Posts by Russell Brown
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I thought the whole (to me, only) point of the decision to plead guilty was to avoid having the evidence presented to the court.
I'd have thought victim impact statement etc would count as evidence for sentencing purposes, but perhaps I have my words muddled.
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Maybe you "lost nearly all respect"?
Yes, you pendant you.
I typed "lost any respect" then qualified it with "nearly" without changing "any" to "all".
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1. Yes the sentence seems light, but actually I don't think sending Veitch to prison would help anyone really. It'd make me feel a bit better, for a little while, but then what?
I deliberately didn't dwell on it, because I am of the mind that a judge who has heard the evidence, considered mitigating and aggravating factors and eyeballed the defendant is the person we want to pass a sentence. I'm unimpressed when the SST or various other windbags complain about sentencing in cases they have barely followed.
Clearly, Veitch could have gone to jail -- and he probably would have without top-flight legal representation -- but, like you, I'd rather see that he actually got it.
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On Checkpoint, Mary Wilson spoke to Stuart Grieve QC, Veitch's lawyer. He spoke of his side's thwarted desire for a defended trial, saying that they wanted a "rumble" and that there would have been "blood on the carpet."
That's inappropriate to the point of being seriously unprofessional. I would hope one or more of Grieve's colleagues might be moved to point that out to him.
What kind of juice have all these people been on? I've also lost nearly any respect I had for Glenda Hughes after the disgraceful (and, ironically, counterproductive) media manipulation conducted on Veitch's behalf.
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Is Tze Ming still in town?
No, in London. But she provides remote intelligence.
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Thanks guys. That was very good fun, and I'm actually going to go back to that bar.
A few of us tottered off to have great, cheap Malaysian food. But if I told you where, Tze Ming would have to kill you ...
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Great news. And there's an excellent game of "spot the producer/journo/politician/now-famous actor etc" to be enjoyed while watching the series. Damn near everyone in the country was in The Governor as a bit part player or an extra. Oooh, the agonies of those corsets...
Are you in Ep 1? I must say, George Henare's performance as Heke is simply extraordinary. He steals every scene he's in.
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I think as well that they imply that because Maori and Pacific Islanders are dropping in enrollments at Auckland Grammar, they are falling behind in social development and educational achievement. Which might be the case or it might not be, but Grammar enrollments surely aren't the clincher.
I think people have also forgotten the reality of the school failures we were starting to see at the end of the 90s. There were awful situations. Although some schools (including our local intermediate) are facing the pressure of falling rolls, that's not happening any more.
Our local high school Western Springs, also went through several years of roll pressure as the nouveau Grey Lynners decided to send their kids to Mt Albert Grammar.
It did have to raise its game -- and even considered introducing a school uniform to meet parental expectations. But the current system allows for that anyway. The funny thing was that while Western Springs had academic results as good or better than other schools in its decile, it turned out that its students performed markedly better in their first year of tertiary education. It also had none of Mt Albert Grammar's bullying problems.
I should note this isn't a go at today's Mt Albert, with whose alternative education programme our younger boy is enrolled. Even in just keeping away the truancy officer and giving us someone to talk to, it has changed our lives for the better.
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some of the anti-private school rhetoric regarding motivations of schools and parents is tending a little toward wolfy smith.
I personally don't have much of a problem with private schools. There can be advantages to being able to offer something genuinely different, and if there had been a private school that we thought would have worked for our younger boy (we looked) we'd have found the money.
Hamish Keith's autobiograhy is also interesting on the way he felt that attending Christ's College allowed him a flexibility not available in the public system (at that time anyway). He was guided to do what he was good at.
it doesn't matter how high your horse is, the view is never black and white.
No, and I did try to make clear in the post that zoning creates some undesirable outcomes of its own. But Roughan's account of the open-slather years was, as someone noted upthread, a fantasy.
I did also take umbrage at the fact that it came across as a promotional broadcast on behalf of one particular school.
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