I'm right behind blogger's challenge to suppression

Michael Laws

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PREJUDICE #235: "Bloggers" are opinionated losers who spend way too much time in darkened rooms. They have porn addictions, staple microwave pizza to their bibs, are blubbery and smell.

This peculiar purview has been harboured ever since blogging became the online onanism. Which was the first day some idiot decided to anonymously opine and imagined that people gave a continental.

I'm probably still right. If I was to take a cross-section of bloggers I'd wager that most don't have a partner or a wardrobe, are in desperate need of a stomach staple and regard deodorant as the devil's snare. They would also be exceedingly jealous of each other: like literary fiction writers. Too many only children, I suspect.

I have been content with this conceit for many years. Indeed, as a middle-aged, white male I am content with any number of conceits – that is our culture. We are a parade of primness when it comes to the vices of others. But occasionally one is required to re-examine one's prejudices, and so I've been unnerved this past week.

Cue Cameron Slater. He goes by the oddest of blog monikers – Whale Oil – and is, to be charitable, not Brad Pitt. Not Brad Pitt's bottom nor even Brad's dad's.

This would not worry him at all – as his publicity shot shows. He has embraced his inner disquiet and decided "to hell with it". Which marks him as the kind of unathletic anti-hero our gym teachers always warned us about.

Yet here I am this Sunday morning proclaiming the virtues of an opinionated eccentric who is making a tangible difference to the New Zealand justice system. By defying it, and by deliberately releasing the clues and keys that unravel all those anti-democratic and self-serving suppression orders.

Is this illegal? You betcha. Which is why Cameron Slater is facing criminal charges for outing a musician convicted of sleazing teenage girls, a Nelson-based ex-MP charged with indecent assault, and a prominent former Olympian facing serious spousal abuse charges, including rape.

By doing so, Slater has earned the censure and contempt, ironically, of most of the so-called blogger community. One simple reason: they're jealous. He has also earned the mildest of rebukes from Prime Minister John Key but then John Key only does mild. He was only ever so slightly concerned by Hone Harawira's racist outburst – Chauncey Gardiner at his best.

Slater does not care. The worst penalty will be a conviction and a fine of $1000. If it is ever collected. He does not face incarceration nor a meeting of his creditors.

I discovered this myself in 2008 when charged with exactly the same crime. I had inadvertently blurted out on my radio show information that might have led to the identification of Graeme Capill's victims. In many ways it was a much more serious transgression than Slater's. Although my argument was that I had no idea who the victims were: I simply pieced together the newspaper reports and reached the obvious conclusion.

Which is exactly the issue with Slater. Why is he being prosecuted when the reach of his blog was so minimal? But more importantly, when the mainstream media clued most of us as to the identity of all these public figures and their suppressed identities?

For example, we know that two former MPs are facing criminal charges – one for fraud and perverting the course of justice, the other for indecently assaulting a 13-year-old. But we also know more. The Auckland-based ex-MP was, we have been informed, a prominent parliamentarian. The Nelson ex-MP is based in – yes, Nelson.

This does severely proscribe the potential. And also draws a wicked inference upon those who fit the above descriptions. Which is the inherent unfairness of the current suppression system: it narrows the culprit to a group and so puts all in that group under suspicion.

So it is with Auckland-based comedians who have appeared on TV: many publicly proclaiming their innocence to distance themselves from the taint. And, ironically, further reducing the pool of suspects after one of their number was charged with the very nasty abuse of a four-year-old.

Similarly, there can be only a handful – literally – of former MPs based in Nelson. The secret defendant was not Philip Woolaston, Geoffrey Palmer, Graham Thorne (who was a Nelson city councillor) or Mike Ward. But every one of them has been unfairly captured by the media sub-group.

But the greatest problem with name suppression is that it denies the principle of an open and transparent judicial system. Justice must be seen to be done and suppression is entirely antithetical of that imperative. If the argument is that suppression will protect the potential identity of the victim then the Capill precedent is protection enough. All such details were suppressed. As I discovered.

And then, for a moment, dwell upon the unfortunate and recent reputations imposed upon ex-All Black Robin Brooke and former MP and Children's Commissioner Roger McClay. Both were publicly condemned because they are under investigation for alleged transgressions – but have been charged with absolutely nothing. Their reputations have taken a public battering: those actually charged with serious offences have escaped public attention.

Blogger Slater is challenging such legal shibboleths and all power to him. His tilt, and those of his fellow internet communicators, will likely have more political effect than the recent and arid tome of the Law Commission. Because Slater is refining an aged principle in the newest medium. And because the current law so obviously deviates from any objective for justice.

mlaws@radiolive.co.nz