Posts by Kyle Matthews
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I agree people get diversion across the board. Just not equally by arguing that their future employment is jeopardised. I don't think it's contentious to say that the "justice" system treats some careers like they count more than others.
That doesn't just apply to students though. People trying to become security guards, police officers, any job involving a security check (airline staff for example) can all use that line.
It's not a consequence of being a rich privileged student, it's a consequence of most of the careers being affected by conviction being ones that require university qualifications.
And its only one of the factors that the police consider when agreeing to diversion (or not).
It seems silly to argue that students should receive additional university punishment for their actions because they often get diversion, when none of these students are going to get diversion.
FYI, the scheme that keeps a lot more students out of criminal convictions at Otago is the University Proctor getting hold of the students and preventing them being arrested. He wrangles a donation or some community service from them, with the agreement of the police, and it never sees the inside of a court. That's a privileged system only available to university students (again, not in this instance).
What these additional punishments run the risk of, is high profile events, like last weekend, being punished more than others just because the university wants to protect it's reputation. A person, student or not, who drunk too much, threw bottles, and was a right shithead, but didn't get on international TV, would never face up to university expulsion. It's making people's actions more of a crime because it's a marketing problem. Students don't owe that to the university, they're not employees or representatives.
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I understand that there are conditions of membership at Otago University. The Police do not control what those are.
Yup. And the university shouldn't do it.
Several decades they used to take an interest in whether men flatted with women. This is similarly nothing to do with them. If students go get tanked and are dickheads, they should face consequences under the law, and that's it. No high school or other educational institution would get away with doing this in relation to a non-school problem with its students.
The university gets away with it in the media because as we discussed on page 4, it's easy to attack students as privileged whiny white kids. Whatever they are or aren't, they should face no more and no less legal sanctions for their actions than anyone else.
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But they actually do, don't they, no matter what you might prefer?
Or are the stories of prospective lawyers pleading their "career" as mitigation just unrepresentative? Certainly never heard of a garbage collector getting off because their progress up the career totem pole might be unduly thwarted by youthful indiscretions.
Diversion isn't just available for students or people with future careers. Lots of people get it for first offenses. I'm sure if you look hard enough you'll find a garbage collector.
The students were warned what the consequences would be - no diversion - and they decided to go for it anyway.
Your argument is that they should be additionally published because they are students and have access to the diversion scheme, when the police have already said that they won't allow access to the diversion scheme for all these people? It seems a perfect time to apply "no diversion, no additional punishment from the university" as the rule.
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I hazard a guess that it does relate to them being university students. Not that I think all university students lack maturity, or an understanding of there privilege.
Well it clearly doesn't given that a bunch of people arrested weren't Otago university students. But despite that...
I grew up in a time and place where parties of people my age (also good white kids) were crashed by hundreds of people and turned into out of control events which often necessitated the attendance of large groups of police, in riot gear in several instances that I can recall.
The fact that many of my fellow Rangitoto College students were involved in those parties, didn't lead to them being suspended or expelled from school.
This is not a university or even university related event. It's not run by OUSA. The university's driving concern here is the negative image that this has on the institution and its degrees. Which is all fine enough, but that shouldn't give them the right to penalise the students on top of what the courts have applied.
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The reappointment of the current lot did that anyway. Warren Gatland. That guy coaching the Wallabies.
There will always be NZ coaches going overseas as there's only one top job, it's difficult to get it, and there's lots of good coaches. If we start appointing foreigners than people who are currently staying in NZ with an eye on the top job will leave, which is not what you want.
You can't divorce the availability of coaching the All Blacks from the quality of coaches that we manage to retain in NZ, in much the same way that you can't divorce the availability of playing for the All Blacks from the quality of player that stays in NZ. In much the same way that lots more Super 14 and NPC players would have buggered off overseas if the All Blacks selected from overseas, lots of our coaches would do the same.
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So you’re saying the NZRU is even more insular than the English FA and the BCCI?
I don't think it's insular.
I think it's foolish if the country that has the best (as far as I can tell) body of coaches in the world, goes outside that body for their national coach.
For one thing, everyone staying in NZ and coaching at provincial or super 14 level with an eye on the top job in the future, will be on the next plane out of here to earn more money in Europe. We'd decimate our second tier coaches.
Secondly, we've got a bunch of good coaches who could step up to the All Blacks if Henry and Deans aren't needed. Just because there's one person out there who might be better doesn't mean you rush out and grab them. They'd look like idiots, and the NZRU does enough of that already.
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Nothing personal, but isn't that the same sort of one-way sense-of-entitlement thinking that is annoying some people? I wonder if that is less about class than it used to be. Perhaps just more obvious somehow in the offspring of the relatively wealthy.
I'm sure someone can dig up figures for diversion and occupation. In any case, if prospective professionals believe they are entitled to diversion on grounds of their impending "career", it seems reasonable that they be held to an equally exceptional standard in other areas. Two-way street, no matter what suburb.
My one way sense of entitlement is "ping these university students in exactly the same way as you'd ping any other person doing a similar act?" Sounds like non-entitlement to me.
I've previously argued against students getting any sort of special treatment in court under diversion, which I note isn't a university scheme, they're just more likely to access it.
On that basis, I feel perfectly entitled to argue that once they've gone through the courts, not got diversion, and been convicted and fined, they then shouldn't be hit again by being excluded by the university simply because they're students. Nothing at all which happened over the weekend related to them as students, it was just drunken young people being dicks. You pay for that in the courts, not in the lecture theatre.
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Oops, double message.
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Off topic, but gee isn't cricket falling apart. Players trying to be free agents in order to play in the money-making Indian tournaments instead of for their own countries - led by McCullum.
The national bodies need to rein in India and set an international window for private cricketing tournaments like this and keep all other cricket clear of it. McCullum lost almost $300K from only playing part of the tournament, some people are going to make themselves unavailable for their country solely so that they can play a couple more weeks in India.
And the Indian League needs to settle down and start offering sensible amounts of money to these players.
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Off topic, but gee isn't cricket falling apart. Players trying to be free agents in order to play in the money-making Indian tournaments instead of for their own countries - led by McCullum.
The national bodies need to rein in India and set an international window for private cricketing tournaments like this and keep all other cricket clear of it. McCullum lost almost $300K from only playing part of the tournament, some people are going to make themselves unavailable for their country solely so that they can play a couple more weeks in India.
And the Indian League needs to settle down and start offering sensible amounts of money to these players.