Posts by Kyle Matthews
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And politically bizarre. For less than a million dollars savings, the National Party are lining up against deaf children. That'll look terrible everywhere it goes.
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Bitchy yet true -- the Force is strong with this one... :)
I particularly liked Jim Bolger's anecdote about how the Australian diplomat got confused and picked up the wrong flag.
Either we need to change our flag... or Australians are stupid. Let the debate begin.
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And just to be even more pedantic there are a lot more than 22 members of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
You mean Order of New Zealand, that's what the Herald article says.
But there are more, 24 apparently.
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Craig, I had more concerns with the phrase "the Herald starts a serious debate". The rest of the article just provided entertainment after that promise.
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Minister of Disability Issues Heather Roy said it would be "inequitable" for the Government to fund only one of New Zealand's two sign language teaching providers.
Yes. What a conundrum. If only there was another option other than cutting funding from one of them. If only.
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He broke Kirsten's back Kyle, it's millimetres away from permanent paralysis or death. Most of the charges were dropped, it's not your average domestic violence case.
It's a wee cord surrounded by some small bones. Anything that happens to your back is "millimetres away from permanent paralysis or death". Sadly, it's by no means at the more serious end of domestic violence, which involves years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, including child victims, and at the more serious end of the scale, death. Domestic violence files are not pleasant reading, as I found out one summer job.
The purpose of the domestic violence strategy, in cases such as this, is to get the offender into a programme which tries to address their issues and prevent re-offending. At the more serious end of the scale, they'll seek jail time.
And to be honest, what else would you have the prosecution side do in this case that would do anything useful? Castration?
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Few ordinary "joe bloggs" who assault their partners can afford $150,000 Kyle.
You've only quoted half my paragraph:
You're also assuming that an ordinary "joe bloggs' who assaulted their partner wouldn't get a similar treatment. Conviction without jail time and alcohol/violence treatment would be a common sentence for a first time conviction.
There's no evidence that the payment of money led to him getting any better deal in the courts than he would have got if he hadn't paid the $150,000. Your assumption is that the prosecution team, and the judge, aren't sufficiently onto it to treat each case on it's merits. The penalty applied wouldn't be unusual in a domestic violence case.
If I was to get up in arms about a case of money helping, a few years ago there was a rich businessman busted for (I think) cocaine possession. The judge didn't fine him the ~$3000 or so because "he was so rich that it wouldn't matter to him at all". I failed to see why he shouldn't just be fined anyway, like everyone else.
Oh, and I should have been onto "What would Kyle think"?
:)
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Nice video.
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Even if right now Kirsten Dunne-Powel is the only victim of domestic violence in New Zealand who has taken the money over the pressing of charges (which I doubt), the message it sends to the wealthy is "It is OK to break someone's back, it'll just cost a little".
I think you're simplifying the situation a great deal.
You've also made the victim into a passive agent in the whole story. Kirsten doesn't appear to be completely helpless, and was involved in the legal process which led to Veitch's conviction and sentence. She was also involved in the private negotiation to accept a payout from him before it become public. Right or wrong, it was her back, her life, and to blame it on 'rich getting away with violence through paying out money' seems to be further disempowering the victim of the crime who probably got to make some empowering decisions as part of the process. She's now out of the relationship, he's been getting treatment for his violence problem, that's a good result from a domestic violence case, lots of them turn out way worse.
You're also assuming that an ordinary "joe bloggs' who assaulted their partner wouldn't get a similar treatment. Conviction without jail time and alcohol/violence treatment would be a common sentence for a first time conviction.
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It's funny talking to my American friends too, to realise that many of them remember "How Bizarre" as part of the soundtrack to their college years. That a song that felt so completely Kiwi could be adopted by other people in a completely different cultural context without losing its essential element (fun) is pretty ka pai in my books.
That's what interested me about "How Bizarre". That a cultural process that happened so often the other way (from overseas to NZ), got turned around. So unusual for us as a country to have that feeling.