Another assaulting Minister

Wow Dunedin now has both MPs having had the Police say they believe they committed assaults.

I actually regard what Hodgson did as considerably worse than what Benson-Pope did (in terms of the assaults, not the handling). The reason for this is three-fold:

1) Hodgson’s assault was done this year, not 20+_ years ago
2) Hodgson assault happened when he was a Minister of the Crown, and he did it in his political role
3) Hodgson’s motivation was not to get a noisy kid to shut up in class, but to suppress the freedom of speech of a NZ citizen at a public meeting

Now I again agree with the Police that it would not be appropriate to charge Hodgson. I doubt anyone ever expected that. But by the Police saying he committed a technical assault, it means his claims of doing it to protect the PM from being assaulted are not accepted by Police. And of course his defence is laughable – it is obvious he did it to stop a protester’s sign being shown on camera.

I amongst others condemn the US Government when it starts to interview pupils on the basis of what library books they read. People should not take for granted our freedoms at home and also condemn the actions of a senior Government Minister who used force to stop a legal protester in a public place. No matter how much one may disagree with a person’s message, you should be concerned with such behaviour from a Minister of the Crown.