| LISA |
The performance of our Police Force was called into question again this week following the gang related shooting of a two year old girl and the death of two teenagers at an out of control party. This comes at a time when less people are joining the force despite the fact that recruitment standards have been lowered. Police Minister Annette King joins me now live from Wellington. Good morning Minister. |
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| ANNETTE KING - Minister of Police |
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Good morning Lisa. |
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| LISA |
We seem to have had a week of it, a toddler dead, two people killed at this out of control party, a guy dies after a P lab explodes, we have a Police Officer suffering from multiple stab wounds, what is going on? |
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| ANNETTE |
Well I think Lisa we must keep it into perspective in a country the size of New Zealand at any time there will be somebody committing a crime. This has been a week of some very unfortunate crimes, and can I begin by paying a tribute to the hard work done by the New Zealand Police in Wanganui, because it's very easy to sit on the sidelines or in the padded seats of parliament and criticise the work of the Police, but not many of us would swap places with them, and they have done some sterling work not only Christchurch and Wanganui but around New Zealand so how about some bouquets for them because it is a hard job. I have to take issue with your comments that we have fewer Police and we're recruiting fewer, actually it's the opposite we are increasing a thousand extra Police and we are ahead of the target to be able to do that, it's a hard job, it is one where we want the best of people and we're going out to recruit them, but as I said it is a week that we've seen some really nasty crimes committed. |
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| LISA |
Well let's take a look at the gang issue, who are these people in these gangs who are they? |
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| ANNETTE |
Well gangs aren't just those that you can see with a leather jacket and a patch on, gangs in New Zealand first emerged in the early 1960s, Hells Angels and they were pretty obvious, but over the years they have become much more sophisticated and much more unidentified than we would think back in those days, in fact the Police tell me some of the most insidious gangs are those that wear suits collars and ties and are actually involved in organised crime in the business community and you can't identify them. It is a very difficult problem just to say ban them, outlaw them, lock em all up, because it doesn't work like that and criticisms of a say a multi agency approach sure you could always do better, but you've gotta tackle it from a number of fronts including the environment where gangs come out of right through to enforcement and the laws that you use. |
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| LISA |
I want to talk about that a bit later Minister but I want to get this clear, are you saying that we've got a New Zealand style Mafia here then? |
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| ANNETTE |
We've got New Zealand gangs that are peculiar to New Zealand just as every country does, but they aren't just the old motorbike gangs that we used to have, we have now got gangs that come from an Asian background, we have got gangs that come from Pacific Island background and Maori and white gangs and so on, so it's not just the old motorbike gangs and it is one where you really do have to have very good Police intelligence, very good information gathering and you've gotta be able to infiltrate where these gangs are, so the idea that the only thing that you need to do is ban them just wouldn't work because where would you find out where they are unless you had the ability to be able to have links contacts and so on. |
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| LISA |
You mentioned Asian connections and Island connections are gangs in New Zealand, are overseas gangs interacting with gangs in New Zealand as say raw products for drugs being filtered in from overseas gangs? |
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| ANNETTE |
Most of the raw product say for P which is our biggest drug problem comes from out of South China. Now the raw products are brought into New Zealand, turned into drugs into the form that's used in New Zealand by New Zealanders, New Zealand criminals and they can do it very easily, they can do it in the back of a car, they can do it in a motel in your town or my town and move on, and so having good intelligence, the ability to be able to pick up communications of these criminals is part of the enforcement work of the Police that we have beefed up over the last few years. |
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| LISA |
So are you saying that you have some kind of liaison with a country like China, you have Police or enforcement there that you're working with? |
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| ANNETTE |
Yes we do in fact in November last year we put our first Police liaison officer into Beijing, because what we have to do is to work with the law enforcement agencies of other countries particularly out of China. I was in China two weeks ago and met the acting head of Police in Gwangjo in South China with one message in mind and that is we need their help to stop the precursors of P being brought into New Zealand and from that meeting I got a very good response, P isn't a problem in China, their problem is heroin, that's not our problem but they know we need to work together and that was a commitment that I got from them, we've gotta cut it off, the supply, to make the drug in New Zealand. Our people make it but they're getting the precursors overseas. |
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| LISA |
Alright well let's look back in our backyard in Wanganui, have you got the powers to deal with the gangs? |
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| ANNETTE |
Well I think I take it from the Area Commander Duncan McLeod who has been running the operation up there and when he was accused that the lawless were taking over the town, he said we are in control of the situation. Police have been moved in to back them up, but it isn't just today or yesterday that they've been working in Wanganui, about a year ago there were some problems emerged in Wanganui around the gangs, and the Police at that stage moved in resources and some very good work that's been done watching these gangs, getting into these gangs, getting the information we need to make the arrests, to make the arrests, so be able to carry out the search warrants and so on, so they have a lot of information which I have no doubt will lead to the arrest of people. |
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| LISA |
But how successful is that, you say they were doing work ahead of this yet there's still a two year old that's dead. |
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| ANNETTE |
Well Lisa who could ever predict a criminal activity will occur, who could have predicted on Saturday night that someone was going to drive a car through a group of people, who could predict that somebody isn't going to go out and kill their husband or wife today, it's impossible to predict exactly where a crime is going to happen. What you try to do in policing terms is to pick up as much information and to have as many informants and as much watching going on as you can to try and get ahead of issues, but the indiscriminate killing of somebody is almost impossible to be able to predict. |
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| LISA |
Are you giving this the priority it deserves though, you look let's say you know a woman from Subway is charged over the taking of a drink and this morning front page of the Herald is about whether there should be more concentration on drink driving offences, is this being given the priority it should be? |
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| ANNETTE |
Yes we have dedicated work being done on organised crime in New Zealand. A lot of it you don't see because in terms of organised crime the work is around getting the information, being able to track down those that are involved, it isn't the bobby on the beat work, it's much more sophisticated than that sort of work and yes this government has put a lot of resource into organised crime, but as the Prime Minister said we of course will look at ways we can do better, and take for example amendments to the Crimes Act, the first amendment to the Crimes Act happened in 1997 when we had a similar drive-by shooting in Christchurch, that amendment made it illegal to participate in criminal activity, it wasn't strong enough, it didn't work, I think they got four arrests out of it, and in 2002 we strengthened it we got something like 40, that's not enough, and so we're looking at ways that we can further strengthen it, not that but other legislation as well, but Lisa people's expectations of what the Police ought to do are many and varied. Some people want more road policing, some want less. Some want us to concentrate on youth, some of us want to concentrate on gangs. What we have to do in policing is to make sure we get the best use out of our resources that we have, and we do have quite a considerable resource for a country this size, but let's be honest about this, the Police on their own can never do all the policing of a community, I'm asked why don't they catch taggers, well someone walking past your fence at two o'clock in the morning it's rather hard to catch them on every street in every town in New Zealand. Policing takes teamwork and it takes a community participation and sometimes I think that's the bit that's missing, it's all about blame, why haven't they don't it they say to the Police, I say why don't we do it. |
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| LISA |
Alright, well let's look at the issue of zero tolerance then, why not adopt Chester Borrows' idea of no gang patches, no regalia, send a strong message we have zero tolerance for this, why not do that? |
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| ANNETTE |
The bill isn't in parliament, we haven't seen the bill and as the Minister of Justice said when the bill comes to parliament we'll certainly look at it and see if it can be part of the armoury if you like of tackling gangs. |
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| LISA |
So there is a possibility Minister that the government will support that? |
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| ANNETTE |
We have said we will certainly look at it, and when it arrives and we've seen what he's proposing, but of course this drive-by shooting wasn't in the CBD where Chester Borrows has said that his bill will ban patches. There's also the problem of what do we do with those that don't wear patches, does that mean that we don't have gangs, or that they don't exist - no. So you've gotta be realistic about it, but we have said let's look at what the bill says, will it help in areas where they gather and they intimidate people, we're certainly prepared to do that. |
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| LISA |
Well on that issue of people who don't wear patches who are probably operating in a different realm well Ron Marks says that these people are domestic terrorists and should be treated accordingly. Do you agree? |
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| ANNETTE |
Well it's illegal to be involved in criminal activity and we will treat them very seriously and we have beefed up crimes, we've beefed up sentences and they will have the full weight of the law behind them. The key is in policing, you have to track them down and you have to catch them, you've gotta know where they're operating and you've gotta know who their contacts are and the ring that they work in, and that's the work that is so invaluable in what the Police do. |
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| LISA |
But has this problem been left to brew too long? |
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| ANNETTE |
No, not at all. |
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| LISA |
That it's got to this point because have you been too PC should you have jumped on this earlier? |
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| ANNETTE |
Well let's say I agree with the Prime Minister, for seven and a half years we haven't been idle. There have been gangs in New Zealand since 1961 as I said, so we haven't been idle, in fact there is a raft of legislation, more sentencing and also the work within the Police and the multi agencies, but it's not a simple problem to crack, if it was simple why wouldn't a government or a community say it's fixed, move on to the next thing, it is an insidious crime, it's an insidious group of people who are below the cover most of the time and Lisa think back the last time you heard a big outbreak from the gangs, it was in 2002, most of the time they work below the radar, that's where they like to be, in fact I believe they'd be very uncomfortable this week because they're brought to the surface again, but day in and day out agencies like the Police are working under the same radar in terms of detection and policing work. |
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| LISA |
Well this morning we're speaking with Police Minister Annette King, discussing gangs and drug problems. Let's go first to our panellist Chris Baldock who wants to pick up on the P issue. |
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| CHRIS BALDOCK - Editor, Sunday News |
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Good morning Minister. There's a common theme to a lot of the recent troubles you know over the past few years and that is methamphetamine use, P, do you really think we've done enough to educate about, campaign against, and toughen penalties in relation to the use of P? |
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| ANNETTE |
Oh we've certainly increased penalties for P, in fact you can get a life sentence for supplying P, so we've certainly toughened up on the penalties, but I take your point around education and the Minister of Health this week Jim Anderton was announcing further measures in terms of education around drug issues, and it has been a drug Chris that has emerged in New Zealand very quickly, if you think about the drugs we've dealt with in the past, marijuana was the drug that we had for a long time and then we had the sort of morphine type drugs etc, and then the party pills, but this P drug suddenly exploded on to the scene in the early 2000 and you know we've been running to catch up with it because it's so mobile in terms of the ability to be able to make it and it's so cheap, so it is a big problem and that's why I think it is important to cut off the supply as much as possible to the precursors. Having said that I agree that education around the problems with P, more information to young people as to what it does is important. |
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| CHRIS |
But we're not doing it Minister are we, because there's a grandmother in South Auckland Marie Carter who has spent $60,000 of her own money to educate people and campaign against this in South Auckland because she feels nothing is being done, she's seeing lives destroyed, people driving to Palmerston North to get treatment, or to get help over this P use, but why should an individual like that have to take those steps? |
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| ANNETTE |
Well no I agree I don't think they should, but you've also gotta see what - that's treatment, that is education, there is also supply and enforcement and I think in terms of the health issues a lot has been done in putting in place alcohol and drug services, particularly in the community but also working in the prisons where these people go and then come out and continue their activity and a lot of that was announced earlier in terms of effective interventions. Education is part of an ongoing health project in New Zealand around drugs, but you know it's always been hard Chris to do a lot of education around drugs because there is a belief in New Zealand that you shouldn't talk about drugs and you shouldn't educate people about them because they're illegal, I don't hold with that view. |
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| CHRIS |
And nor does Marie Carter. |
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| ANNETTE |
Alright and I know Marie and I know what she would think. |
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| LISA |
Well let's bring David Farrar into the conversation. |
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| DAVID FARRAR - www.kiwiblog.co.nz |
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Good morning Minister. You made a comment which I think most New Zealanders would agree with that front line Police are out there doing a very good job. Why I wonder though and what I'm starting to hear more and more is a concern that they sometimes get let down by their hierarchy. To use a specific example as said in parliament that the stab proof vests were made in the wrong colour, wrong material, wrong design and wrong size, and you yourself said that mistakes were made and the Police have to take responsibility for this. The question is how has that responsibility happened, has someone lost their job as a result of this quite serious mistake which saw Sergeant Grice as you would know this week stabbed and not having one of those vests? |
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| ANNETTE |
Well first of all I have not heard growing concern about the hierarchy in the Police, we have a new Commissioner of Police, Howard Broad who has been in place just on a year, we have a new Deputy Commissioner Rob Pope who's been in place for about the same length of time, both of them new to the position, and Deputy Commissioner Lyn Provost who has been there for a number of years, and I haven't heard what you've heard about the hierarchy letting them down. In terms of the stab proof vests there were a number of mistakes made but there were also some issues that were beyond the Police control and there has been a lot of work done to try and get that project back on track by Rob Pope who has now got responsibility for it, and my understanding is that the person who was carrying out the role before is no longer undertaking that role. Having said that it would be unfair to think there are no stab proof vests out there, there are around about 3500 and another 1500 currently being distributed. We want to have all our front line Police covered with stab proof vests, but you know to be fair David they weren't even on the agenda until the beginning of last years when we finally finished a pilot of them and decided to carry it out throughout the Police service. |
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| DAVID |
When are those vests now due, they were originally talking June last year. |
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| ANNETTE |
No no it wasn't, it was June this year, we only decided last year that we would actually have the project in February last year, they were sposed to be here by June this year, they won't be everywhere as you can obviously see, and as I said in parliament that I very much regret that the officer was stabbed without a vest on, that's exactly why we want those vests, they will be available I am told for front line Police throughout New Zealand by the end of this year. |
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| CHRIS |
Just quickly back on the gang issue Minister, you indicated earlier that the government might be ready to support the banning of insignia and patches and that sort of stuff, and while it's not the answer in total as we all know it's a step you know most people find it repugnant that they have to walk into a shopping mall and see people with patches on. Are you saying you will really get behind that. |
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| ANNETTE |
What we've said is, we haven't seen the bill, there has been a lot of publicity by Mr Law and Mr Borrows about they're going to have a bill, the Minister of Justice said this week in parliament bring the bill let us see it, we are prepared to look at measures that crack down on these criminals and when it arrives at the parliament we will certainly give it serious consideration. My understanding the bill is cracking down on the wearing of patches and insignia in the CBD of Wanganui, and there are parts of New Zealand where they already ensure that they don't wear patches and insignia, so we'd certainly look at that, but the other point is of course Chris what will you then say is an insignia, what will be outlawed. For example the youth gangs in Auckland wear coloured scarves so you've gotta look seriously at how well you can make it work. |
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| LISA |
Minister this programme has talked to some people within the Police who believe that there are district initiatives in relation to gangs but there doesn't seem to be an overall umbrella plan of attack, how do you respond to that criticism? |
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| ANNETTE |
No, there is an overall plan of attack by New Zealand Police in terms of organised crime, but what you do have is districts have the ability to try different things that relate to their communities and so for example all districts will have people who are involved in Iwi liaison and so on working with local Maori, local leaders, and from that they will come up with a different approach to their own particular area, and they have got the ability to be able to try those things, to do those things because it's not the same in Southland as it is say in Auckland, and so they do have the ability to have some local initiatives. What I like to see happen is when local initiatives work well in one area and they can be applied to other areas that they actually turn into projects that become nationwide or much wider spread than they are say in just one region. |
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| LISA |
Alright before you go Minister just a change of gear. Can you give us a guarantee that the Auckland Harbour Bridge isn't going to collapse in the near future? |
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| ANNETTE |
Yes, the problem isn't about the Harbour Bridge about to collapse, it's never been about to collapse, what they want to do is to make sure that it lasts even longer and the project was around ensuring the trucks don't use the clip on parts of the bridge to ensure that it last longer, but Lisa there is no doubt that at some stage there's going to be another harbour crossing. Whether it's a bridge or a tunnel is yet to be worked out, then we have to work out how we pay for it and should the people of Southland pay for the bridge in Auckland, or should it be an Auckland project in conjunction with the government. |
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| LISA |
Well there's a whole other show in that, thank you very much for joining us Police Minister Annette King. |
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| DNGR ONLINE - TRBL WITH TXT |
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| LISA |
Following last week's fatal hit and run Christchurch teenagers have organised a memorial car cruise tonight for the two victims. The events main promotion tool has been BBOW New Zealand's most popular internet forum with more than 800,000 young members, but not everybody's happy, critics say it's a danger to teens and its use should be restricted. Principal of Taiere College Tina Herrick joins me now from Dunedin. Good morning to you. Can you begin by explaining to people who don't know what is this BBOW site? |
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| TINA HERRICK - Principal, Taiere College |
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Good morning everyone, BBOW is a site on the internet which is available through your school name, so you go into BBOW, you go into for example Taiere College and on there you can set up your own individual web page or message page and a number of young people are doing that and they post messages or images on their web page and then other visitors to the site can look at that and they can add to the web page by adding comments, so they're literally talking to each other and putting images on the site, and all this communication is happening over the internet. |
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| LISA |
What kind of school is your college and how widely used do you think this is within your students. |
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| TINA |
Well we have 1050 student ageing from year 7 to year 13, so that means we've got 11 year olds up to 18 year olds and I would say that there would be very few students who don't know about BBOW and I would imagine that most of them who have a computer at home in their bedroom have probably linked on to the site at some stage and looked at it and I do know that for a large proportion of my younger students maybe in year 8, 9, 10, probably use it on a regular basis as their means of communicating with each other after school. Where once a teenager would go home and they'd pick up the phone and they'd be on the phone for hours now they're going home going on to the internet and talking with people for hours. |
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| LISA |
What kind of problems do you see in this? |
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| TINA |
Well the only time I've come across BBOW is when it's brought problems into my school, so I'm not saying that the site itself is totally problem saturated but it first came to my attention last year where students were coming into school and they were coming along very very upset about things that had been set on the BBOW site, because when they're talking on the internet they're not getting any of those body clues, those facial clues, those emotional cues that tell you that you've actually hurt the person by what you're saying to them, so they go on and they make statements like oh your mother's really fat, and she dresses you funny and you haven't got any friends and you're a loser, and then the other person responds back and as it goes ahead it escalates, and I think many mothers would remember you know sort of the shouting matches between their preschoolers where an adult has to intervene and say stop that's enough go to separate corners, there's no one to do that on BBOW, so they carry on making these statements and then the next day they come to school, if it's a school day and then they meet this person who has hurt them and we get this enormous amount of broken trust, broken friendship groups, people crying, the person will get a support group round them and then the other person will get their support group round. So then we have to work very hard at mending those relationships so those students can go into a class and concentrate on the social studies lesson. |
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| LISA |
What about say with the spreading of messages like for example the whole phenomenon of texting for parties and inviting all and sundry, is BBOW being used like that from what you can see for passing information, for example for the gathering for the memorial cruise by for these kids that were killed in Christchurch? |
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| TINA |
I wouldn't know about that, but I would suspect that it probably is but there are other ways, texting itself is probably much faster and easier because with the BBOW site you have to be linked to a computer whereas the texting facility on your cellphone which just about all teenagers have that is instant messaging and it will go out in the space of two or three minutes and you can do that from anywhere, in your classroom, around the school playground, on the bus, you don't need to be at home. |
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| LISA |
So how worried should parents be about this site and what should they be doing in terms of keeping an eye on what the kids are up to? |
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| TINA |
Well my strong recommendation is that parents talk with their children about the internet site and about its dangers, because one of the things I've just been talking to you about is the broken relationships but the other things that's happening is that this is an opportunity for students to put images on the site, some of the images are quite graphic and unpleasant, but another thing is that some of the girls are posting images of themselves on the site and they're playing around in the safety of their bedroom, they think they're perfectly okay and then they post this image on the BBOW site but they put unique identifiers with it, so they will give their name, maybe their telephone number and that lays them open to any predator around New Zealand or around the world. If I could give you an example last year I asked someone to trawl the BBOW site with regard to my students, and I came up with a number of students who had problematic websites, and I noted that the number of counts of people who had gone into them was round about five six maybe seven, and then there was another one of one of my young girls who had got a fairly provocative photograph of herself in her school uniform and she'd had 547 hits. |
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| LISA |
Goodness me, let's bring in David Farrar here who is a blogger himself, I just want to talk about this idea that perhaps they regard it as being private information yet it's on the net, do you think people realise how far out that information is going? |
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| DAVID |
They do in an intellectual sense that they know this is the internet, but they have an expectation that no one's interested in them but their friends, and they often get horrified when a teacher or a parent starts talking about their BBOW site thinking oh my goodness how did you ever come across that, so they assume no one will read it because they're not well known but as we've heard it does get out. I think the issue is one of education not the technology. Kids will use anything available to communicate whether it's text whether it's talking at school and perhaps there's a role for the schools here to - if they realise half your kids use BBOW to once or twice a year perhaps run a little session on these are things you shouldn't put on your site on BBOW, these are things you shouldn't do. |
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| LISA |
Do you agree Tina? |
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| TINA |
Totally. I've had a cyber safety policy at my school since we started four years ago and we give out cyber safety information at the beginning of the year and we try to educate our students. We also use the Netsafe organisation and they produce some wonderful publications and this year and last year we gave a copy of that to every single student. I also last year I did a sweep of the BBOW site, I can't do it at school because we've got it blocked, but I got my computer person to do that and I will alert parents if I think there are some issues that they perhaps need to look at with regard to that, not that the student's in trouble, it's just that I'm concerned about their safety and this year I do another sweep. |
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| LISA |
Are parents up enough on it Tina? Do they know enough? |
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| TINA |
No I don't think they do and I think having the computer in the child's bedroom is possibly not a helpful thing, and I do think that they possibly need to go into the computer and look at the favourite sites and see what their children are accessing in the privacy of their own home. The children as the other person has said think they're safe and they're private but the internet is open to the world. |
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| LISA |
Thank you so much for joining us this morning, that's Tina Herrrick from Taiere College in Dunedin. |
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| FINAL THOUGHTS - GUEST COMMENTATORS |
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| LISA |
In the aftermath of last weekend's gang related shooting in Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws has proposed a ban on all gangs. |
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| LISA |
No doubt that this one is a tough one to solve but you've got people there who are saying that they can't step out of their house after dark, is a ban really gonna solve all of this though? |
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| DAVID |
A ban may not be possible to do because when you get down to how you define a gang etc you get into some issues but what you can do is I spose use the New York think you have a zero tolerance policy from the Police, like they finally got Al Capone over the taxes, if you decided these gangs have no redeeming value, they are just there to organise crime and intimidate people you really need the Police to say we're going to put them out of business, might not be banning them but hopefully it will come to the same thing. |
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| CHRIS |
It's not a cure all quite obviously and you and I probably stood on stations platforms in London where we could have been surrounded by members of East European gangs as you go, whatever you just don't know, you're never gonna get rid of it, but we've gotta send a message haven't we, and the other things that worries me is Annette King talked about intelligence and getting the right intelligence. If Police have been allowed to do their jobs properly in these communities how hard is it to know there is a P lab operating, we're not talking about major metropolitan cities, we're talking about Levin and for godsake if the local Police don't know there's a P lab operating or there's a gang headquarters what's going on. |
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| LISA |
Yeah how are the cops doing? |
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| CHRIS |
Well on that evidence not so well. |
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| DAVID |
Not so well and I think one of the things the Minister spoke about that there's gangs, suit and tie gangs, and that's true, they're not all the motorcycle gangs, but if you can't at least help solve the issue of the motorcycle gang that's a big step in the right direction. Just because you can't get all gangs isn't a reason not to get some gangs. |
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| CHRIS |
But what I want to see and Pita Sharples talked about it earlier in the week that older gang members are seriously sick and fed up with the culture that exists today that it's gone too far, there's too much violence, let's see them doing something about it and being meaningful about it, talk is easy but come on Pita get them together and let's see something happening. |
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| LISA |
This is kind of interrelated to the interview that we've done just been on, BBOW and the website, I see some gangs are using those spaces to recruit people, send out messages and stuff like that. The virus type nature of it is amazing. |
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| CHRIS |
I think Tina hit the nail on the head in terms of the language that is used, we all talked on the phone and that's easy and words come and go but I think that text message last week said something along the lines 'party on no Asians or Polynesians', that is inflammatory hurtful damaging language and incites a situation, and this is what kids are facing and we've got to educate them about this. |
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| DAVID |
And Tina spoke about a very good organisation, I'll give a plug for Netsafe, they're on line at netsafe.org.nz they've got wonderful resources for schools, for parents, for kids themselves, if they're being bullied, if they're being picked on, education is really the only way to help solve those issues. |
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| LISA |
But these aren't just messages are they, I'm she's talking there about provocative photos from students and stuff like that, that's gotta be a concern to any parent listening. |
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| CHRIS |
Oh absolutely I mean I've got a daughter who's gonna be a teenager in the next month or so and I worry like hell about it, thus far I mean I've probably seen you know maybe one, couple of messages calling someone a bitch and that's the worst of it at the moment, but the images are shocking, it opens up a whole new world. |
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| LISA |
And you can't get the stuff back. |
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| CHRIS |
But I think in fairness to the schools the technology is moving at a pace you know we can't all keep up with, we need serious resources, serious funds but I think we've gotta sit down and say this education's gotta be delivered in schools. |
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| DAVID |
The problem is the kids know more than the teachers, there was one school in Wellington that had the great idea once a week the kids teach the teachers how to better use the internet, and that maybe actually powerful, both parents and teachers do need some upskilling so they can try and at least keep close to what their kids are being able to do on line. |
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| CHRIS |
And mums and dads for that matter. |
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| LISA |
The other big story this week's obviously been the Bain, David Bain convictions quashed. Can this guy actually get a fair trial if he is retried? |
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| DAVID |
It's gonna be very difficult isn't it? Thirteen years on, the witnesses, well not that there were first hand witnesses but the expert testimonies… |
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| LISA |
But you'd have to have been a coma for the last ten years wouldn't you? |
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| CHRIS |
I think this morning's newspaper outlines the criteria for saying whether a prosecution should go ahead and the key points here, the effect of a decision not to prosecute, the staleness of the offence, let's tick that box off it's 13, it's too stale, he's served 13 years, whether prosecution might make the accused a martyr I think absolutely so, more than he possibly is now, and the likely length and expense of the trial, I mean he's done 13 years for godsake. |
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| LISA |
What happens though if you don't push him through another trial then there's the claims for compensation and the government has run into trouble with this before wanting proof of innocence. |
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| DAVID |
I think the pressure if they do not try him again they will have to compensate him, you can't just say sorry bad luck 13 years you've now had it squashed but we're not going to do anything, so they're going to have to either prosecute or there will be quite a big payout. |
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| CHRIS |
I think there's absolutely no value whatsoever in prosecuting him again he's already a cause celebre, it's gonna cost millions, I just don't see what there is to be gained from it. |
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| LISA |
Should he get the compo cheque do you think? |
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| CHRIS |
That's a tough question because quite clearly the Privy Council did not say he was not guilty, but in this case maybe not, maybe that's the compromise, you're free, no compo. |
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| LISA |
Can we have confidence in our courts here given what's happened? |
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| DAVID |
Well they've got quite a record the Privy Council, I think it's five in a row that they've knocked back and the language they've used I mean law lords are very diplomatic, but there's some quite strong language in there, I think there's a few people saying maybe getting rid of the Privy Council wasn't the smartest idea. |
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| LISA |
Thank you very much for joining us this morning. |
