Mike's Minute: The prosecution guidelines highlight this country's issues

The Mike Hosking Breakfast - A podcast by Newstalk ZB - Mondays

From our “you wonder why we are where we are” file, there's a note from the Solicitor General to the Police Prosecution Service about the new system they will have in place as of the start of next year.  The Solicitor General updated the prosecution guidelines. This is what she said:  "The goals remain to ensure New Zealand continues to benefit from prosecution processes, which are underscored by the core values of transparency, equality and fair application of the law to all participants and reflect the legitimate public interest in prosecuting criminal offending."  So far so good. But then they get to this bit:  "The guidelines ask prosecutors to think carefully about particular decisions where a person is Māori, or a member of any other group disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system... This does not promote different treatment based on ethnicity or membership of a particular group, it instead alerts prosecutors to situations and factors that may deliver inequitable outcomes for some people in those groups."  Quick question - what do you reckon that means?  Does it mean what you think it means, without the meaning being out so explicit that you go "what the hell, I thought we were getting rid of all this nonsense?”  And all this nonsense is the problem the Government has with race-based ideology.  They say a lot of one thing but are facing a tremendous amount of pushback on it.  As the universities collapse in global rankings, as published last week, at least surely in part because of their obsession with race, we now find the justice system is instructed to “think carefully”.  What is this disproportion they speak of?  Well, obviously when it comes to race, Māori are over-represented in crime. Ask a simple question - why? The answer surely is because, sadly, they commit too much of it.  Another simple question - is by "thinking carefully" as instructed by the Solicitor General perhaps going to lead to lesser charges, whether in severity or numbers, and therefore the disproportion is balanced out a bit?  No reduction in the crime, just a reduction in the consequences.  Here's a final simple question - if the Government says we should not be having policy based on race, how do they explain this? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Visit the podcast's native language site