Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Big Friday Music: Counting…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
At the change over, a giant finger comes down out of the sky to rotate the new band into place.
If that's what you saw Bart, then that's what happened.
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And Kirsty Johnston has a story and video on Stuff.
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Hugh Sundae has an amusing video of a tour of the site with Campbell, who is driving a golf buggy.
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Also, they've wrapped all the tree trunks in the Lakeside area.
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This morning’s Herald editorial:
The anti-smacking bill advanced by Green MP Sue Bradford became a bipartisan step when John Key, as Opposition Leader, offered to help Helen Clark get it through the final stages in Parliament. Its passage was a profound statement of public standards even if most young parents had already moved to more civilised methods of correction.
It removed for good the possibility that any parents accustomed to using violence could suppose the law in this country condoned it. If it has not changed their behaviour, as the bill’s critics continue to claim, it has removed any sanction for them and they can no longer claim to any misapprehension of their legal rights. When the law’s opponents exaggerate the way it is being enforced they do its message a favour.
Mr Craig needs to learn the difference between conservatism and regression. Conservatism is reluctant to change but it can recognise progress. It can tell the difference between what is valuable and worth keeping and what is primitive. Parenting is one of the hardest tasks most people do but modern parents are finding methods that do not give their children lessons in violence.
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Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Except my facts weren’t wrong. That’s what the evidence was. I was aware he eventually managed to get the court to throw out the charge because of the way it was framed.
I have no idea what the evidence was, or whether it was credible.
The incident was witnessed by a schoolteacher and her son, who attracted the attention of a just-off-duty policewoman – who was sufficiently concerned by Mason’s behaviour to summon six of her colleagues from the nearby central police station.
The schoolteacher and her teenage son testified that that Mason punched the four-year-old in the face, and the policewoman told the court that Mason said to her:
“I hit the big one in the face and that is what I do and that lady [the witness] can mind her own business.”
The only evidence to the contrary was Mason’s own account, which was in conflict with what he reportedly said to the policewoman at the time of the incident.
Mason did admit in court to pulling his son’s ear and grabbing him by the hair, which was in conflict with his original account to journalists that he had merely “flicked” his son’s ear. It was this account to the media that prompted the eyewitnesses to come forward. (He would otherwise have got away with a warning from police. It wasn't like they were gunning for him.)
I do understand why he was acquitted by the Supreme Court – conflating the ear-pulling and punching allegations into one charge pre-empted the jury’s decision and had a bearing on sentencing. Even the Crown admitted there had been a miscarriage of justice in that and the judge’s summing-up. The allegations should have been dealt with as separate charges.
But do I believe the eyewitnesses and the policewoman who called for backup – or Mason, who changed his story at least twice? It’s the former, quite emphatically.
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Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
I’m always with the facts. Especially in comments threads to posts about people getting facts wrong.
Except my facts weren’t wrong. That’s what the evidence was. I was aware he eventually managed to get the court to throw out the charge because of the way it was framed.
Do you perchance have any thoughts on the actual substance of what I said?
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Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Jimmy Mason was ultimately acquitted after the Supreme Court threw out his conviction.
He was, yes, on a technicality over the way the original two charges were framed together.
But I'm not aware that the evidence of the eyewitnesses and the policewoman was found wanting, so I'm not sure why you're responding to that part of my comment. The evidence was that he did indeed punch a four year-old child in the face.
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This is from one of my emails from the Timaru Lady's son:
I left home during high school because
of the physical abuse and have nothing further to do with my mother
other than through countless family court hearings with me trying to
get my brothers and sisters removed from her care.Anyway the point of my email is that I talked to Family First several
times years ago and they were aware of [redacted]'s past and I even gave
them more informed details but they were more than happy just to brush
it over and use her as a political catalyst. It makes me really angry
and I did fire back at them at the time they were supporting violence
against our children. But however. You will find a couple more
organisations such as [redacted] organisations that have her on their
board (again who i have contacted) that fully support her. I really
think someone should bring this to light....I can't say more than that without breaching a suppression order, but believe me, there's plenty more.
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Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to Bart Janssen,
None of the pro-smackers argue for the horrific assaults to be legal, but they all argue that their level of punishment is OK. Without ever really defining what that is.
Colin Craig says his smacking is the “flick of a finger on the back of a knuckle”. Which I’m fairly sure is nonsense.
But Family First and others did in fact campaign in support of parents who had quite clearly committed assaults on their children. That idiot Jimmy Mason in Christchurch, for example, who continued to maintain he had just given his son a “flick on the ear” when witnesses saw him punch his son in the face and he actually told the policewoman who arrived on the scene that he had done so.
Bob McCoskrie loudly supported Mason and other abusers (including the “Timaru Lady”, with her riding crop) – and then, usually, ran for cover when the real facts emerged in court.
The idea that the pro-smacking lobby only ever lent its support to decent parents who administered an orderly smack on the bottom is just unsustainable. They got behind any number of thugs.
As you may have gathered, I have extremely strong feelings of contempt for Bob McCoskrie. I know one of the Timaru Lady's children, and I know that he begged McCoskrie to stop making a hero of his mother and told him what was actually going on in the home. McCoskrie ignored him. He's a rotten, lying bastard.
