In a media release issued  on 10 December 2011, Family First NZ, a registered charity with the Charities Commission, states:

Family First  is rejecting claims by the Children’s Commissioner and others that rising child abuse statistics are ‘good news’ and ‘delightful’, and is repeating its call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into child abuse as a result of continuing ‘tragic’ figures. 

“It is time we stopped ‘marketing’ child abuse statistics and trying to give them a positive spin, under the illusion that we are succeeding. We need a reality check,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

 “The rates of child abuse have been rocketing up for the last decade – even before the flawed anti-smacking law was passed and the Family Violence awareness campaign began. Between 2003 and 2007 alone, notifications more than doubled from 31,000 to 72,000. The latest statistics give no confidence that children are any safer.”

 “To label our atrocious statistics as ‘good news’ and ‘delightful’ is an insult to the victims. Government groups cannot attribute the increase to greater awareness and better practice. The rates have been increasing markedly well before the public awareness campaigns, and the increase in admissions to Starship Hospital alone are proof that the problem is deterioriating.”

 “Alcohol and drug abuse are rampant in dysfunctional homes, family breakdown is a festering sore, and there is increasing violence in our culture. These are all signs that things will get worse before they get better.”

 “We have had Commission of Inquiries this year into the Pike river tragedy, the collapse of buildings and consequent loss of life in the Christchurch earthquake – yet no inquiry into one of the greatest social problems facing the country.”  

 “There seems to be no political party who is willing to front up to this issue on the scale required. Since the passing of the anti-smacking law, there have been at least 31 child abuse deaths. The rate continues unabated.”

 “The ongoing rates of child abuse are a wake-up call that children will never be safe until we are honest enough as a country to identify and tackle the real causes of child abuse. An independent Inquiry free of political correctness and point-scoring is essential. We need long-term solutions to a problem that has existed for far too long,” says Mr McCoskrie.

ENDS

See: www.familyfirst.org.nz

It is of course a  practice each 25^th November marked by some men to show that they do not condone “men’s violence against women”, and apparently led by the Families Commission. However McCoskrie maintains that “this is a family violence issue, not a gender issue.” 

I couldn’t agree more, and sent off to McCoskrie the following:-

 “Congratulations on your superb article in today’s (Nov. 23rd) NZ Herald. It is a breath of fresh air after over thirty-odd years of rabid feminist propaganda. 

 I believe this has done  nothing for the domestic violence problem and gravely defamed good family men in the process. ”

For years I have endeavoured to show that feminist, anti-family women’s refuges – recipients of monstrous amounts of public money – should not be presented as the only places for such troubled women to go to for help; that there are pro-family, church-based ones also, and that women in such need should also have this choice open to them.” 

Talk about the hackneyed socialist cry “a woman’s right to choose”! In this respect, sheer hypocrisy more like! “ 

The McCoskrie article was followed next day in the Herald by a response from Families Commissioner Carl Davidson, who opined that the former “is likely to be a lone voice” with his decision not to wear such a ribbon. Oh yes? Thankfully not all have been taken in by the ongoing ideologically driven hoopla which has surrounded the domestic violence issue for the past thirty-odd years. 

I suggest the situation will be similar with this Davidson article. For example, we are told, without any hard evidence whatsoever, that there is “good science” behind the White Ribbon scheme : rather than blaming men, the plan is to show men “how they can be part of the solution. It uses the strength of men to bring about an end to all violence,” and similar waffle.  

 Interestingly enough,  just five years ago (13^th November 2006) the Herald was reporting a vastly different matter, but hardly more complimentary,  pertaining to the Families Commission :

“Domestic abuse campaigners accused of bias”. Two top health researchers, Professor David Fergusson and Associate Professor Richie Poulton, had accused the Commission of “ideologically driven bias in presenting domestic violence as a problem of men battering women.” etc. 

So much for that criticism of the McCoskrie article. Similarly with the sarcastic and highly devious blast  on Scoop 23^rd November, as well as in the Herald  two days later from Women’s Refuge CEO  Heather Henare. According to her, for McCoskrie to be wearing a white ribbon, and therefore to be making a public statement against violence would have been “an act of gross hypocrisy….after he campaigned to legalise parents smacking their children”! Her garbled logic to support this astonishing assertion is infantile and fallacious to behold: “How can someone who didn’t support a bill that would give children the same rights as adults against harm, in the same breath debate whether or not they would support an anti-violence campaign?” 

Henare then plays the “ignorance” card. By McCoskrie focusing upon gendered violence in NZ he simply does not understand what domestic violence means, and here the ideological dimension really reveals itself. She quotes the old and hackneyed radical feminist dogma that “domestic violence entails a systematic pattern whereby one person exerts power and control over another. The victim lives in fear. Overwhelmingly this is about a man’s violence towards a woman.” 

“Power and control” of course are the telltale clues here, indicating as they do the fundamental ideological influence of the Duluth Model which scandalously underpins and drives all NZ family violence public policy and the broad Women’s Refuge movement, as well as similar movements overseas. 

Although NZ media appears not to reveal any such information, there is copious scholarly discussion of it overseas, such as, for example, by Cathy Young and Bert H. Hoff. In Young’s 1999 article “Domestic Violations” (1) she gives a precis  of a 1998 article  by Hoff, “What’s Wrong with the Duluth Model?” (http://www.vix.com/menmag/batdulut.htm) Young explains:-

 ”(The Duluth Model) is the approach most widely used for perpetrator treatment-but it gender-polarises the ‘people problem’ of domestic violence. It blames and shames men. It’s based on ideology, not science. It ignores drinking, drugs and pathology. Only one cause, only one solution. There’s no real evidence it works. It ignores domestic violence by women. Women who need help can’t get it. It’s taught by wounded healers.”

 Young quotes from Hoff’s article : how supporters of the Duluth Model “don’t hesitate to call it a ‘sociopolitical model’, but San Jose therapist Eric Towle calls it ‘a radical feminist re-education camp’, where ‘battery’ is equated with ‘masculinity’. The goal of such sociopolitical therapy is to ‘challenge sexist expectations and controlling behaviours that often inhibit men, and motivate them to learn to apply newly learned skills in a consistently non-controlling manner.’ “

 Also from Hoff : “The model was developed, not by a team of psychologists and research scientists, but in consultation with ‘a small group of activists in the battered women’s movement’ and ‘more than 200 battered women in Duluth (USA).’ Amy Holtzworth-Munroe, associate professor of psychology at Indiana University, says  (US) ‘states are basing rigid treatment policy on rhetoric and ideology, not data’.”

 In summary, then, with such disturbing facts as these which lie suppressed behind the family violence/Women’s Refuge movement, it was entirely predictable that an uproar would be raised in some quarters about McCoskrie’s NZ Herald article  opposing the movement’s emphasis upon male violence instead of violence in general  and have to  be attacked and attempts made to discredit it.

Nevertheless, perhaps the  sixty four dollar question  is this :  for how much longer must the NZ public be kept in ignorance by media cover-ups about this scandalous state of affairs, this pernicious and treacherous attack on culture,  and be expected to fund such a  fraudulent and burgeoning “anti-violence” industry in the process?

Opinion Piece Author: Barbara Faithfull  B.A. (Psych.Anthr.)

25^th November 2011

References

1. Cathy Young : “Domestic Violations” in April 1999 Reason magazine.

http://www.vix.com/menmag/cyoungdv/htm

“If their mothers could see them, they’d shut the festival down tomorrow,” the officer in charge of the event, Sergeant Kevin Basher, said.

Martinborough residents have joined him in warning that the once-civilised wine lovers’ event is now a mass booze-up that risks spilling into violence.

Mr Basher, who called Sunday’s event the worst in seven years, said yesterday that steel container “drunk tanks” might have to be used in future and that officers might need to carry batons to counter unruly drunks….

Festival organisers met police yesterday after reports of at least a dozen brawls. One man was admitted to hospital after being knocked unconscious.

A Martinborough local said The Square was full of drunks on Sunday night. “The atmosphere was getting quite nasty. It’s not the Toast it used to be.”

Police say some wineries appear to have breached liquor licencing laws by continuing to serve people who are clearly intoxicated. One vineyard encouraged festival-goers to scull full glases of wine.

“We’re still seeing people who are grossly intoxicated, especially young women falling all over the place in various states of disrepair [defecating] everywhere and covered in blood,” Mr Basher said.

A dompost.co.nz poll yesterday asked if drunken behaviour at Toast Martinborough was out of control.

Of more than 900 respondents, 55.3 per cent agreed, saying it was not pleasant when so many people were drunk. Another 36.9 per cent said it was just the actions of a few and everyone else had a great time. Nearly 8 per cent were undecided. The survey concluded that the event was “Out of Control”

Toast Martinborough chairman Richard Riddiford, who started the event 20 years ago, played down the alcohol problems. “We’re talking about a very, very, small percentage of [the 11,500] festival-goers.

[Clearly neither the police who attended nor 55.3% of the 900 responddents to the Dompost survey, attempted to "play down the alcohol problems", as Mr Riddiford did].

Source: “Police warn of ‘feral’ festival, The Dominion Post, Tuesday, November 22, 2011, p. 1.

Able Seaman Ryan Donovan had been obsessed with the video game Grand Theft Auto – linked with murders in the US. After being disciplined for disobedience, Donovan told shipmates he was planning a killing frenzy based on the game. He later shot dead an officer and seriously wounded three others (The Guardian, 19/9/11).

Not long afterwards, UK and Swedish researchers identified evidence of “Game Transfer Phenomena”, where some gamers integrate video experiences into their real lives (Daily Mail, 21/9/11). The study involved 42 in-depth interviews with participants ages 15 to 21, all of whom were frequent video gamers.

Almost all had experienced some type of involuntary thoughts in relation to video games, and half sought to use something from a video game to resolve a real-life issue.

“This study reinforces our concerns about the link between violent and explicit games and real life behaviour,” said FamilyVoice research officer Ros Phillips.

“It also reinforces our concerns about the proposed new 18+ games caregory agreed to by Australian attorneys-general in July. There is doubt the new guidelines would exclude games with a higher impact than games currently available – despite the agreement reached by attorneys-general last November,” Mrs Phillips said.

Source: VoxPoint, November 2011, p/. 7.

Reprinted from VoxPoint by permission of FamilyVoice Australia, 4th Floor, 68 Grenfell Street, Adelaide SA, 5000.

Government Must Now Release Child Abuse Report

Media Release 4 November 2011

Family First NZ is calling for the Minister of Social Development Paula Bennett to release the findings of the independent ministerial inquiry into a horrific West Auckland child abuse case. 

“The excuse for not releasing the report earlier was that the case was still in progress. With the guilty pleas of both parents, the government can now release the report, and they should do so immediately,” saysBob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. 

Family First believes that the report will show shortfalls in collaboration and information sharing between government-funded agencies, an insufficient response when there were so many ‘red flags’, limited resources, and failings in targeting at-risk families and rotten parents in general. 

“The fact that the family of the West Auckland 9-year-old had been involved with CYF, a family support agency, a registered ACC counsellor, a court-appointed psychologist, the child’s court-appointed lawyer and a child and youth mental health service is ample proof that the ‘bottom of the cliff’ approach is not working and is not the key – we must look at the root causes of child abuse. Why is it happening in the first place?” 

“Since the passing of the anti-smacking law, there has been a continual stream of child abuse cases, the rate of child abuse deaths has continued at the same rate as before, and resources have been diverted to chasing parents who use a smack rather than targeting rotten parents with clear evidence of abuse and issues of family breakdown and dysfunction, drug and alcohol abuse issues, poverty and stress, and mental illness.” 

Latest government figures show that Care and Protection notifications have increased by over 20% to almost 151,000 in the past year, and that the number of substantiated abuse/neglect cases within just six months of previous abuse/neglect findings has increased by 40% over the past two years. 

Family First is repeating its call for a Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse, Family Breakdown and Family Violence. 

“Children will never be safe until we are honest enough as a country to identify and tackle the real causes of child abuse and our response to those tough issues,” says Mr McCoskrie.

A Te Papa manager has escaped conviction for a “degrading” assault on his pregnant former partner after claiming it would hamper his international travel for the museum.

Noel James Osborne, 47, is a collections manager of Maori artefacts. In a video on Te Papa’s website in which he presents the museum’s collection of taiaha, he says he is a carver.

Women’s Refuge chief executive Heather Henare said Osborne’s discharge without conviction reeked of double standards. “Effectively what this says is it is OK if you happen to be in a privileged position.”

Osborne, appearing in Wellington District Court yesterday, had previously pleaded guilty to common domestic assault.

Prosecutor Blair Piper described the attack as quite a degrading act. “It does have emotional ramifications beyond the physical. There’s simply no excuse for taking that action against a woman who was pregnant.”

But Osborne successfully argued that the effects of a conviction outweighed the gravity of the offending.

For more see:

 http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/5425894/Te-Papa-manager-avoids-assault-conviction

The victim lost consciousness during the attack at a Nelson school last month, in which he was punched, kicked, stomped on and beaten with pieces of timber. The two youths admitted injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, aggravated robbery and kidnapping when they appeared in Nelson Youth Court on Friday. The court was told that the youths took the victim’s cashflow card and he offered to give them his PIN [card security] number in an attempt to placate threm. The two yoths will reappear in court on June 22.

Source Dominion Post June 13, 3011, p. A3

Hi SPCS

I’m writing a story about a gay porn zombie film called LA Zombie showing at Out Takes film festival in Auckland and Wellington in June [2011]. It was censored by the Australian Film Classification Board last year. They advised organisers of the Melbourne International Film Festival that the film couldn’t be shown as it was likely to be refused classification.

New Zealand’s Office of Film and Literature Classification has allowed the film to be shown here and classified it R18. A warning that the movie contains “violence, sex scenes and content that may disturb” is attached.

I understand the movie contains full frontal nude scenes, zombies with prosthetic cucumber penises, wound penetraion and implied sex with corpses.

The plot is described by Wikipedia as follows:

“A homeless schizophrenic thinks he’s an alien zombie sent to earth. Roaming the streets of Los Angeles in search of dead bodies, he tries to bring the dead back to life by engaging in homosexual sex.”

I’d like to know the Society’s thoughts on this and whether it plans to protest or complain.

Please get back to me as soon as possible ….

Kind regards

Andre Huester: Reporter

Herald on Sunday

__________________

Email Reply from John Mills, President SPCS

Thanks for the enquiry seeking comment.

For the legal and technical reasons why SPCS is appealing [to the Film and Literature Board of Review] against this Office of Film and Literature Classification’s decision [re LA Zombie], please consult with our Executive Director….

I [John Mills] am disappointed to learn that this film is being promoted by the [New Zealand] gay community, if indeed that is the case.

The gay community has gained widespread acceptability of their lifestyle within society during the last 20 or so years. I have come to accept and be supportive of this as a reality of the society we share. However, having said that, it is unfortunate that they allow themselves to be represented by what I think must be a radical minority who are seeking to promote this type of [film] material which has to be attempting to set a new low, pushing way beyond the boundaries of reasonablenes.

This film needs to be judged as not [as a valid form of] “freedom of expression” but injurious to the public good. For the sake of political correctness New Zealanders have become pressured into agreeing that anything goes, just as long as it does not hurt others. If we had not lost our senses of what will be harmful, we would not even need to be having the discussion [over this film].

I think we ought to be working together with the gay communitty to keep this material [that is injurious to the public good] out of New Zealand.

John Mills

__________

?COPY of Email sent to Andre Hueber from SPCS

Email from Department of Internal Affairs to SPCS.

Friday April 29, 2011 at 2.34 PM

[To SPCS]

“On behalf of Julie Wall, Senior Business Advisor, Business Services, Ministerial and Secretarial Services, Department of Internal Affairs, this is to confirm receipt of your completed application for a review by the Film and Literature Board of Review ……[received] today 29 April.”

Kind regards

Robyn Brooke

Executive Assistant to General Manager

Ministerial and Secretarial Services

The Department of Internal Affairs Te Tari Taiwhenua

Bowen House, Wellington

www.dia.govt.nz

________________

References

Banned Horror Film to Screen [in New Zealand]

by Andre Hueber 1 May 2011. New Zealand Herald: 1 May 2011

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/movies/news/article.cfm?c_id=200&objectid=10722596

Australian Reports

Festival zombie porn flick banned. 12 July 2010

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/21/2959594.htm

Zombie porn screening leads to police raid. 12 November 2010

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/11/3063975.htm

WHITE SUPREMACIST Malcolm Chaston was allegedly able to watch soft-porn movies before being released from prison and murdering young mother Vanessa Pickering.

Chaston will be sentenced on Monday on the murder charge and also of the sexual assault of another female.

Sensible Sentencing Trust founder Garth McVicar has released an email sent to him from a prison guard in the months leading up to Chaston’s prior release from jail in mid-2008.

The unnamed guard wrote of Chaston: ”He is a very sick puppy and these sex movies just feed his sickness.

”He watches these movies and skites about things he is going to do when he gets out.

”This is a very sick place, can you imagine why they would let sex offenders watch sex videos. God help us and the poor woman these mongrels come across when they get out.”

The email stated: ”I wonder if you are aware that the Dept of Corrections has recently decided that R16 videos and DVDs are OK to be shown in prisons.

”There is no distinction as to what type of R16 is shown to what type of prisoner _ i.e. a soft porn R16 can be shown in a sex offenders unit, and R16 with violence can be shown to violent prisoners.

”Can you imagine what these videos do to mongrels like Malcom [sic] Chaston …”

Source: Sex Movies before murder. By Neil Reid 15 April 2011 (Fairfax Media)

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/4893344/Sex-movies-before-murder

It was revealed on February 14 that Chaston  a 41-year-old former member of white supremacist gang the Fourth Reich  had in November 2010 pleaded guilty to Vanessa Pickering’s murder.

 But the plea was suppressed until the heavily-tattooed former freezing worker appeared in the Christchurch High Court in February to face a charge of assault with intent to commit sexual violation against another woman.

Ms Vanessa, 27, was killed in February 2010.

Crown Prosecutor Brent Stanaway has called for Chaston to be handed an open-ended sentence of preventative detention.

Following the lifting of suppression of Chaston’s guilty plea, it was revealed several prison guards had issued chilling prophecies about him in the months leading up to his release from prison in mid-2008.

At the time, Chaston was being prepared for release after being handed a six-year sentence after being found guilty of unlawful sexual connection, rendering unconscious and injuring with intent.

He also had a raft of previous convictions for sexually-related and violent offending.

Several guards from a South Island prison wrote sternly-worded warnings to Mr McVicar outlining why they believed Chaston was a threat to society, and saying they had approached prison bosses with their concerns.

Corrections’ southern regional manager Paul Monk confirmed that prior to November 2007: ”Some rented DVDs were able to be screened in recreation rooms or other communal areas. Prisoners have access to general television channels which air adult rated content.”

Mr Monk said Chaston’s prison manager and unit manager were not made aware of staff concerns about the killer prior to his release.

Talking to Fairfax Media, McVicar said the prison guards’ anger towards Chaston’s release had reached ”fever pitch” as they realised the risk he posed.

While he acknowledged Corrections had cracked down on videos, games and magazines available to inmates, he said it was an ”indictment” on the system that someone like Chaston could source objectionable material while behind bars.

”It is hugely irresponsible and a disgrace,” he said.

Reference: ‘Sick puppy’ saw porn in prison before muder. By Neil Reid.

Dominion Post 18 April 2011. p. A3

Fairfax Media

He initially denied any wrong-doing, claiming Cash had suffered the injuries after his own four-year-old daughter had hit her with a doll. As the Judge noted, Donnelly chose not to treat the toddler’s sickening injuries until a friend arrived at his house about 90 minutes after the incident.

Donnelly was handed a seven-year jail sentence on Friday after earlier pleading guilty to three-year-old Cash McKinnon’s manslaughter. But as judge Alan MacKenzie did not impose a statutory non-parole period, Donnelly could be released back into the community in as little as 18 months. In summing up the judge noted that Donnelly did not intend to kill the girl and had yet to face up to the totality of what he had done.

Sensible Sentencing Trust boss Garth McVicar last night hit out at the sentence imposed, saying it was abhorrent and needed to be reviewed. He said the sentence failed to send a strong message to the community that horrendous offences of child abuse would not be tolerated.

“What is the message in this pathetic sentence that children don’t matter, that we as a society accept and tolerate this sort of behaviour? With a stroke of the pen our judiciary has single-handedly underwritten and endorsed New Zealand’s horrendous child abuse statistics. The high level of child abuse in New Zealand is already eyed with disdain by the rest of the world. We are a pathetic little country that does not treasure its children and simply allows them to be treated as cannon fodder,” McVicar said.

Full story by Neil Reid – Stuff News: 26 March 2011 http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/4813808/Lawmakers-urged-to-appeal-pathetic-sentence