviour, which is the way it is frequently portrayed in the media. Rather, trouble is part and parcel of the circumstances of their entire life.

        What sickens me about the “get tough” brigade is that they’re not prepared to admit it’s all about revenge and punishment (both reasonable points to argue IMO) but that they go about pretending that it’ll somehow protect society. How, when, for instance, someone has to commit three serious crimes to get locked away for good?

        In fact, the “solutions” offered by the “get tough” victim-milkers are predicated on offending occuring in order to trigger the response.

        If only they stopped groping [insert pun re watercooler here] for a solution based on their visceral desire to see others suffer and looked at preventing a high-risk individual as described above from ever offending in the first place. Perhaps by:

        – Addressing their educational needs, better monitored their outcomes, roperly funding the system and forcing accountability on those charged with educating our young.

        – Identifying and appropriately treating those with mental illness, in a purpose-built facility if needs be rather than, as successive governments’ have done with their adherence to politically correct views on “treatment within the community”, expose society to unnecessary danger and the mentally ill to a life in a revolving door prison system.

        – Ensuring everyone has a job earning a decent wage.

        – Taking a realistic approach to drugs and ensure sufficient resources exist to treat those who are addicted (while locking up those who peddle the poison, and throwing away the key for the recidivists).

        – Intervening to ensure every child has a right to a decent childhood rather than worrying about the “rights’ of hopeless and abusive parents, and at the same time creating resources to which parents can turn if the job of parenting becomes too difficult.

        • RedLogix 5.1.3.1
          5 April 2010 at 9:47 pm

          Ackland went on to write:

          In other words, the reason the alleged offender is before the court is rarely due to some isolated or aberrant behaviour, which is the way it is frequently portrayed in the media. Rather, trouble is part and parcel of the circumstances of their entire life.

          Describes our two guys over the fence to a tee. We’ve gotten to know them quite well. At heart they aren’t bad guys, but they are hopeless disaster magnets. Most days I get home and my partner has another ‘story’ to tell… most times I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. More than anything else every time they get drinking bad decision-making is the result. As long as they keep pissing themselves stupid they don’t stand a chance.

          If nothing else these guys are a counterbalance to the intellectualising that we so often indulge in here. Oh and Rex… the rest of your post is a tribute to your dedication and passion on this issue. Thanks.

        • Pete 5.1.3.2
          6 April 2010 at 10:59 am

          Thanks Rex – as RedLogix says your comment is a credit to you. This is the sort of basis from which this difficult subject should be discussed, with a bent to long-term solutions. Well done.

  6. mickysavage 6
    5 April 2010 at 11:58 am

    Is National capable of acknowledging the evidence? Is Key capable of recognising that his policies are a failure?

    I thought they succeeded quite well. They were one of the reasons that National was elected to power. Who said they had to work?

  7. QoT 7
    5 April 2010 at 1:19 pm

    The circuit breaker is meaningful employment for young men.

    Because intergenerational poverty and investment in society and instilling of social values of course relies on Men Being Men and Women Getting Their B!tch Asses In The Kitchen. Why, it’s probably all those middle-class hussies getting their feminism on and demanding access to careers and equal pay which is the real cause of male unemployment and thus the P epidemic.

    • lprent 7.1
      5 April 2010 at 1:51 pm

      You forgot to add STD’s 😈

    • Frank Macskasy 7.2
      5 April 2010 at 7:41 pm

      You forgot to add World Wars 1 and 2, the Great Depression, and cruelty to kittens – all the fault of feminists and Middle Class hussies, and not cooking me up some goddamn eggs when I get home!! *grrrr!*

  8. ianmac 8
    5 April 2010 at 1:29 pm

    Peter. I can only imagine the awfulness of losing a son to accident or illness let alone to an act of violence. It must be hard to write about it here and as Rob said to Bill, no one would be so crass as to claim such a disaster unless it was true. So as a father and a grandfather my thoughts are with you.

  9. Anne 9
    5 April 2010 at 2:35 pm

    “My son was stabbed to death on Thursday night. Try and imagine what the family is going through.”

    Peter. It is too awful for me to even begin to imagine what you are going through.

    I re-iterate ianmac’s sentiments.

  10. JAS 10
    5 April 2010 at 3:41 pm

    Peter as a parent I cannot begin to imagine what your family is going through.

    My thoughts and prayers go out to you all, that you may find the strength together to survive this tragedy.

    Kia kaha.

  11. lprent 11
    5 April 2010 at 11:35 pm

    I backtracked the IP on Peters comment (due to the interest in if it was a scam or not).

    It is an Xtra jetstream dynamic IP coming out of the Balclutha exchange. Other IP’s that are around that C range are all over the place from Invercargill to Dunedin. But always in South Otago and Southland.

    Oamaru is in North Otago. Xtra uses a completely different set of dynamic jetstream IP’s around Oamaru.

    Now that isn’t conclusive. It could be that the guy is off with family around Balclutha although it seems unlikely. It could be that xtra hasn’t updated the geography of that block of addresses. But it is definitely suspicious to me.

    Besides whenever I see Cameron Slater involved in anything I’m always deeply suspicious. He lacks any major degree of healthy skepticism, and is pretty technically incompetent.

    The way that I can see the idiot wingnuts like big bruv trying to wind this up, it has all of the feel of a putup job. But tommorrow, I’ll have a talk to xtra and see how far I can pin that IP at that time down to.

    There is absolutely no way that I’d ring the father up at this point and ask him if it was him or a idiot wingnut impersonator.

    BTW: No I’m not going to release the IP – read the policy.

    • BLiP 11.1
      6 April 2010 at 12:12 am

      The father lives in Timaru.

      • lprent 11.1.1
        6 April 2010 at 1:56 am

        Even further north

        • Bill 11.1.1.1
          6 April 2010 at 9:43 am

          Peter Johns is where? I only ask because his post 10 min prior to the commentator called Peter was couched in the same muddled prose and contradictory argument. His log in name then changed to Peter + Johns 10 minutes later. Apparently a typo.

          And again. I could be way off the mark. But it could shed a wee bit of light on all these distractions.

          • lprent 11.1.1.1.1
            6 April 2010 at 11:17 am

            The Peter+Johns was a bug. I’d added in some code to fill in the comment fields from the cookie rather than sending it from the server to get around some caching issues. I’d forgotten that some cookies present with a plus for spaces. Changed the code to remove the pluses.

            I fixed it and then fixed the names that had gone in with it.

            The IP isn’t in a range that anyone at the site had used in about 9 months.

  12. Anne 12
    6 April 2010 at 9:53 am

    As one of those who took Peter’s post at face value it seems a little odd that he has not returned to this site to confirm it as genuine. What a despicable act if Bill is on the right track!

    • Bill 12.1
      6 April 2010 at 10:47 am

      It spreads wider. Looks to me like Blubberboy didn’t get an email at all!

      He simply cut and pasted from ‘thestandard’ to his own site and penned his own intro. Read it. It’s not the same person speaking in both the intro and the main text. The intro ‘sounds’ suspiciously like Slater, and appears to have he same level of articulation as Slater.

      So is it a case of a thoughtless idiot posting garbage to ‘thestandard’ to make a cheap point and blubberboy picking up on it and in his turn thoughtlessly and cynically using it in an attempt to score some infantile points over ‘thestandard’?

      Is this indicative of the level of intellectual and moral decrepitude of reasonably visible and therefore reasonably representative sections of the right in this country?

  13. pollywog 13
    6 April 2010 at 11:13 am

    I was working with a hugely experienced guy putting up tower cranes and nothing flustered him, so i was never flustered either, given that, i was inexperienced on cranes but have a great head and a healthy respect for working at height, I figured, as long as he doesn’t panic i won’t either.

    So we’re tightening up bolts from a fully extended boom of a mobile crane, hanging out of a mancage that i’d tied off to the tower crane, monitoring the wind, which we knew from the forecast was going to be gusting, when a panicked mobile driver starts telling us he’s not liking what his crane is telling him.

    I look across to my mate, he doesn’t seem to worried, checks the wind meter and next thing he’s screaming at me, “get the shit inside the crane quick, climb inside the tower, release the mancage, fuckin’ hurry up”, he reckons. It’s the first time i’ve ever seen him so animated. I do what i’m told and when i untie the mancage, the boom swings out and up and down, flailing the cage around while the driver pulls the boom in quick as he can.

    The danger and consequences, to which i was largely ignorant of at the time, escaped me, as i couldn’t tell if my boss/mate was serious or this was a new joke he was playing on me as a test but even so, i didn’t panic. Apparently, we were soooo close to toppling the mobile crane and certain death for which my boss would have personally incurred the costs and embarassment of the inevitable cleanup/cover up ?

    In relating this to Key’s attitude toward crime and violence. I don’t know whether i should be reassured by the fact that he is so relaxed about it. I just hope he’s monitoring the winds of change and taking into consideration the opinions of experts driving the vehicles safeguarding our employment and security.

    And I hope he knows when to hit the panic button and pass the message on to the rest of us or there’ll be big things toppling and possibly him going down with them. The end result being there’ll be a massive and costly clean up, embarassing questions asked and more blood in the streets.

    I wonder though, if his relaxed attitude is due to the fact he’s got a considerable safety net of personal savings to catch his fall and wont be personally responsible for the cost of the clean up/cover up ?

    I am noticing Key seems to always look flustered lately, where as my mate had an unreadable pokerface to die for and i trust him with my life…Key ? Not even owww ! So i’ll be watching with interest for any animated signs of genuine panic and hanging on for dear life, though i won’t be panicking, its just not in my nature…

  14. Anne 14
    6 April 2010 at 11:15 am

    @ Bill
    I have remembered two comments about 3 months ago involving a ‘Peter’ and a ‘Peter Johns’. Can’t recall the subject matter but Peter Johns (I think it was this way round) appeared first on Red Alert. I moved across to The Standard and lo and behold Peter turned up saying the same thing only worded slightly differently. After a comment of mine accusing ‘Peter’ of being a troll…
    he replied denying he was also Peter Johns. I accepted his word.

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