Posts by Matthew Poole
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I do suspect one day Bailey will learn that his behaviour is inappropriate. I do suspect that noone has bothered to educate him since he was twelve or before for that matter.
Whereas I have little doubt that he never would've dared pull that nonsense while he was incarcerated, and that the various officials involved in his care while within the youth justice system tried very hard to educate him about the basics of civilised behaviour on the outside.
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Russell you didn't, but it's hard to interpret this as anything but:
Or did some shitbag editor somewhere just go: 'hmmm, slow news week. Need a headline. You and you, you've got tits, get round the Kurariki house and poke him with a stick'.
Seriously, I reckon the HoS missed a trick or two. Next time they should just hire a couple of strippers and send them round with a photographer.
That reads like nothing more than "They sent women there so they could get a story about this sex-crazed young man". The stripper comment just finishes it off nicely.
Apology accepted. I could've been a little more careful about my wording, but didn't think people would assume I thought the reporters wanted to write a fluffy bunny story. Their interest in him is one-sided, and we all know it, but that doesn't mean they have no right to be interested. It sells papers, and Granny is frequently barely worthy of the label "tabloid".
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Yeah, the Herald has such a great track record of giving a flying fuck at a doughnut about his well-being, or thoughtful coverage of crime-related public policy
Where did I say, suggest, or even imply in a veiled manner that they were wanting a good, balanced story? I'm sure the reporter was after some salacious comments that would make good headlines and provide fodder for the rent-a-quotes, but that's what the gutter press do, innit?
Also, sending two people, even if they're both women, isn't exactly ignoring employees' safety. He doesn't have a history of sexual violence, for one, or of serious gang connections. Sending one would've been silly, sure, but sending two would meet most people's definition of reasonable care in the circumstances.
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You write that like you think the reporter in question was intending to research an intelligent story casting light on conditions under incarceration in the youth justice system
Well, for one thing, he hasn't been a ward of "the youth justice system" for at least three years. And his latest conviction was definitely adult time in an adult facility. I certainly wouldn't expect anything less than Granny's ordinary "journalistic standards" on the matter, but that doesn't make it any more justified to blame their sexual assaults on the reporters doing their job. I don't care how tawdry the story would've been, there's a strong stench of victim blaming being directed at the reporters.
It's also the reason the string 'em up brigade obsesses about Kurariki and not the other, older, far more culpable people involved in Michael Choy's death, who are still in jail.
Being in jail makes them pretty much invisible, though I do think you're right that they won't get the same attention on release as Kurariki has. Well, not unless Choy's mother continues to allow herself to be used for Insensible Sentencing's twisted ends when they come up for parole/release.
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as much as portions of the country just love the idea of Auckland getting thoroughly fucked by "the man",
Which portions are they? This Wellingtonian is absolutely concerned on your behalf, as is his Hamiltonian father when they talked last.
Various communities, particularly in the South Island, consider Auckland to be nothing more than a giant leech on New Zealand. Assuming your father associates with some of the farming community from the Waikato, it's very unlikely that you're more than three degrees of remove away from people who think that Auckland's getting its justified comeuppance.
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Also, while I feel more than the average amount of sympathy for Bailey Kuariki no woman (or man) is ever asking for what happened to those journalists, which seems to be the subtext of many of the comments here.
Quite. Sounding remarkably like blaming the victims to me.
Whatever the deficiencies in his upbringing, he's 20. He's an adult, and nobody's suggested that he's not at least averagely intelligent. That means he's got no entitlement to any kind of free pass for sexually assaulting women, no matter how they happened to end up alone with him.Also, having read the Herald's article, I think the reporter was quite entitled to want to know Bailey's thoughts on his latest conviction and spell of sub-standard Crown accommodation. Or does being the youngest killer in NZ history get you off the hook on PAS for being a violent recidivist offender?
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Would anybody agree with that?
Yes, with the caveat that people now expect all the nice social democratic safety net and public service without the corresponding levels of taxation. That particular discussion needs to be had ahead of pretty much anything else, IMO. Until we've decided which of the two trade-offs we wish to pursue, anything change is pointless.
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How about, "Don't you worry about that!"
Yes, well. Had lunch with a friend from Wellington last week, and said to her that as much as portions of the country just love the idea of Auckland getting thoroughly fucked by "the man", they ought better be very scared about what's going to happen to their local government if the current Monster of Local Government is in the same seat after next year's election. Now we see that it's already starting elsewhere, and the ink isn't even dry on the shambles that is the Megatropolis founding legislation.
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Gio, yes, it is a very ambiguous title.
Sticking to the topic, as it were, it's about bloody time. So much of the "debate" (for want of a better word, though it's pretty misleading) is, as Mike says, framed entirely in terms of "more of the same". Clearly "the same" isn't working, by any reasonable measure. The wage gap with Australia is increasing, to pick one easily-understood metric. Similarly we've seen universities introduce selective-entrance for all courses, even traditionally open ones such as BA, because funding to tertiary education is being slashed - to pay for tax cuts - despite all the rhetoric about needing a better-educated population.
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Just caught up with what's been said, and am I the only one whose immediate reaction to the ECan situation was a prolonged expletive? I mean, we're all up in arms about the dickery that's going on with democracy for Auckland, but at least Aucklanders will still get to vote for their regional representatives at the end of the year. Blitzing an entire local body because some of the voters don't like the way everyone else voted is disgusting.
Worse is that this doesn't actually seem to be getting much coverage by the MSM. Wherefore art thou, Granny's banner headlines "Democracy under attack!"?