Roastbusters redux

Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, January 27th, 2019 - 92 comments
Categories: alcohol, auckland supercity, child abuse, child welfare, crime, law, law and "order", local body elections, police, Politics, Social issues, supercity - Tags:

In what was very unfortunate timing for John Tamihere’s launch of his Mayoral campaign the Roastbusters issue is back in the public eye.

To recap the roast busters were a group of young predominately westie males who used to get young women drunk and then engage in sexual contact with them. A private page on Facebook was then used to brag about what had happened.

I have been on the panel of West Auckland lawyers representing young people in the Youth Court for over 30 years. I have acted for many young people who have got themselves into trouble doing not dissimilar things.

The normal response is to first of all make sure everyone is safe, then determine guilt, and if the matter is admitted to have the young people attend the Safe Programme, an intensive programme involving counselling, therapy, family sessions and group sessions. The programme works remarkably well and changes young people’s views on sexuality. But early intervention is really important.

Jail time is not normally involved. It is more important that they are fixed up. And that intervention happens as soon as possible.

Prosecution of the roast busters should have been a slam dunk. It may have been difficult to prove sexual violation because of consent issues. But it is also against the law to engage in sexual conduct with a woman under the age of 16 years. And there were admissions on Facebook that this was what had happened. Proof of this offence should have been very easy.

I do not know why but instead of the Police moving immediately to charge the males involved they held off. For too long. And then found out they could not do anything because too much time had passed.

The Independent Police Complaint Authority had a good look at the situation.

There were some interesting findings:

[Child Protection Team] staff did not adequately follow up and pursue positive lines of enquiry

…

The fact that the father of one of the young men was a Police officer had no influence on Police’s handling of the investigations

…

CPT staff did not properly evaluate all available offences when determining the outcome of their respective investigations

…

CPT staff failed to properly consider alternative action to address the potential offending behaviour of the young men involved and their potential care and protection issues.

Most of the findings were sound but the fact that the father of one of the roast busters was a Police Officer caused and still causes concern. I wish I was not so confident about this. It seems to me that something significant happened to affect their treatment.

Because the Child Protection Team did not do what they should have. Young women were badly treated and then watched as the system let them down.

One of the Roastbusters, Joseph Parker has recently gone public and given some media interviews, apparently in an attempt to launch a music career. Talking about his redemption as a media opportunity really sucks. He should not venture into our consciousness and say that he has learned and is better now. He should keep quiet. And privately beg forgiveness from his victims.

John Tamihere ran into problems by apparently justifying and minimising their behaviour and by treating one young woman very poorly in a radio interview interview. Tamihere’s problem is that his jovial it was all a bit of a youthful banter and boys will be boys stuff may have been acceptable in the stone age, or even in the middle ages, but nowadays most of us expect much better.

Simon Wilson talked to Tamihere recently about Roastbusters and this passage captures lots of events simultaneously:

In 2013, a group of teens who called themselves Roast Busters boasted on Facebook about their sexual activities with underage girls, some as young as 13. At the time Tamihere was a co-host on Radio Live with Willie Jackson, who is now a cabinet minister. At least five girls laid complaints with the police.

Live on air, Tamihere and Jackson interviewed a girl who said she was a friend of one of the complainants, who alleged she had been raped.

The two men seemed to belittle the girl and trivialise the accusations.

They cast doubt on her story, suggested the youths’ behaviour wasn’t serious and wondered aloud whether blame should be shared by the girls as well as the youths.

In the backlash that followed, both hosts were censured and Tamihere lost his job.

When I ask him about it, the first thing he says is: “It’s not widely known but I got a six-figure settlement from MediaWorks after that had all died down.”

I ask him, is that his response now? Does he regret anything he said?

“You tell me what I said and I’ll tell you if I regret it.”

What he and Jackson said, in a series of questions, was that perhaps the girls should not have been drinking or out late at night, that they were “free and easy”, and that perhaps the sex was consensual.

They said the youths’ behaviour was merely “mischief”. They laughed at the suggestion of rape.

A few days later, I read those comments to him. He says “Well they’re the sort of thing you say as a talkback host”.

But is he suggesting the girls should share the blame or that rape was not involved?

“Let me ask you this. How many people have been charged with rape?” he says.

I tell him the answer is none. I ask whether he has anything else to say about it.

He says: “You are now making things up in terms of connecting dots.”

He gets up, says “thank you very much”, and walks out of the room.

I have a great deal of respect for JT.  His work for Waipareira over the last couple of decades has been outstanding.  I can recall attending a meeting in 2004 and wondering if he could be the first Maori Prime Minister of New Zealand.

But his attitude to women and young women sucks.

And to the roast busters.  Laura Walters is right. You should privately seek forgiveness and redemption.  And don’t think that your status should be some sort of platform for a future career.

92 comments on “Roastbusters redux ”

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  1. Sabine 1
    27 January 2019 at 9:57 am

    boys will be boys

    and young women should have known better.

    Young women who are all but 13 years of age for some of the victims.

    • RedLogix 1.1
      27 January 2019 at 10:27 am

      When I was a boy I would not have even had a dark fantasy to do something like this; much less carried out anything like it. So … not this boy thank you very much.

      We have age of consent laws for a good reason; young people are prone to being emotionally manipulated into doing things they later regret a lot. It may even look like consent at the time, but it isn’t really. This is a pretty open and shut case of that and I agree totally with Mickey’s post on this, the Police should have made an attempt at prosecution regardless of the difficulties.

      Combined with the perpetrator’s recent public comments, you have to think they haven’t learned anything beyond feeling a bit sorry for themselves.

      I tend to err on the side of compassion for human failings, but these oxygen thieves have nothing but my contempt.

      • Sabine 1.1.1
        27 January 2019 at 12:08 pm

        you again don’t listen to what i said.

        in response to the post, aka the words of Tamihere

        boys will be boys
        and what where the women thinking

        is essentially just simply the down grading of the severity of the crimes committed, crimes i might add that were not prosecuted even to the slightest lest to the fullest extend of the law.

        boys will be boys
        and why were the women there, why were the women drinking alcohol, why were the women alone with boys, why why why why.

        Never mind that a thirteen year old is not a women.
        Never mind that a thirteen year old can not consent.
        Never mind that a thirteen year old is not legally allowed to drink alcohol.
        Never mind that a drunk and drugged person can not consent, never mind that a thirteen year old would be flattered beyond believe to be invited to an afternoon party with some older kids from school one whose daddy is a hollywood star and one whose daddy is a cop and one is a well to do offspring of a realtor.

        boys will be boys
        and why did she not go to the police, why did she not lay a charge

        never mind they did go to the police, they did lay charges

        and nothing happened, not even a charge of supplying alcohol to minors, not even a charge for statuatory rape, nothing

        cause boys will be boys
        and tamihere stated quite clearly why boys will be boys.

        and men like you need to understand that there is a small segment of people that goes around raping – babies, kids, teens, young women, old women, boys, young and old men, but because the Police does not do its job, because our Justice system does not do its job, we – the victims of sexual assault and rape are blamed for doing something wrong or else this would not have happened.

        Because men like Tamihere, and Police officers in NZ don’t give a flying fuck about the girls, don’t prosecute even the to the slightest of the law, and turn around blaming the victims for not coming out, even when they do.

        This is the issue, the roastbusters are simply the product of a society that does not care abut rape. And that blames the victims of rape for their rapes.
        A society that calls 13 year old girls young women.
        They are not women, they are girls, without any life experience, without any experience in drinking alcohol for most part, without any experience in using drugs, and thus can be used and discarded at the leisure of guys like the roast busters.
        As for tamihere, who cares what good he does, he obviously only cares about the well being of one gender in all of this doing good, and he is a rape apologist. he should hide in the darkest corner somewhere and be never spoken of against. He wants to be Mayor of a town, but only for the men? Or how is he going to protect the women and girls in the town that he is responsible for if this is his reaction to a serious crime that the police decided to not care about, to not prosecute, to not do anything to stop it?

        boys will be boys, until the day Police, the Law, and men like Tamihere decide that rape is a crime and that the fault for that crime does not lay with the victim, but with the perpetrator, and that that crime needs and must be prosecuted to teh fullest of the law.

        • RedLogix 1.1.1.1
          27 January 2019 at 4:28 pm

          All I can suggest is that you do take the time to read the IPCA report linked to in the OP:

          https://www.nbr.co.nz/sites/default/files/IPCA-Roastbusters.pdf

          It’s a mixed bag; clearly the Officers involved failed to spot the pattern of behaviour in a timely fashion. There was miscommunication in the team and you have to assume that due to their workloads and prioritising of other investigations, some important follow-up work didn’t happen. They got some things right, and others wrong.

          Overall the report is worth looking at; my reading is that due to the number of people involved, their workloads, the lack of cooperation from the complainants, the whole thing turned into a muddle. Plus some questionable judgement calls. I’ve no doubt in hindsight everyone wishes they’d made different choices.

          But to say that the Police and CPT teams didn’t care goes too far. Keeping in mind that the 2 of the 3 offenders themselves were under 16 at the time, this is the sort of policing that lies at the boundary of social work and criminal offending.

          Keep in mind also that if the Police were to criminally prosecute every time kids under the age of 16 had sex, we’d have very full prisons indeed. This is a worthwhile link:

          https://www.bmj.com/content/316/7124/29

          This is the median age… implying that fully 50% of women are having first sex under this. While this isn’t at all desirable, it’s not obvious criminalisation is the best response.

          In particular the Conclusions section states:

          . The Authority appreciates that the incidents involving the ‘Roastbusters’ presented Police with a complex set of challenges. The reprehensible and unacceptable behaviour demonstrated by this group of young men was further complicated by other issues. These included the vulnerability and fragility of the young women, the impact of peer, familial and social pressures in adolescence, attitudes towards sexual behaviour and the use of alcohol and other drugs, and the influence of youth culture and social media.

          Indeed, the issues were such that it is unlikely they could have ever been dealt with meaningfully and effectively solely by Police. Regrettably, Police had numerous opportunities to ‘connect the dots’ earlier, to generate a more organised, expansive and cohesive response, and to work in collaboration with CYF, the schools, and the parents of these young men to prevent their behaviour from continuing.

          I doubt very much you’ll find this a satisfying outcome; but it’s the reasonable explanation. The ball got dropped, as it usually is, from a combination of unintentional errors, omissions and mis-judgments. If you’ve ever worked on a complex project with multiple people working different rotations and shifts, over many months, with incomplete and confusing information you’d be very familiar with this phenomenon. While it’s easy for outsiders to leap to easy conclusions with the benefit of hindsight; the reality for the people involved at the time was much less clear.

          We have a very good friend here in Australia who has many decades of social work experience; this is her daily concern, that in among distractions and difficult decisions, something important will be missed. She’s had some close calls over the years, and watched colleagues get unjustly crushed by the machine when they got it wrong. It’s not easy in the slightest.

          • Sabine 1.1.1.1.1
            27 January 2019 at 8:39 pm

            i watched the saga in real live, and i will never forget the cop that said no one came forward, just to back track a week later saying oh someone came forward, but but but.

            the police did not do its job

            justice did not do its job

            these girls did not have sex, they got raped.
            Sex implies consent.
            Sex implies willing partners. Spiking someones drink and plying them till they are drunk and then raping them, filming them and shaming them online by showing these films is not sex. It is supplying alcohol to minors, sexual intercourse with a minor, forced sexual intercourse with a person not of age, producing porn with a minor, distributing porn with a minor.

            And the police – to their everlasting shame – could not be bothered to do their jobs and protect these girls, apprehend these guys, lock them up, and have them judged.
            If send to prison, believe me they would have recieved more care then the girls. More funds for rehabilitation, more access to social workers, psychiatrists etc etc etc. But no they got nothing, cause the Police in NZ was to fucking lazy, to full of bullshit, to ‘blame the girls for not coming forward’ and they did fuck all.

            If you consider this sex, than you might have to think about that.

            The police should prosecute anytime someone is raped. Irrespective of age.
            Do young people have sex, consentually? yes, and guess what, generally they are not drunk, they don’t get fucked by several guys, they don’t get filmed and they don’t get shamed.

            I don’t care if the offenders were sixteen, fifteen or thirty. They were old enough to go and find someone old enough to buy the booze, they then were old enough to ply girls with that booze to get them drunk, they then partook in a gang rape. They conspired, they planned, they executed they gangrapes.
            The police should have prosecuted, the police did not do its jobs, could not be bothered do its job, the son of the cop was never even named.
            The police in nz does not take rape as a crime serious enough to do its fucking job for which they are paid by the tax payer. Protect and serve only if it is convenient.

            This is not a reasonable outcome, maybe instead of interviewing the rapist who is begging for money pretending to have come ‘to his god’ they should interview the girls, some who by now might have turned 18 and ask them how they are dealing with the situation, if they have access to a social worker, if they have access to counseling, if they have any recourse with their emotional issues should they need recourse, if the videos of them are still around on the internet etc etc etc
            You will find that chances are they have received on that end as little help as they received when they went to the police to lay a complaint for rape.

            For what its worth, just about right now you sound like Tamihere, just that you hide behind ‘would you not want to think of the poor children who are rapists and young – boys will be boys , and social work, and prison, and such such such’.

            They raped, they got away with it, they don’t regret a single thing, they never felt sorry other then for themselves and if it would not have come out chances are they would have done it some more.

            As for OZ, generally speaking one women a week is killed in oz by a partner/expartner, surely that too is only due to boys being boys. .

            • RedLogix 1.1.1.1.1.1
              27 January 2019 at 9:44 pm

              I’m not at all sure exactly what chimera you addressed that rant to, but it seems to bear little relationship to the comment I made above.

              I bothered to read the IPCA report and precis the general contents in order to give some sense of what exactly went wrong and why. Clearly this doesn’t interest you much beyond another opportunity to abuse the NZ Police.

              Have you considered that its highly probable at least some of the Police Officers investigating were women? Exactly what motive would they have to ‘not care about rape’? That seems an unjustified and defamatory claim.

              I don’t care if the offenders were sixteen, fifteen or thirty.

              Everyone here agrees their behaviour was reprehensible and totally out of line, that’s so obvious it hardly needs repeating. As I clearly stated above, it has to be damned disappointing they didn’t face legal consequences.

              At the same time while you may not care about their age, the law does. And the Police in this country, much to our huge good fortune, do generally care about the law. Two of these kids were minors, and when the girls first came forward, the wider pattern of abuse was not obvious. The normal Police response in these sorts of instances was to treat is as underage sex between minors. Very common as one of my links pointed out, and as I said above, it’s not clear that a criminal prosecution is always the best response in these cases.

              In this case it certainly was, but it was only later that the full facts emerged, and by then the complainants had decided to stop cooperating with the Police. This would have made a successful prosecution virtually impossible; but it doesn’t rule out one or more of them coming forward at some time in the future. Also for obvious reasons there might have been other evidence we don’t know about that caused the Prosecution Service to not proceed at this time.

              Contrary to what you may think, there are no real time limits here, and we may yet see this matter appear in Court.

              • Lucy …
                28 January 2019 at 9:41 am

                It does not matter whether this goes to court now – only 30% of rape cases result in convictions. There was a story in the herald about juries agonizing on how short the skirt the woman was wearing when she got raped! Roast Busters for women was about how we are minimized by the courts, by police, by shock jocks when we say consent was not given. Even in clear cases under law when consent can not be given men are given the benefit of the doubt. If this was done in other criminal cases then how many cases of fraud do you think would fail? Money is more precious to the justice system and the people of NZ than its women! .

              • Tiger Mountain …
                28 January 2019 at 11:13 am

                Spare us RL, the Police essentially investigating themselves, via IPCA, only on the rarest of occasions ever challenges NZ macho Police Culture

                • RedLogix …
                  28 January 2019 at 11:22 am

                  Are you certain that all of the investigating officers were macho men? We do know that one of the people speaking on behalf of the Police is one “Detective Inspector Karyn Malthus”.

                  I suspect that if you ever tried to actually do the job the Police have to do, you’d very quickly change your tune.

        • Tiger Mountain 1.1.1.2
          28 January 2019 at 11:11 am

          Well put Sabine, Mr Tamihere is ultimately an excuser and an enabler of dodgy males and NZ’s rape culture

  2. Visubversa 2
    27 January 2019 at 10:05 am

    Tamahere does some good work, but he should stick to dealing with what he does. He is a sexist pillock and I have a recall of a newspaper article saying that he abandoned his 2 ginger cats when he moved house. That is him dead to me!

    • marty mars 2.1
      27 January 2019 at 10:44 am

      + 1 yep – he isn’t as good as he thinks he is and he has done some good work amongst his foul and disgusting attitudes.

      • Tiger Mountain 2.1.1
        28 January 2019 at 11:48 am

        Not been keen on JT since he tried to exclude unions in the form of the then National Distribution Union-now First Union-from any role with staff in his early years at the trust in West Auckland. The cat abandonment showed a heartless streak too.

        He has authoritarian aspects to his character, which I guess could be seen as a good fit by some for local government!

        But really the supercity seems on a chaos spiral that no individual Mayor is going to arrest unless they go full raving left-Free public transport, homeless villages, tiny houses for tiny rents (plonk them in NIMBYs backyards…), car bans, slash the $100 grand plus salaries, sack Hods, and run a referendum or whatever is legally required to can ACT’s undemocratic CCOs once and for all. If the Council operated for people maybe more than 38% would participate in voting.

  3. cathy 3
    27 January 2019 at 10:10 am

    “Well they’re the sort of thing you say as a talkback host”.

    and that was “recently” ?

    “Let me ask you this. How many people have been charged with rape?” he says.

    so his attitude hasn’t changed.

    • Anne 3.1
      27 January 2019 at 10:42 am

      From the IPCA report:
      The fact that the father of one of the young men was a Police officer had no influence on Police’s handling of the investigations.

      When that information was first revealed by the media I thought: “… so that’s what was at the bottom of the delay”.

      It will not be the first time that the police have delayed or chosen not to prosecute because of a relationship/association with the perpetrator or perpetrators of crimes of this nature. My own experience with the police (admittedly a long time ago) suggest that the attitude of some police officers towards women were no different to John Tamihere.

      Maybe that is changing but I suspect there’s still a long way to go.

      • DJ Ward 3.1.1
        27 January 2019 at 1:32 pm

        Good point. The police policy with police safety orders of just walking over to the male and going “your it” is clear evidence of a bad attitude towards women. Imagine not being believed if your a girl and something bad did happen. You get sat down and listened to, they may even go and talk to the accused. Then the biased cops say no, we are not taking this further, we can’t establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

        Meanwhile a young male walks in to talk about being sexually abused by a female and gets laughed out of the station.

        • Anne 3.1.1.1
          27 January 2019 at 5:58 pm

          Meanwhile a young male walks in to talk about being sexually abused by a female and gets laughed out of the station.

          Well, that actually did happen to me twenty five years ago and I am a woman. It was Takapuna police station. I reported abusive and intimidating behaviour and the arrogant sod (he looked like he was not long out of nappies) behind the counter chose not to believe me and laughed. Unfortunately there were no witnesses. I walked out feeling embarrassed, humiliated and shaking with anger. I think I would still recognise the shit if I saw him today.

          So, DJ Ward don’t try to suggest it is only males who get treated like that because in those days in particular it was more likely to be females – such was the ignorance and misogyny in the Police Force.

        • mpledger 3.1.1.2
          28 January 2019 at 9:44 am

          Do you actually know a young man or know of a young man that this happened too? Or are you just assuming it happened?

          • DJ Ward 3.1.1.2.1
            28 January 2019 at 11:34 am

            Me. Apart from being around for a long time and well informed from the male victims of sex crimes groups where being laughed out of the police station is a well recorded phenomenon. I’ve even tried to deal with these issues in court on 2 occasions. Hell has no fury like a judge under attack for the sex crimes they support. One judge had to state he could never be in a case involving me again, and the other because I was attacking the conspiracy of the police and the courts of falsifying birth certificates lasted 30 seconds. Simple fact mpledger. Rate of female victims and prosecutions vs rate of male victims and prosecutions.

            The cops do this sex crime supporting and denigration of the male stuff on a consistent bases.
            In DV situations the female to anger the male will sometimes use a comment like “the kids not even yours”. The police do nothing in response to the admission of a crime involving sex and impose the law on the male for his anger. The same for comments “of course I lied about being on the pill” an actual sex crime. Often accompanied by you should have used a condom, and laughter.

            But how would we know. No research, no data, no integrity.

            3 days ago in a social setting I ended up for a few hours with a good freind and a 16 year old male. The good freind has got evidence his missus has been cheating on him, and is 6 months pregnant. To say the least he is not in a good state of mind. The 16 year old has just split up with a girlfriend and has experienced suicidle thoughts. Simply put the girl was treating him like he was her own personal slave. Eventually the subject of sex came up and he admitted his first experience was him 15 and the woman was 22. I pointed out she committed a crime and he simply didn’t even know it was a crime.

            • RedLogix 3.1.1.2.1.1
              28 January 2019 at 11:44 am

              Of course if this young guy does kill himself, as men do very frequently, then absolutely no-one outside of his immediate family will give a shit.

              We lost one of our drivers where I’m working right now a few days ago in similar circumstances … FIFO creating plenty of opportunity for female cheating.

              • DJ Ward …
                28 January 2019 at 11:57 am

                Especially the coroner.

                No surprise feminists went hard out preventing them releasing any information. Even now all we get is race and regions. Nothing about cause.

  5. marty mars 5
    27 January 2019 at 10:41 am

    Good post. Toxic male thinking does have to change – sadly this thinking is deeply engrained and normalized for many males – look around – the shit we are in has a lot to do with toxic masculinity which is related to toxic thinking about nature, the world and even life.

  6. DJ Ward 6
    27 January 2019 at 11:07 am

    So this is investigated in a court of law and Tamahere got paid out.

    NZs attitude, or his.
    NZ was the last nation on earth , apart from Saudi Arabia, to make it a crime to have sex with children in 2008. Well in traditional NZ male hating bigotry, women having sex with boys. Males having sex with girls in modern NZ has always been a crime.
    It is also the case that if a boy is drunk and a woman has sex with them, nobody gives a shit. There’s absolutely no difference in harm, or morality. In fact the behavour can be far worse. The young male can end up being subject to a life changing, and for teenage males, deadly pregnancy. It’s not like they get any say in what’s happening, the resources, or have intellectual competency, or extortionary level finances, to protect themselves in the court, and the anti male bias of the courts is amplified by compassion towards the female and denigration of his behavour.
    It’s not like the drunk boys can pre empt risk by taking a contraceptive just in case they get stupefied and raped. Oh that’s right rape doesn’t exist if your a little boy, or any male and an older women intentionaly acts for some fun and a sperm donation.
    IRD has 15 year old boys paying child support. Sounds serous when a person is subject to a crime and then has to pay money to the offender. For 18 years. Shit the rape just goes on and on and on. Pay check after pay check. The girls wake up the next morning devastated and have a cry. It goes on and on and on, week after week, for the boys. There’s no comparison in harm. The boys get no justice at any level. The girls get the media and blog sites go full noise for them, with compassion, hatred of the offender, persecution years later for even just a wrong comment.

    The boys get silence from the coroner. Silence from the media. Silence from the police. Silence from politicians. Look what happens when you go out of bounds on the discussion.

    Not from me. The day before this scam, politically motivated attack on Tamahere, i was one of his callers. We had a lengthy discussion on these points. Cleary Tamahere was rocking the boat and needed to be silenced.

    Yep lots of bigotry today.

    • joe90 6.1
      27 January 2019 at 11:48 am

      So this is investigated in a court of law and Tamahere got paid out.

      Deny..

      Well in traditional NZ male hating bigotry,

      ..attack..

      In fact the behavour can be far worse. The young male can end up being subject to a life changing, and for teenage males, deadly pregnancy.

      ..reverse..

      The young male can end up being subject to a life changing, and for teenage males, deadly pregnancy.

      ..offender..

      Sounds serous when a person is subject to a crime and then has to pay money to the offender. For 18 years. Shit the rape just goes on and on and on.

      ..victim..

      …DARVO!

    • Sabine 6.2
      27 January 2019 at 12:11 pm

      pregnancy is deadly for teenage males?

      Yeah, right Tui.

      • DJ Ward 6.2.1
        27 January 2019 at 1:02 pm

        Tell you what let’s put that comment to the test.

        Go and look for the data.
        You will find endless study’s and articles on female suicide related to pregnancy. You will find nothing on men. No discussion, no data.

        Just a dirty little secret.

        NZ very high rates of teenage pregnancy.
        NZ very high rates of teenage male suicide.
        Higher rates of teenage pregnancy with Maori.
        Higher rates a teenage male suicide with Maori.

        Nope, definately no link there.

      • Patricia 6.2.2
        27 January 2019 at 4:34 pm

        Some of the young girls involved in the Roast Busters debacle were / still are badly affected by the actual assaults and the subsequent fall out. I don’t see that the males involved were badly affected or remorseful. I cannot find any evidence of male mortality from teenage pregnancies.

        • RedLogix 6.2.2.1
          27 January 2019 at 4:55 pm

          Some of the young girls involved in the Roast Busters debacle were / still are badly affected by the actual assaults and the subsequent fall out.

          No-one is questioning this at all. It’s why the Police failure to act is has frustrated so many people, especially those who have a keen interest.

          I don’t see that the males involved were badly affected or remorseful.

          Ugly indeed; clearly they haven’t learned anything. Maybe no-one has taken the opportunity to try.

          I cannot find any evidence of male mortality from teenage pregnancies.

          I doubt DJW is implying any direct link; that would be a crazy assertion. Whether there is an indirect, associative link is an interesting question. It can’t be ruled out and it would interesting to see if there is any research into this.

          What is becoming clearer is that males are distinctly vulnerable to suicide in the aftermath of a bad relationship break-up; more so than commonly assumed. From my own experience I can attest this does seem a reasonable assertion.

          For men, being rejected sexually is a form of death. Not directly, but certainly in the reproductive sense. We’re supposed to ‘get over it’ and never talk about it, but it’s not always a trivial process.

          • marty mars 6.2.2.1.1
            27 January 2019 at 5:05 pm

            “For men, being rejected sexually is a form of death. Not directly, but certainly in the reproductive sense.”

            for SOME men maybe – I’d venture these shallow men really need to adjust the way they see the world because it isn’t all there JUST for them. This attitude od theirs causes pain for many many people.

            • Patricia 6.2.2.1.1.1
              27 January 2019 at 5:30 pm

              Agree Marty Mars. Our young people, maybe more so young males, need to be more resiliant. Not sure how we teach this but should start at an early age.
              I well remember the good old days when young men would claim they would be physically damaged for life if we females spurned their sexual advances. I do hope our laughter and spurning has not had dire long term effects.

              • RedLogix …
                27 January 2019 at 7:52 pm

                I do hope our laughter and spurning has not had dire long term effects.

                Probably not in that context; males are trained up to be the risk-taking, disposable gender, and very early in life we get used to the idea that our feelings don’t count whatsoever. And if we are silly enough to talk about them with our ‘intimate’ partner she’s likely to react quite badly to this perceived ‘weakness’.

                In general men are expected to be the performative gender; while women are innately valuable as the mothers of the next generation, we have to prove ourselves as worthwhile mates and fathers. It’s a different calculus for us.

                While women do tend to be more emotionally skilled and intelligent; but for all that it’s surprising how little most women really know about the inner lives of the men around them. It’s possibly why you sometimes find us so laughable and dangerous at the same time.

            • RedLogix 6.2.2.1.1.2
              27 January 2019 at 6:20 pm

              It’s not something conscious. The biological reality is that women do the sexual selection. Geneticists tell us that fully half of all men who ever lived never reproduced; we have on average two female ancestors for every one male.

              It’s also why rape is such an emotionally fraught issue; because it breaks the fundamental taboo of this essential female prerogative, the right to select the male they want to have children with. It’s not even accurate to call it a ‘right’; it’s something deeply hard-wired into us; women especially.

              And it has to be said, from the male perspective the human female ‘hidden estrus’ created the problem of uncertain paternity. Adultery and rape both obviously feeding into this concern, especially in traditional societies.

              But the aspect we almost never talk about is that while women do the selecting, it is men who are expected to do the initiating, and take the risk of being turned down. Most of the time. And for fully half of men who ever lived, this was all of the time. From a strictly genetic perspective, this was the end of their heritage, their particular gene line dies out with them.

              It also explains why some men have a particular terror of approaching women they’re interested in; why it’s such a fraught experience. Although with maturity and experience we usually get past it, it’s certainly an unwanted guest squatting in the teenage and later years for many.

              The other day Sabine quoted a line I’ve seen before men are afraid women will laugh at them; women are afraid men will kill them.. There is real element of truth in this, but also a misapprehension. Superficially it seems absurd to compare being ‘laughed at’ with being ‘killed’.

              Yet if you reframe the experience of ‘being laughed at’ as ‘rejected and humiliated’, and ‘genetic death’ it takes on a different complexion. And it goes some way to explaining why men are vulnerable to disturbed and extreme responses in the aftermath of a relationship breakdown. Usually it comes in the form of heartache, depression and suicidal thoughts. Sometimes it lashes out as jealousy, stalking, threats and assaults. At the extremes we see suicides and familial murders.

              Understanding our innate subconscious drivers is key to helping people turn away from resentment, bitterness and vengeance. Knowing why we feel the way we do, especially when they’re dark, bitter feelings, is to my mind the first step in controlling how we respond to them. That’s how we develop resilience in the face of life’s inevitable crisis’s.

              • marty mars …
                27 January 2019 at 6:41 pm

                “Yet if you reframe the experience of ‘being laughed at’ as ‘rejected and humiliated’, and ‘genetic death’ it takes on a different complexion. And it goes some way to explaining why men are vulnerable to disturbed and extreme responses in the aftermath of a relationship breakdown. Usually it comes in the form of heartache, depression and suicidal thoughts. Sometimes it lashes out as jealousy, stalking, threats and assaults. At the extremes we see suicides and familial murders.”

                nah I just don’t agree with those assertions of yours.

                I get it fits your narrative but the truth is life and men are much more complicated and have many more drivers than the base reproductive one you’d reduce us all to. That is just a way to create wiggle room in the same way as “What was she wearing” does for men.

                Men are able to be holistic, creative and controlled. Some men can’t do that – they need help from other men not reinforcement imo.

                • RedLogix …
                  27 January 2019 at 7:02 pm

                  have many more drivers than the base reproductive one you’d reduce us all to.

                  Every scrap of psychological research confirms our biological origins; and how they shape our unconscious reactions. Evolution is one of the single most powerful scientific ideas we have ever had, and one that has been confirmed in millions of different ways.

                  But absolutely nowhere do I reduce us to these ‘base drivers’ as you suggest. Quite the opposite, how many times have I used the phrase ‘the first post-biological species’? Just to be 100% clear on this, I say this as emphatically as I can … our unique capacity for self-aware consciousness and complex abstraction also means that we can grasp the transcendent. We’re aware however dimly, of the divine spark in all of creation, and means we grapple with ideas such as justice, compassion, dignity and more.

                  Biological determinism is by itself every bit as silly as the ‘blank-slate’ social constructionist claims. When you use the term ‘holistic’ I understand this as the merging of the biological creature and spiritual being that we all are. But to fully understand ourselves we cannot ignore our biological roots; and if we want to understand sexuality and it’s sometimes dark relationship with exploitation and violence there is every reason to turn to the ancient creature with us all.

                  they need help from other men not reinforcement imo.

                  You don’t help anyone by getting them to pretend they’re innately good.

                • Patricia …
                  27 January 2019 at 7:32 pm

                  Marty Mars – when I was 17 in 1962 being pregnant and unmarried would have brought great shame on me and my parents. Difficult to get good birth control in those days – “no” was the only 100% method of contraception. Even though I had sympathy for my young boyfriend the prospect of pregnancy was absolutely frightening. I had a couple of women friends who did become pregnant. When they named the fathers the alleged fathers arranged for a couple of their mates to say they also had had sex with with the girls so case dismissed ; father unknown and no paternity fees @ 30 shillings weekly to be paid for 16 years. Great shame for the women ; in one case the entire family packed up and left town after buying a wedding ring for the woman to wear over the next 6 months. No DPB available for another 10 years so parents had to support their daughters until the birth. We females had far more to lose than young men with “blue balls”.

                  • veutoviper …
                    27 January 2019 at 7:51 pm

                    Patricia, I have not yet read in detail this whole thread, but I really thank you for this particular contribution.

                    You have said in a very few words what I and others of our generation of females experienced in those days but have not, or cannot, express so well. Thank you.

                    I have a few things to do this evening but will be reading this whole thread in detail later. As well as you, the people you are talking to are some of the best IMO. Kia kaha. Please stay..

                  • marty mars …
                    27 January 2019 at 8:02 pm

                    Thanks Patricia for your comment – you have outlined the issues very well. And so true about who had things to lose – there is no comparison in my opinion.

                  • RedLogix …
                    27 January 2019 at 8:07 pm

                    Absolutely, sex was always more costly and potentially dangerous for women; this was a simply biological reality. It explains why women are generally far more selective and cautious about the whole business. And it certainly explains why women are generally more sensitive to risk and threat, both to themselves and the relatively small number of potential children they might bear in a lifetime.

                    Reliable contraception, the Pill in particular, dramatically reduced the physical cost of sex for women; although interestingly their evolved emotional caution and selectivity around mating remained as alive as ever.

                    In many ways we’re still grappling with the profound social implications of this change in our biology.

                    • Sabine …
                      27 January 2019 at 8:45 pm

                      simple

                      men fear that women laugh at them
                      women fear that men will kill them.

                    • marty mars …
                      27 January 2019 at 8:50 pm

                      Yep Sabine – there is no getting around that fact, no mincing of words or spillage of meaning or consideration of oh so many factors – nope, the truth is very scary and unequivocal.

                    • RedLogix …
                      27 January 2019 at 10:17 pm

                      As I said, there is truth in that. Superficially it’s absurd to compare the consequences of ‘being laughed at’ with ‘being killed’. I’m not a fool, that’s entirely obvious.

                      But it covers up the reality that ‘being laughed at’ is in this context a proxy for humiliation, rejection and psychological abuse.

                      We aren’t talking about good-natured ribbing or shit-stirring here, we’re talking the kind of cruel, undermining and shaming laughter that shrivels and diminishes.

                      I’ve used this argument before. Imagine someone on a ladder falls onto you and breaks your arm. Painful, unpleasant and you could be a tad pissed off. Now consider the same person instead of accidentally falling, uses the ladder as a weapon, deliberately bashes you, breaking your arm. Clearly this is an entirely different situation, even though the physical injury is identical. Their bad intent matters, there is now a component of psychological injury to the attack, completely absent in the accident.

                      Arguably it is more important that the physical injury. After all what is the fundamental difference between happy consensual sex and traumatic rape … if not bad intent.

                      Now of course this in no way diminishes killing someone. That remains the most serious crime of all. If you commit homicide, you will rightly wear the most serious consequences.

                      But neither does this alter the cost and consequences of psychological injuries. They aren’t visible like bruises, bashings or killings …. but I don’t think you get to dismiss their bad intent as trifles to be laughed at either.

                    • marty mars …
                      27 January 2019 at 10:21 pm

                      laughed at verses killed – hmmmm – imo they are chalk and cheese – unless toxic masculinity enters the male mind then laughed at becomes killed.

                    • RedLogix …
                      27 January 2019 at 11:08 pm

                      Yes they are different. I’m emphatically not making them the same. I’m not asking anyone to chose one over the other. Nor can anyone sanely use ‘being laughed at’ to justify ‘killing someone’. That would be utterly idiotic.

                  • Anne …
                    28 January 2019 at 11:52 am

                    Coming from the same generation as you Patricia, thank-you for your comments.

                    I have found subsequent generations of men and women – including family – somewhat scornful of our youthful predicament. To be unmarried and pregnant was the most horrific thing that could happen to us. We would be harshly judged by every segment of society and shunned by our peers. Then when the baby was born it would be whisked away and adopted out. The birth mother would not be allowed to see her baby again and the adopted parents’ details withheld from her. That was her punishment for becoming pregnant no matter what the circumstances.

                    Is it any wonder the majority of us said NO. We then stood a good chance of being discarded by the boyfriend in favour of someone who would say YES.

                    So we lost whichever way we chose to go. The harsh attitudes we had to contend with in those days had a negative impact on our lives for a long time afterwards.

                    • DJ Ward …
                      28 January 2019 at 2:45 pm

                      I have never met a brother who was whisked away from my father when he was 14.
                      At 16 he had a shotgun pointed at him, and a subsequent marriage he didn’t want to be part of.

                      Luckily we have for the women moved on from that stuff.

                    • Anne …
                      28 January 2019 at 3:31 pm

                      @ DJ Ward
                      Sorry to hear about your brother. Yes, all sorts of horrible attitudes existed decades ago but your response to my comment replying to Patricia is not in any way relevant nor does it make much sense

                      You seem to want to play some silly game with women on this site who have a conversation about mutual experiences – an attempt to infer our contributions are somehow unworthy. Why? Do you believe women are not entitled to discuss their experiences?

            • sumsuch 6.2.2.1.1.3
              27 January 2019 at 10:47 pm

              These narrow sea elephants disallowed by the beachmaster need to readjust their attitude. The quote is correct. The drama and tension of life.

              ‘After 40 men are either stoics or satyrs’. Well, both mostly. Most of us can’t do the unkind to a face thing.

          • mpledger 6.2.2.1.2
            28 January 2019 at 10:12 am

            But who doesn’t want you to talk about it? Other men might not but women certainly want men to be more open to them about their lives. It’s that the one of those eternal generalisations that women want to men to communicate more with them.

            Maori don’t have the same hang-ups about babies being born out of wedlock so I don’t believe that it causes a lot of angst at the time – grannies and aunties step up and get things done. I think it’s more an issue 10 years later when men who have bought into the hard living/hard drinking lifestyle and then find they have nothing to offer as a family man so they are left living an unconnected life.

            • RedLogix 6.2.2.1.2.1
              28 January 2019 at 11:29 am

              Other men might not but women certainly want men to be more open to them about their lives.

              That is the conventional wisdom. In my experience the opposite is what actually happens.

              I recall an old Ray Bradbury short story which has a moment which goes like this; ‘For years women had wished that the men in their lives might open up and tell them what they really felt. And at 9pm that night they all did. And then at midnight all of the women suddenly wished their men would stop talking’.

              I paraphrase a lot, but Ray was a great student of the human condition.

  7. Bazza64 7
    27 January 2019 at 11:43 am

    Agree totally with this post. Best they kept their mouths shut & not try to make more publicity out of it, nothing these guys did can be defended.

  8. Ad 8
    27 January 2019 at 1:35 pm

    John Tamihere and Christine Fletcher are spent and stale.

    They have no place anywhere near the Auckland mayoralty.

    I won’t be supporting them.

    • jam tomorrow 8.1
      27 January 2019 at 3:13 pm

      Christine Fletcher and Michelle Boag will make mincemeat of John Tamahere , he is too vain, too self-centred to be allowed anywhere near power – a minor Trump in the making.
      Fletcher and Boag will flatter and manipulate him – they are both far smarter at the dark arts than he – he is all bluster and puffery.

      • Ad 8.1.1
        27 January 2019 at 8:06 pm

        Tamihere has plenty of dark arts mates, in Maori, broadcasting, corporate, sport, trusts, and government. Don’t overestimate him as he is a bully and plays for keeps.

        Boag is as spent as Fletcher for all her skill.

  9. Ross 9
    27 January 2019 at 2:01 pm

    I can’t stand Tamihere. But your comments about Roastbusters are off.

    Prosecution of the roast busters should have been a slam dunk. It may have been difficult to prove sexual violation because of consent issues. But it is also against the law to engage in sexual conduct with a woman under the age of 16 years. And there were admissions on Facebook that this was what had happened. Proof of this offence should have been very easy.

    Some people like bragging on Facebook. Some people like bragging off Facebook. It may surprise you, Mickey, but some people like to gild the lily. Bullshitting on Facebook isn’t enough to get you convicted, and I’d be concerned if that is the proof you are talking about.

    I’m not sure why proof of the offence should’ve been easy. The Police apparently undertook a thorough review of the initial investigation and still found there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. Police often prosecute without much more than the allegation of the complainant. So when Police decide not to prosecute, it suggests the evidence is weak.

    • mpledger 9.1
      28 January 2019 at 10:18 am

      The police didn’t make any decision at all, they left it too long for any prosecution to proceed. That doesn’t smack of the evidence being too weak, it suggests that there was no *easy* decision so they made *no* decision.

      Just prior to these events, their was a lot of take about letting boys off the hook if the couple were close in age e.g. boy 16 and girl 15 – all the “they’re in love” so he shouldn’t be prosecuted. But once there was purposeful stupefying the police should have been in like a shot to nail it on the head.

  10. Ross 10
    27 January 2019 at 2:04 pm

    I do not know why but instead of the Police moving immediately to charge the males involved they held off. For too long. And then found out they could not do anything because too much time had passed.

    I don’t believe that is correct. There have been convictions for historical sex offences dating back decades. When the offence happened is largely irrelevant.

    http://www.police.govt.nz/sites/default/files/publications/operation-clover-investigation-overview-report.pdf

    • veutoviper 10.1
      27 January 2019 at 3:36 pm

      Hi Ross (and mickysavage as author of the OP)

      This is completely off topic and I apologise to you both for that, but am wondering whether we have two people using the name “Ross” here at present, but with different identicons, or one person with two identicons.

      We have had situations where two people using the same name can be very confusing and the newest one is usually asked to differentiate their name. We have also had situations where the same person (eg Ed) has used more than one identicon as a result of using more than one email address – again very confusing.

      I noted yesterday that on the long comments to the “Herald names Dowie as the sender of the text to Jami-Lee Ross” we had several comments from “Ross” but :

      — Two with the same blue square identicon used here at your comments at 9 and 10 above, ie the comments @ 22.2 on 25 Jan at 1.20pm and @ 20.3.1.1 on 26 Jan at 11.53am on the Herald Dowie post;

      — the others (earlier ones on that other post) used a different violet snowflake type identicon – ie @ 19 dated 25 Jan 10.29am and @ 20.3 also dated 25 Jan at 12.47pm.

      I won’t try to post links to these specific comments as that does not seem to work currently – links only go to the post itself.

      No criticism intended, but it would be helpful to know whether it is a case of one person with two identicons, or two different people.

      Sorry, I am just a nuisance pedant!

      • Ross 10.1.1
        27 January 2019 at 6:13 pm

        Thanks, I’m happy adopt a different name and maybe say “formerly Ross”?

        • veutoviper 10.1.1.1
          27 January 2019 at 7:10 pm

          Thank you so much for your reply. I probably overstepped the mark not being an author or moderator here, but pedants must do what pedants do!

          Hopefully the real moderators, sysops who is lprent will step up and sort it with you.

          Ie I take it that you are not the same Ross (blue identicon) from the first Ross (violet snowflake identicon) ?

          Help – mickysavage lprent te reo putake – ….????

          Mea culpa (on repetition)

  11. Treetop 11
    27 January 2019 at 2:36 pm

    It does not sit right with me that there were no actual legal consequences for the roast busters. This happened in 2013, it goes to show that there needs to be a shake up in legislation so people do not get away with committing serious crime.

    Next month the inquiry into sexual, physical and emotional harm in state care begins.

    I predict that the harm and suffering which was caused decades ago, for far to many, will not be fully understood in individual and monetary terms. The cost to an individual on many levels is a high price paid because this is the reality of what can happen and does happen.

    Not enough is being done in current times and tragically the past is being repeated.

    To take from a person a portion of their life, the value on this is what the offender does.

    Settlement of sensitive claims with ACC are rigged, people are not compensated for the actual mental damage caused, especially in childhood.

    • Formerly Ross 11.1
      27 January 2019 at 6:17 pm

      Police were also frustrated there were no consequences, but there was little possibility of conviction.

      Detective Inspector Karyn Malthus said today that the decision not to charge came about due to a range of factors including “evidential tests under the Solicitor General’s prosecution guidelines”.

      “These state that there must be a reasonable prospect of conviction for police to initiate a conviction.”

      Other factors included “the wishes of individual victims, the admissible evidence available, the nature of the offence and the age of the parties at the time of the offending”.

      Malthus said she was satisfied “every investigative avenue” was pursued, though she left the door open to further action saying there was no time limit on reporting sexual offending and any future disclosures would be assessed and investigated.

      “This is an important message to potential victims who have decided not to seek police assistance at this time,” she said.

      When questioned, Malthus agreed she would have liked to been able to prosecute but what they had did not pass the evidence test.

      http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/10674764/Roast-Busters-case-No-charges-to-be-laid

      • McFlock 11.1.1
        27 January 2019 at 8:25 pm

        It’s funny that “every investigative avenue was pursued” when the suspects were interviewed in only one case, and that was by officiers insufficiently prepared to conduct the interview.

        • Psycho Milt 11.1.1.1
          27 January 2019 at 10:10 pm

          “every investigative avenue was pursued” = “you must be joking pal, like fuck we’d investigate sluts whingeing about getting fucked, only shit, we’d better not say it like that or we’re, er fucked…”

          • Formerly Ross 11.1.1.1.1
            28 January 2019 at 6:08 am

            Psycho,

            The report into the case states:

            “Police acknowledge that the basis for interviews of the majority was hearsay and rumour and wish to make it clear at the time of this report that there is little evidence in existence to accuse the majority of persons of interest of being engaged in criminal sexual offending.”

            Would you really want a suspect tarred and feathered over some hearsay and rumour? That might be your kind of justice system but it isn’t mine.

            And you obviously missed my earlier comment when I said that Police are usually quick to prosecute where sexual offending is concerned. How many times have they said that they prefer to leave it to the jury to decide the facts of the case?

            Getting it wrong can be very costly for the wrongly convicted.

            https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12156071

        • Formerly Ross 11.1.1.2
          28 January 2019 at 5:55 am

          the suspects were interviewed in only one case

          I’m not sure what you are saying, but of course suspects can refuse to be interviewed, and two did in this case.

  12. Jum 12
    27 January 2019 at 7:11 pm

    Until women/girls actually realise that their actions will impact on girls after them, then they will continue to be silent on what has happened to them.

    So far, women have failed to warn their girls that there is no such thing as equality with men unless it is demanded and fought/killed even for.

    Every women needs to understand that men will not allow or encourage them to stand beside men as equals until women unite and guard upcoming girls and women from the garbage of evolutionary woman-hatred by men.

    • RedLogix 12.1
      27 January 2019 at 7:23 pm

      evolutionary woman-hatred by men.

      Honestly that phrase baffles me. I just cannot get my head around why anyone would think that.

      For certain there are some men who hate women, and some women who hate men. Our capacity for resentment and hate is something both genders share pretty damned equally in common.

      But the idea that the whole of human evolution can be boiled down to “all men innately hating all women” is absurd on the face of it, and contradicts every scrap of evidence.

      Quite the contrary; the most irritating thing about most men for many women is how we tend to put them on pedestals …

      • Psycho Milt 12.1.1
        27 January 2019 at 10:13 pm

        You don’t think there are evolutionary reasons why men might have an incentive not to consider leaving their sperm in a woman’s vagina a victory regardless of how she personally felt about the experience? Seriously?

        • RedLogix 12.1.1.1
          27 January 2019 at 10:55 pm

          Almost all human societies have a strong social taboo against rape. After all consider how we legally treat rape as a crime equally seriously as murder. On the face of it this is quite odd, after all from a purely objective perspective the act itself is almost indistinguishable from the same act enthusiastically undertaken by hundreds of millions of people every day. The same certainly cannot be said about murder.

          Of course what really matters is the psychological component, the bad intent to coerce, manipulate and negate the other’s power to say no. And all the evidence points to us taking this very seriously.

          Absent war and the general breakdown of social constraints, forcible rape is relatively rare. Of the roughly hundred million times humans have sex every day, only a tiny fraction of these would be in a legal sense coerced with bad intent.

          And even then there is good evidence to suggest that most serious sexual offenses are committed by a small number of serial offenders, sociopaths, psychopaths, pedophiles and other seriously damaged personalities. Most others tend to be crimes of circumstance and opportunity, just as culpable, but self-limiting when the circumstances change.

          However you want to paint it, coercive bad intent rape is not normal human behaviour. (Drunken, opportunistic, ill-advised, manipulative, guilt tripping, transactional bad sex is however pretty commonplace, but then again both genders seem more than capable of that.)

          • Psycho Milt 12.1.1.1.1
            27 January 2019 at 11:19 pm

            Almost all human societies have a strong social taboo against rape.

            Well, that’s the theory. How does that work out for women in practice?

            • RedLogix 12.1.1.1.1.1
              27 January 2019 at 11:43 pm

              On a daily basis it works out reasonably well for most women. We could do better, but the good news is that generally rates of violent crime continue to diminish everywhere but on social media.

      • mpledger 12.1.2
        28 January 2019 at 10:24 am

        That’s not the most irritating thing about most men.

  13. Jum 13
    27 January 2019 at 7:22 pm

    haumaha, roastbusters, tamahere – the hatred towards women and girls is palpable.

  14. Morrissey 14
    27 January 2019 at 8:15 pm

    ….a group of young predominately westie males who used to get young women drunk and then engage in sexual contact with them.

    They sound exactly like an organized group of eastie and northie males.

    https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/alleged-inappropriate-touching-young-nats-event-investigated

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/108894339/national-party-defends-handling-of-young-nats-incident

    https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/11/27/340389/young-nat-suspended-after-newsroom-story

  15. McFlock 15
    27 January 2019 at 8:49 pm

    Young men do objectionable things.
    Old men say objectionable thing to defend the young men.
    Police fuck up the case.
    Old and young men pretend “no charges were laid” means they never did anything wrong.
    Discussions about the objectionable things get derailed by people saying how difficult life can be for men.

    That’s how rape culture works: ignore the women, ignore the acts, defend the men, so men feel free to do objectionable things again. To use an americanism, “fuck all y’all” who do that shit.

    • Treetop 15.1
      27 January 2019 at 10:02 pm

      Ineffective legislation is the problem and worse no one is changing it so that a prosecution can occur.

      • McFlock 15.1.1
        27 January 2019 at 10:26 pm

        The current legislation would be fine if women were believed.

        If “reasonable doubt” in some cases meant “it’s not reqasonable to believe the defendant rather than the witness”, rather than “one person’s word against another, oh gosh I guess we can never know”. If “reasonable chance of successful prosecution” meant “it could work” rather than “it will probably work”.

        If suspects were interviewed by police who are thoroughly familiar with the details of the case each and every time.

        The legislation is fine. Our society is broken.

  16. Chris T 16
    27 January 2019 at 10:52 pm

    I have little time for this roastbuster scum, but the comments on Tamihere are far from the truth.

    What is done is done, but I’d point out I was actually listening to the radio on that day and they weren’t

    a) Interviewing her. She rang in as a normal caller

    b) She was mates with girls involved and was actually besmirching the girls

    c) The whole thing was taken out of context

    • Psycho Milt 16.1
      27 January 2019 at 11:17 pm

      Was there a context in which Tamihere siding with the perpetrators against their victims made him look less of an arsehole? Because I’m finding it difficult to picture that context.

      • Chris T 16.1.1
        27 January 2019 at 11:26 pm

        He didn’t

        That is kind of the point.

        The whole conversation was taken out of context, with snippets of edited material.

        He was asking what was going on because his daughter was roughly the same age.

        I can see exactly what this thread is btw and I am not even an Aucklander, can’t vote and don’t particularly give a shit who wins.

        Bloke announces mayoralty challenge, Labour supporters of Goff do group lynch mob on the same day, to label the other bloke a rape apologist.

        It would actually be quite funny if it wasn’t so sick

        • McFlock 16.1.1.1
          27 January 2019 at 11:41 pm

          From my perspective (not that I have a bottle on that shelf), the main thing that makes him worse than Goff is attitudes to Roastbusters and suchlike. His actual community-related work, from what I gather, has been pretty darn good.

          Signing up with Christine Fletcher bodes poorly, but it’s not like Goff is the last true hope of the Left, either. He and Goff probably aren’t too far apart.

          • Chris T 16.1.1.1.1
            27 January 2019 at 11:48 pm

            I’m similar actually

            Personally think he can’t do worse than Goff, but he can be a bit of a loose cannon.

            And as I say, I don’t actually care as I live in Welly

            It is just the coincidental character assassination on here on the same day as he put up his name I find a bit distasteful.

            But hey

            Only the right do dirty politics apparently

            • McFlock 16.1.1.1.1.1
              28 January 2019 at 12:04 am

              As the post said, unfortunate timing for him that one of the little shits was trying to launch a recording career at the same time Tamihere announced running for mayor.

              It’s not character assassination, though. He fucked up badly, and his actual excuse (rather than the one you presented) was that apparently one is supposed to talk like that on talkback. Which is a whole other argument.

    • mpledger 16.2
      28 January 2019 at 10:30 am

      I heard it too. Not at the time but later over the internet (before it was taken down). They were really awful to the girl and it wasn’t taken out of context. I thought she handled herself really well against a couple of misogynist pricks. I would never have had the guts to go toe to toe with them at her age – and probably wouldn’t even now.

    • Morrissey 16.3
      28 January 2019 at 10:45 am

      Some years ago the RadioVILE intellectuals Willie Jackson and John Tamihere talked learnedly and sensitively on the subject of marital infidelity. The dwarf-boxing impresario Dean Lonergan also took part.

      Both Deano and JT made it clear that there was no excuse for violence against any woman, even if one came home one day midway through the afternoon to find her in bed with, say, half the ACT caucus. Willie Jackson, though, was having none of that P.C. nonsense. “If I found out that my missus was fooling around on me,” he said, with quiet sincerity, “I’d put a knife through her heart.”

      This shocked even the crass and offensive Lonergan, who felt moved to remonstrate: “I think that’s going a bit far, mate.”

      Willie didn’t back down an inch, however. “Nah, nah, nah—don’t give me THAT,” he said, without even a hint of his usual playfulness. “I would. I would put a knife through her heart. I WOULD.”

      JT snorted sardonically and laughed, “You’re a mongrel, Willie, a mongrel.”

      http://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/01/daytime-tv-review-three-wise-men.html