Kiwiblog

The four youth wings had a joint press conference at Parliament today on the Law Commission report. NZPA report:

Keep it 18 spokeswoman Jenna Raeburn, 22, said today it was a contradiction that 18 and 19-year-olds could work in a bar, vote, get married or become a prostitute and politicians were considering taking away their right to drink alcohol.

There were also benefits of drinking, which were not mentioned in the Law Commission report, she said.

“The fact that people like to drink speaks for itself.

“Going out and drinking, and even going out and getting drunk, can be a lot of fun.”

Ms Raeburn said raising the alcohol purchase age would punish the majority for the actions of a few problem drinkers.

There were quite a few questions about what is meant by “getting drunk” and “binge drinking”. Jenna was differentiating between what many of us have been – tipsy type drunk, and heavily drunk, where you cause damage to yourself or others.

The Law Commission report I’m told defined binge drinking as four or more drinks in a night for a woman, and six for a man. Jenna rejected that definition, and some journalists were asserting you can’t disagree with the science quoted.

That got me thinking. If four drinks or more in a night represents binge drinking, then I would say 95% of people at the annual press gallery party are binge drinkers.

If you have six drinks in an hour, that is probably binge drinking. But six drinks over a six hour party, with plenty of food, is not – well to me anyway.

ACT on Campus president Peter McCaffrey, 22, said Members of Parliament who wanted to raise the drinking age should reject any votes they receive from 18 and 19-year-olds at the next election.

“If an 18-year-old is not rational enough to be able to have a beer after work with their workmates, how can they possibly make such an important decision as to who should represent them in Parliament?”

Heh that was a great point.

Young Labour spokeswoman Nicola Wood, 17, said the Government would do better to enforce current law rather than punishing the majority of the 140,000 18 and 19-year-olds who were responsible drinkers.

“Creating a culture of responsible drinking only comes from policy which better enables young people to make positive decisions about how they use alcohol.”

There is some clear evidence that existing laws are not enforced. Off memory only one conviction for serving an intoxicated person and 27 for serving under age.

Young Greens spokesman Zachary Dorner, 20, said many older people also drank excessively.

“Eighteen and 19-year-olds are not the problem — drinking is.”

Raising the purchase age of alcohol was a “discriminatory solution” and could not address the cultural issues around drinking in New Zealand.

The law was also likely to be flouted, he said.

Mr Dorner proposed restricting alcohol supply and advertising, increasing education and treatment accessibility and community control as the best ways to improve the drinking culture here.

Solving the cultural issues around binge drinking are not easy, but making it illegal for a 19 year old to have a glass of wine, with their parents, in a restaurant will just make things worse in my opinion.

Young Nats president Daniel Fielding, 23, said an 18-year-old has the responsibilities of adulthood so there was no justification for restricting their right to consume alcohol.

Young people were a “convenient scapegoat”, he said.

“Solutions need to focus on problem drinkers, not punish all drinkers.

“A blanket measure of raising the drinking age will not change the drinking culture.”

It says something when all four of these parties have their youth wings in agreement on the age issue.

Scoop also has a story, plus audio.

I am currently reading Tony Flannery (ed) Responding to the Ryan Report (2009, Columba Press, Dublin) as I have been asked to help review it.

The Ryan Report was the report by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse which sent shockwaves throughout Ireland, as it detailed an incredible number of allegations of physical and sexual abuse in Irish Catholic institutions. The fallout for the Catholic Church has been far worse in Ireland than in other countries (US, Australia, NZ) where similar reports have been published. Many elderly nuns don’t wear a habit in public anymore, for fear of being spat on or assaulted – whether or not they are involved with any of the institutions mentioned in the Report, and whether or not they have ever had anything to do with child care.

The book is written as an attempt to broaden the debate about abuse in the Church. The authors are Catholic, but none are apologists for what happened. They simply try to examine the problem from different angles: why it happened, how to avoid such things happening in the future, what aspects of church teaching might have led to this. The examination of centuries of oppressive teaching on sexuality is particularly telling.

It has always bothered me that church leaders (from the Catholic church and others) withdraw from PR problems. It is easier to resign as an expression of apology rather than defend yourself against false allegations. It is easier not to apologise, for fear of looking like you did something wrong. It is easier not to talk to the media, for fear that they will twist your words and use leading questions to make you say something you didn’t mean. It is easier to pay compensation than fight a legal battle. One author puts it particularly well:

Because the thinkers in the church had run away from the challenging possibilities of electronic media, nobody was available to it, throughout the perfect storm of the child abuse story, to analyse the economic circumstances which caused an influx of grievously unfit people into ministry, to delineate the power relationships regnant within big church institutions which drew sexual abusers to them or to discuss the group dynamics which turn good intentions into bricks on the road to hell.

This is from my favourite chapter so far – it discusses how the Church has failed to engage in the opportunities given to it by electronic and visual media, and has been left powerless in the face of the publication of the Report, and the media attention given to victims.

This is in no way saying that the Report contains dishonest accounts; nor that victims don’t have a right to be heard. It simply attempts to explain the deafening silence from the Church. It is a silence which has prevented unconditional apologies and debates over constructive reform. But it is one created by years of avoiding the mainstream and retreating into the shell of the Church – a far cry from the centuries of missionaries harnessing new technologies to spread their message. Books like this are good, but they’re no substitute for engaging in the debate eight months ago in mainstream media. This failure is, and will continue to be, the major contributor to the demise of Catholicism unless something changes.

Jenna Raeburn blogs:

It utterly irritates me that the provocation debate has been almost entirely subsumed by the Weatherston case. There are three massive problems with this.

The Weatherston case has been the catalyst for change, but for my own part I have been supportive of a law change for some years since the McNee case.

Everyone has forgotten about the better, more philosophical justifications for removing the defence. In my mind the biggest issue is the assumption that, given a high enough degree of provocation, any ordinary person might resort to homicidal violence. This is a fundamentally flawed conception of human nature and is no basis for distinguishing levels of culpability.

Bravo. And then she addresses those who argue just for a change:

The second major issue is that the defence is inherently discriminatory. It does not provide protection to those who are not considered to have an “ordinary” level of self-control. Worse, it provides homophobes, misogynists, racists and other bigots with an excuse to murder the subjects of their hatred. This is exacerbated by the fact that the legal tests are such a complicated mix of objective and subjective factors that juries never understand it. None of this can be fixed simply by “changing” the defence – these are inherent issues, so it has to be scrapped entirely.

And then the cases before Weatherston:

We have also forgotten about the other many victims who have been defamed by murderers pleading provocation, and the many cases where the defence has absurdly been successful. Why didn’t the Ambach case cause the same outrage as Weatherston? It was barely reported, and yet it is twenty times as outrageous because Ambach was actually successful. The McNee case was very similar, and is also largely forgotten despite having more publicity.

Those interested in more info on these other cases could read a good article at Salient by Conrad Reyners on this.

I think the McNee case was outraegous. Even if his killer Edwards was heterosexual, that would be no reason for him to kill McNee, but Edwards frequently slept with men for sex – in fact he tried to blackmail several of them. This violent thug just conned the jury and got manslaughter instead of murder. The problem with the provocation partial defence is it encourages people to try and defame their victim.

People are calling the abolition of provocation a knee-jerk reaction to the Weatherston case. I cannot believe the sheer numbers of people I have noted expressing this belief over the last couple of days as this has all made the news again. This is the one and only thing that inspired me to write a post about what essentially ought to be a non-issue. It ought to have been so since Rongonui at least. A change has been on the cards for years, especially since the Law Commission report in 2007. Anyone who believes this is all about Clayton Weatherston should read it.

I think the Weatherston case has been a catalyst for MPs. It has meant the law change has happened quicker than otherwise would have been the case. But again I agree that the need to change the law has been apparent for many years.

At the final SRC of 2009, the good students of Victoria University voted 45 – 35 that VUWSA actively support Sir Roger Douglas’ Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill.

This means VUWSA is now obliged to put in a submission in support of the Bill, which will make student associations voluntary.

Jenna Raeburn was at the SRC and live blogged the multiple tactics used to try and prevent a vote – multiple quorum counts, competing motions etc.

There are going to be some very upset student politicians tonight.

Congratulations to those 45 students who took the time to turn up and vote, and most of all for being subtle enough about it, to pull off a superb tactical assault.