Posts by Rachel Prosser
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<a> "It looks as if Albert Speer had been commissioned to redecorate Ashburton on the cheap"</quote>
People at the cafe a looking at me funny now from laughing out loud at this.
Actually Ash-Vegas is looking pretty good at the moment (momentary plug for ex home town). But it doesn't have a building with grass on its roof. Yet.
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My apologies for a lengthy comment, but this case has really had me thinking.
I too, found Tony Veitch likeable and positive onscreen (as opposed to, say, Paul Henry, who puts people down all the time). I avoid One Network News, but will watch for Veitch's segment, so I came into this biased.
Frankly, if I were the partner of a media figure, I suspect I would rather take the money and privacy than the court case. Name suppression doesn't prevent gossip. A court case is hugely stressful. Who wants to spend days, weeks of your life preparing and in court and reliving a "victim" role, rather than moving on?
She's clearly a smart woman, hugely capable given the jobs she's held, and aware of the media. He must have been heading to a meltdown, and I presume she was also smart enough to leave him before the assault so credit to her for that too.
I can well see that she might see little benefit in taking time away from her recovery and career to put energy into a court case, and disclosing personal medical records to strangers in a court room. Negotiating a financial settlement can put you back into a position of power (and if she complained to the police, his career, and financial position would have been ruined. A friend's husband faced a bill of $57,000 to be aquitted) So in her position I'd probably do the same. The best revenge is living well.
That said, there is a public interest in holding people accountable for their actions (in this case must be a large ACC cost too) And it's about more than money. How is justice best served? And do the public interest, and the victim's interests coincide ? The victim's interests and the interest of the public don't, as the public is interested in the double-page spread in Women's Day, and a surrender of privacy. Oddly, private payouts like this can potentially produce the best results for the individual victim.
As for Tony Veitch I believe there is good in almost everyone, that finding compassion within ourselves for both victim and offender will in the long term lead to better outcomes than condemnation, pillory, and punishment. It's easier to feel compassion for someone likeable like Veitch than the "criminal" pilloried on ONN for our evening's infotainment.
I also believe restorative justice usually produces better outcomes, and that prison is best used to protect the public, rather than a place to tuck away social problems. And yet....
When someone snaps and goes madly violent like this, what is the best outcome for all concerned? Are they beyond redemption?
If there were something that a person who snaps, acts atrociously and reaches rock-bottom can do to redeem themselves what is it? A year of therapy? Financial compensation? Contrition?
How far must a victim go against their own immediate interests in the public interest?
I really don't know what to conclude, other than to say, whatever happens to Tony Veitch, I hope Kristen goes on to a wildly successful and happy life and career (please God not including a Women's Day double spread). And I hope Tony redeems himself too.
here endeth the comment.
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Oh, and for those of you who want to join together, my friend Josh has just started a campaign with the aim of having no plastic bags in New Zealand.
The url is www.noplasticbags.org.nz.
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I gather that when there was a project to cut back on single-use plastic bags in Ireland, bin-liner sales jumped 400%.
I'd believe that. What I noticed when I was in Ireland a few years ago was that there was far less plastic bag litter than in England - we saw one stray plastic bag in over a week there.
And paid 5 cents tax for the bag to put the pint of milk, loaf of soda bread, and cheese in to carry back to our rented cottage. That bag remained with us for the rest of the week.
I somehow missed the hoo-ha over the Trelise Cooper Shopping bag, but I like the idea. I also like these, especially the Baggu.
Owning one might help me remember to take the recyclables shopping. That said, the current store of plastic bags maintains equilibrium due to the need for kitchen bin liners and the requirement to put newspapers and paper in shopping bags for recycling.
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I think a "dick" is someone being excessively stupid. It presupposes a chance of recovery. People who are fundamentally decent can be do stupid things and then grow up from them.
Gimelstob just seems to be a misogynist troll, showing his true colours and ingrained attitudes.
So I'd vote for Jimmy Cowan (and good luck with the alcohol problem - if he is an alcoholic, then he isn't the first sportsman to deal with the disease)
That said, if there were more half-back depth, I suspect he'd be on a no-alcohol contract and out of the All Blacks.
Maybe there is a chance for Justin Marshall after all?
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That would put a different angle on Intrepid Journeys. Kind of like a NewZild version of Da Ali G show.
I wasn't sure what Michael Laws was saying. It seemed to be that we had gangs who were enemies of the state, like in Zimbabwe.
And that he wanted to adopt the Zimbabwe (i.e. Mugabe) tactics of sending the army in against internal enemies of the state.Laws has some pretty twisted views about Africa. I happened to be listening to his April 1 show, and wasn't sure if what I was hearing was a lame April Fool's joke or just pure prejudice in action.
He had a long rant about the problem with Africans (he made no distinction between nations or ethnicities- all Africans on a huge continent were swept into the same boat) and how "they" were incapable of governance, were corrupt and so forth (I can't remember all the details now, or I'd quote him). I half-expected it to turn up as a Race Relations complaint, but nothing happened.
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Also, I'm not so sure that Maori party dominance in FPP is guaranteed.
I haven't analysed this in depth, but get the feel Maori electorate voters have been quite sophisticated, and used vote splitting to maximise their representation: vote for Labour in the party vote and vote for Maori in the seats. -
At our last election a number of MPs were thrown out by the electorate but returned to Parliament - is that 'democracy'?
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YES!!
I get utterly frustrated by people claiming that it isn't democratic or fair when an MP is "thrown out" by their electorate and gets back in on the list.
First: it's a vote not a veto. Individual elector's decision-making processes aside, a vote is a vote for someone not a vote against. You can only vote against something when there's a binary choice, otherwise, you choose from a range of options.
Second: just because a minority in a local electorate don't want someone, doesn't mean that across the country enough people do.
For example: within the Tauranga electorate not enough people might want Winston to represent them, but across the country lots of people might vote Winston in.
When he gets into parliament, he has been voted in by all those people who tick NZF on the party vote. And someone else has been voted in by Tauranga. He is representing the people who ticked "NZF" on the list.
So the people who didn't vote for him in Tauranga have no cause for complaint - they made their pick and someone else got in to represent Tauranga.
In practice, for years, many people voting in FPP are voting for the party anyway. Most individual party candidates in FPP, or electorate seats, are chosen with strong party influence (as indicated by the recent Selwyn case).
I'd also say that after voting in MMP elections here, I spent 6 years in the UK, and had a close-up look at the electoral system there. From a personal and professional viewpoint I felt New Zealand's system was much better, both administratively and philosophically.
I was utterly frustrated by the fact that, because I lived in a safe seat, It really didn't matter if I voted or not, because with a majority of 11000+ the sitting MP would get in (she was an active and able local MP as it happens - but I keenly felt the redundancy of my vote).
Contrast that to the two votes I had for New Zealand elections while I was overseas. I was utterly aware that my party vote would matter, and made the trip to the NZ High Commission to vote in the first election. In the most recent election, it took two trips using my day and afternoon off work to hitchhike from the our remote bay in Crete to get to an internet cafe with a printer that was working so I could print off a ballot paper, and then pay to have it faxed from the taverna, so my vote would be counted.
In New Zealand elections, every vote counts, no matter where you live. And if the election is close, it can go back and be re-counted, with impartial judicial oversight (something else missing from the UK system)
So it's simply not reasonable to "complain about unelected MPs lacking public mandate"
The "public" isn't a discrete entity but a collection of individual preferences. List MPs have a public mandate by virtue of all those thousands of list voters who made the effort to vote for them.
[/rant]
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I think you were at UC about the same time I was (vague memories of seeing your name on University Challenge team?)
Steinlager sweatshirts with BLUE or GREEN on them were all the rage. And yes, they came with Hoods.
And Fairydown parkas, the pull over kind a big front pocket and a hood. I saw someone in a mauve one yesterday - took me back. I coveted those parkas, but didn't feel up to the $100 plus price tag.
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Actually, the TVNZ 7 news hour is a pleasant watch too.
I would watch it...but TVNZ 7 isn't on Sky's service as it's Freeview bait. One day...
I grant you their billboards are pleasant enough though. The ongoing saga of the man on benefits going to be a doctor in Northland ..I can't wait!
Flicking through the live menu on Sky (what did we do before we discovered what that button on the top left is actually for?) I mused on how we watched less Maori TV after Sky changed its channel number to something less accessible, and watch much more food TV now that it's not channel 38.
I wish we could set the live menu to pick up the channels in an order we want to watch - sport/Maori/BBC/CNN/National Geographic and the channel with L'il Einsteins would be closer to the main channels and the crack pipe that is E would be banished. (E is like televisual junk-food - easy to watch, but no nutritional value, and leaves you feeling slightly queasy after).