Claims against MP should not just be brushed aside
Hints of other bullying hard to forgive and forget
Ram raids, ram raids everywhere. Check the major news sites on any given day and it’s likely you’ll come across a story about another car being driven into another shop. It’s almost passe.
What’s truly scary though is how many of these raids involve teenagers. In a few cases, pre-teens. One story last week involved a 12-year-old targeting a liquor store.
There’s a good chance some of those kids implicated in ram raids haven’t even experienced their first kiss. That’s crazy to think about.
And because of their ages, there are murmurings of discontent around the consequences — or what some would say is a lack thereof — that these teens may face.
Young people and teenagers are treated differently under the law than their adult counterparts, with consequences for lower-level offences focused on actions like written apologies, paying for damages and community work.
Serious offences are, broadly speaking, ones that involve violence rather than property crimes. A thief won’t be treated as harshly as, say, a murderer. Serious youth offending may result in a trip to a youth justice residence.
And, even though some of us may despair at the perceived laxity of treatment towards teenaged offenders, most of us will understand why these distinctions exist.
There’s a good reason why you’ve got to be 16 before you’re legally allowed to get behind the wheel of the car.
Teenagers take more risks than any other age group. According to psychology professor Nina Mounts, director of the Northern Illinois University Collaborative on Early Adolescence, teenagers are more likely to engage in risky behaviours when they’re around kids their own age. Mounts says a strong fear of social exclusion is part of the reason why teenagers engage in riskier behaviours than adults.
What I surmise from this is that teenagers are hardwired to make bad decisions in groups. I find it hard to imagine a 12-year-old coming up with the idea of ram raiding a store all by themself. But get a group of them together and, well, they just might talk themselves into it.
At what point does this cross from being young and dumb into the territory of dangerous criminal?
Is it the moment they take the wheel for that first raid? Or does it come once they’ve demonstrated a pattern of repeated delinquent behaviour?
By treating a reckless teenager as a hardened criminal, we could be setting them up for a lifetime of lawbreaking. Or if we adopt too much of a “boys will be boys” attitude, we may simply be giving them permission to continue their behaviour. Where should we draw the line?
Let’s say you, a 14-year-old, are caught ramming a car into a shop window with a group of your friends in a dumb, one-off stunt. No one is hurt, but you caused extensive damage and threatened a store owner’s livelihood. Should that affect what school you can attend, what universities you can apply for, what career you can choose?
Or perhaps we could look at a different example of dumb teenage groupthink, one where violence is involved.
What if you, a 16-year-old boy, join three other teenagers in repeatedly punching a 13-year-old child? If the victim suffered no longterm harm, even though the potential for permanent physical damage was there, should 16-yearold you face long-term consequences?
Teenagers do dumb things. I doubt there’s a human being on this planet that will debate that. But those dumb actions still have the potential to cause serious, longlasting damage to people and property.
That’s why, in my opinion, these accusations against Tauranga MP Sam Uffindell shouldn’t just be brushed aside. Taken in isolation, it could have been a harmful mistake. A boy submitting to peer pressure to fit in.
Uffindell did cop consequences for his actions. He was asked to leave his prestigious school, but he was able to enrol at another prestigious school in another town. He has apologised for his behaviour 22 years ago but he did wait two decades to make that apology. Those things need to be weighed up.
But Uffindell has hinted that he participated in other instances of bullying, and that is harder to forgive and forget.
Especially when you add in the newer accusations about bullying and intimidating behaviour as a flatmate while Uffindell was attending the University of Otago, allegations he denies. High school behaviour is less excusable in a university student.
How much of an impact all this will have on his current position as an MP remains to be seen.
He has been stood down from the National Party caucus pending an investigation into his past behaviour, and all eyes will be on Christopher Luxon to see how he responds to the accusations. Luxon will need to weigh up the cost of yet another expensive byelection in the Tauranga electorate against the need to show his mettle as an effective leader with strong morals.
Putting your leader in such a quandary is not a good look for an MP of two months.
The investigation into Uffindell’s past behaviour is expected to take two to three weeks, and if any further accusations arise then I suspect Uffindell’s fledgling political career will not survive, if indeed it has any chance of doing so now.
Maybe he’ll survive this. Maybe. There is a chance that he serves the remaining year-and-a-bit of his term and proves his worth as an MP. If he can convince Luxon he truly is a changed man, present a suitable mea culpa moment to the public, and somehow demonstrate to Tauranga that he’s the best we’ve got, maybe he’ll stick around.
Maybe.
Voters will forgive a lot of someone who gets stuff done.
And maybe, just maybe, in 20 years’ time we’ll see a former 12-year-old ram raider standing for Parliament, lamenting the actions of their young self and issuing apologies to impacted store owners.
Will it be a redemption arc or a fall from grace?
Time will tell.
If he can convince Luxon he truly is a changed man, present a suitable mea
culpa moment to the public, and somehow demonstrate to Tauranga that he’s the best we’ve got, maybe he’ll stick
around. Maybe.
Sonya Bateson is a writer, reader,
and crafter raising her family in Tauranga. She is a millennial who enjoys eating avocado on toast,
drinking lattes and defying stereotypes. As a sceptic, she reserves the right to change her mind when presented with new
evidence.