4 months in prison for taking fish for hungry family vs our own Ministry turning a blind eye to 50 years of over fishing

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The comparison many have made between 4 pakeha teens stealing $80 000 worth of property and getting home detention and the terrible injustice meted out to David Pake Leef.

18 months ago he poached trout for his hungry family and was just sentenced to 4 month inside prison.

This is excruciating injustice and evidence of the insidious structural racism and privilege that drenches our public services.

Firstly, we want all NZers dealt with by mercy and fairness. That’s what makes us a liberal democracy. That’s a strength. Lenient sentences that don’t see good people sent to prisons is something we should want for everyone, so I don’t begrudge those teens for getting it, but what does infuriate me is the manner in which we have allowed racist and classist bigotry to seep so deeply into our justice system.

There is no humanity in sending a person to prison for 3 months because he was catching food for his family. Then adding an additional month because he hadn’t turned up at the right time plus 6 months driving disqualification because he had driven to the precious bloody trout river.

It’s elitist racism at its most obvious.

 

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But that really is just the tip of the problem, because beyond this case is the recently revealed fact that our very own Ministry has been turning a blind eye to over fishing for 50 years . The Industry has been illegally dumping anywhere between 20-100% of their catch and no one has been prosecuted or fined, and in fact the bloody Ministry itself is helping them get away with it!

No one punished for years of over fishing by the big companies, but this one bloke gets 3 months jail for taking trout for his family?

This glaring example doesn’t stand alone. Tax Havens, untaxed capital gains and  tax cuts vs beneficiaries over charged for debt, poverty and people living in cars. Once the sense of injustice is raised within people, it never sleeps again until there is change.

National will be hoping there is enough smoke in this years budget so that NZers can’t see the mirror, because voters may be disgusted by what the reflection shows them.

43 COMMENTS

  1. It seems this humble man threatened John Keys portfolio of tourism…so effectively it was :

    ” Off with his head !!!… any peasant caught taking the Kings deer or trout will pay with his head !!!”…

    And as the Lairds and ladies grew richer… they and they alone were given the Kings hearty approval to take as they pleased , immune from the penalty of the peasants – as the evil King John knew it would increase his coffers greatly to forgive the yearly quota take of the barons and the nobles …

    And so it has been from the time anyone could remember… yet the peasants were still blamed and executed for reducing the game stock by taking in the ones and the twos, no matter how careful they were to obey the laws set down by the wicked King John…

    John Key , – panderer to the 1%.

    • …and jonkey was brought up in a State house….he is no King or Laird…but a pretender

      …and a betrayer of New Zealand values

      …it is similar to what is happening to New Zealand students who haven’t paid back their loans or interest on their student loans ….they are stopped at airports and the borders…while jonkey has made New Zealand a tax haven for the wealthy and crooked

    • “Elitist racism” why because he has brown skin? Why is it always the same fucken story.. lets copy the states way of thinking its got them far in the world.. The judge might have just been a miserable asshole he could have valued fishing trout an decided to make an example. Hey he might have been a racist but to jump to that conclusion an try’n convince everyone else of it is just wrong..

  2. This reminds me of how peasants were treated in medieval England, when they dared poach for food in the Kings Lands. Is this really where we”ve come?

  3. I wondered if anyone else had noticed the horrific irony of Mr Leef being slotted up for 4 months for the ‘crime’ of feeding his family with an imported pest fish on the same day that MAF announced that video of commercial vessels illegally dumping NZ’s fishery resource was not sufficient evidence for prosecution.

    Kill off the locaal and protect the tourists has become the default position for any career politician. That has permeated the enforcement bureaucracy to the point where good men are imprisoned and gangesters thrive.

    The trout which were introduced to Aotearoa’s freshwater system have only become established at the expense of our indigenous freshwater stock. I’m pretty certain if he could have, that Mr Leef would have preferred to bring home kete of sweet eel to feed the whanau but that option has been destroyed by greedy assholes who want to make a quick buck outta tourists.
    Our freshwater fauna has been under attack from energy corporations, tourists and over farming for too long – so long they will never recover. That means that the likes of Mr Leef who rely on these rivers and creeks for food, have every right to replace the eel they once enjoyed with its interloper, exotic rainbow and brown trout – no license or expensive & arcane methodology required.

  4. bloody disgusting and typical of what is happening in our country. The Rena captain and his mate served a few months prison for million if not billions of dollars of damage to Tauranga

  5. All he had to do was buy a year license, then he would have been able to catch 3 fish a day. that is more than enough… what you don’t state is how many fish he poached….

    • He was caught with 10 fish John, and his mate with him had 20! must be one big family for 30 fish to feed, but it doesn’t fit the narrative and the headline looks like he was caught with a fish heading home to feed the kids. He was caught with 10 fish, 30 between them, how many times was he not caught and who got all the fish those other times?

      • Imright, when you write that “must be one big family for 30 fish to feed, but it doesn’t fit the narrative and the headline looks like he was caught with a fish heading home to feed the kids” you obviously have no appreciation of extended Maori families.

        Such is the ignorance of judgemental pakeha like you, viewing the world though your eyes and not taking other cultural perspectives into consideration.

        • Really? What an idiot you are..sorry a racist idiot. Hes a thief no matter what. You harp on like a complete idiot about not knowing Maori “extended families”. Where are all these precious whanau when they need help? No where to be seen , as usual, always someone elses fault. Just more bullshit taht has no substance.. You won’t believe it but white folk have extended familys too that they care about, but they do not steal or commit crimes to “feed” the family. Utter bullshit. Take a good long hard at yourself mate, your obviously an ignorant racist who blames all your shortcomings on others, Culture ? Are the Maori only people on the globe with culture? Is it their culture to be thieves? Guess it is in your eyes.is such a weak excuse..I have to stop all I can say is what an idiot.

          • How many years will Key and his ministers get for the undoubted destruction of our once beautiful country?

            And yes there does appear to be a two tier judicial system.

          • Chris, you’re the one being racist here. With your ranting diatribe, your reference to “white folk have extended familys too that they care about, but they do not steal or commit crimes to “feed” the family ” is the kind of rubbish we’ve come to expect from bigots like you.

          • You take a look at your bullshit values Chris. Feeding a family is not a crime. What you dont like is that he was interfering with Fish and Games pet projects/toys/play pen/ developed for who with taxpayers money? Get a reality check on the fact Maori put hungry kids ahead of your whiote male hobbies.

      • 10 20 30 a pittance compared to the dumping that’s going on and this government was moaning about the Snapper quota for people person catches but allowing all this dumping to go on

      • Still a big discrepancy between the sentences. $80000 theft divided by 4= $20000 gets Home detention and say 30 fish at $10 = $300 wins him 4 months in prison

      • Imright, more mean spiritedness from you. Without knowing the facts, you’ve launched into your usual right wing gibberish garbage.

        the truth is you don’t like the poor because it’s a reminder that your precious neo-liberal dogma is an utter failure.

      • Most sensible comment, while is would be a guess of mine to suggest Mr Leef was no angel the punishment was way out of proportion to the crime. His only lack was the ability to afford better legal representation.
        It is easy for some to suggest that buying a license was what he should have done however that would be to ignore the “culture” that he was in.
        The only lasting way to solve problems in society is to provide decent jobs with a fairer distribution of income. Society will ever be perfect but some decent regulations could level the playing field.

    • Given this then the punishment seems disproportionate doesn’t it.

      They’re freakin trout ffs. DoC has better things to do surely.

    • Yeah, John, don’t let the serfs get any more food than they can pay for, eh?

      Tell me, John, did you have dinner last night? Do you have a full belly?

      I bet you do.

      Coupled with families sleeping in garages and cars, and I think we can see the kind of society we’re heading into.

  6. The gross injustice of our “justice” system beggars belief. I know it’s an entirely different set of circumstances, but I cannot fathom how Mr David Pake Leef could be imprisoned, while a “man” (I use that term in its loosest possible sense – perhaps reptile is a better word?) could confess to 47 charges of possessing child sex abuse material on his computer and be discharged without conviction: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/74590969/outrage-over-child-internet-porn-discharge-without-conviction-for-fatheroftwo

    If anyone finds the imprisonment of Mr Leef defensible, in light of numerous other cases where people have committed far worse, morally deplorable offenses, please explain specifically why.

    Evidently, Mr Leef was in the wrong, legally. However, he was in a desperate situation and was trying to provide for his family. Surely that should have been taken into account at sentencing. I’m amazed at the lack of compassion of Judge Chris McGuire – obviously, his battle with colorectal cancer hasn’t inculcated in him empathy for others who are struggling in myriad ways.

    • ‘However, he was in a desperate situation and was trying to provide for his family’, says who Gemma?, the old ‘it’s to feed the whanau’ excuse wears thin when caught with 30 fish between them, he had 10 must be a big family, or was he onselling?

  7. It goes as far as the fish caught too. None of New Zealand’s fresh water fish species are protected including the endangered long fin eel which is still commercially fished, while some imported species are

    • EP – trout aren’t protected. There are restrictions on methods, limits on daily bags and prohibition of fishing in spawning areas where trout are massed together and highly vulnerable.
      Anybody can go trout fishing so it is not an elite activity as it is in the UK. I do have concerns that licences are getting expensive – over $100 for an adult whole season. However it is enjoyed by a lot of people who aren’t that well off and I don’ think we’ll win any support by panning it. Totally agree about native fish needing protection and that probably means trout-free areas.
      If this occurred in the Rotorua area there are no lakes or streams there with eels in them apart from Tarawera. So trout have not displace eels in that area. Koura and Kokopu will have been reduced by trout certainly.
      I think we are better focusing on the horrendous double-standard as others have, rather than blasting away at trout and trout fishermen.

  8. There’s just something wrong about this one. I don’t condone poaching per se, imagine if someone just walked into a paddock and loaded a cow onto a truck to take home for butchering, but this just seems way too harsh and kind of strange. The whole, “protecting tourist trout fishing experience” aspect of it leaves a funny taste in the mouth.
    Were the trout on private property? Is it REALLY clearly sign-posted that no fishing is allowed?
    The driving disqualification for six months because he drove to the river – I mean, what? That, to me, seems very arbitrary and weird. Should he be banned from wearing gumboots for a year if he walked to the river from the car in gumboots?
    Jail is too harsh. Too, too harsh. Something not right here, something, you could say, smells fishy. It’s just too strong a sentence.

  9. I don’t have much sympathy for poachers. Nice spin by the way, as if he family would starve if not for his illegal fishing, ha.

    • Hmmm…. jail for catching some IMPORTED FISH SPECIES…..

      $80,000 for theft of property and no jail.

      Y’know…somehow I don’t think even 100 trout are worth $80,000 …

      Yep…definitely is some racism going on around here.

  10. In certain circles — Greed and racism abounds in our country, no doubt.
    A justice system that does not work any longer. An out of touch govt.
    A disgusting story and just another example of what a terrible
    PM we have who would allow all this nonsense to continue.

    Yep – Jonkey Donkey continues to cater to the upper elite and he is one of their kind, their puppet, and could care less about true injustice on so many levels.
    Homelessness and hunger — Donkey could care less.

    How many of our judges should be exposed and/or put out to pasture ? ?

  11. @ JIRA.
    You write ” I don’t have much sympathy for poachers.”

    I assume you’re not Maori by the way.

    Imagine if you were Maori and watched in disbelief at the colonials arriving to take not only Maori kai but your lands as well. You wouldn’t have had much sympathy for those poachers either am I correct in assuming?
    I have a friend who crews a commercial fishing boat and he was aghast at how much fish was dumped after being caught outside their quota. Tons of fish daily were being wasted to protect commercial interests. That was twenty years ago.

    Now the best bit.
    @ JIRA

    @ IM RIGHT

    Frankly speaking? I think you may be a little dull minded darlings. Unless you have something intelligent and worthwhile to ad to the conversation you should perhaps just hush right up and open your minds before your mouths. Just sayin’ .

  12. Another example of the unfairness of our courts is the punishment given to the Rena Captain and his navigator for the millions of dollars of damage to the Tauranga coast these men were responsible for causing New Zealand’s worst maritime environmental disaster by grounding the Rena off Tauranga’s coast have been sentenced to seven months in jail.

    Name suppression for the cargo ship captain Mauro Balomaga, 44, and navigator Leonil Relon, 37, was today lifted after appearing before Judge Robert Wolff at the Tauranga District Court.

    They both faced charges under the Maritime Transport Act for operating a vessel in a manner likely to cause danger, under the Resource Management Act (RMA) for discharging a contaminant and three charges under the Crimes Act for altering ship documents.

    Now does this seem fair more like our justice system is discriminative and racist

  13. “This glaring example doesn’t stand alone. Tax Havens, untaxed capital gains and tax cuts vs beneficiaries over charged for debt, poverty and people living in cars. Once the sense of injustice is raised within people, it never sleeps again until there is change.”

    And on the subject of people living in cars, that idiot Nick Smith and National are the only ones in parliament who state there is no “crisis”, just a challenge.

    I quote a line to Key and Smith from Tom Hanks character in Catch Him If You Can: Knock Knock? Who’s there? Go fuck yourselves!

  14. I was just in my local ‘ super market’ and gaped in awe at two slivers of blue cod @ $17.50.
    Under the laws of relativity that same blue cod would cost jonky
    .00000000000000000000000027 cents.

    Under the Laws of Proportionality the guy who got four months prison for taking dumb arse trout is being subjected less to punishment and more to torture.

    • Aye … so the punishment don’t fit the crime…as I said… even 100 trout … will not equal $80,000 … and ,… in the economy of scale , yes … 4 months prison indeed equals being subjected less to punishment and more to torture.

      ‘I’m Henry the 8th I fucking am I am… I’m Henry the 8th I am , I am ‘…

  15. What I can’t work out is, if you go into the bush with a .22 and knock off a few possums, maybe even pluck the fur to sell, you’re a hero for ridding NZ of a few members of an introduced species, however, if you go down to the river and do the same to an introduced fish you are for the chop.
    You can fish for and even SELL native whitebait, but you cannot sell introduced trout. Why do water species come in for different to land based ones. Mind you, introduced duck come in for similar treatment

  16. Ehh f’d up system wat else are the supoz 2 survive on, dirt, poor fulla, hez only tryna provide for his family, thatz just a natural skill for Maori, gathering food, coz WINZ aint gona give shit

    • Would you be amazed by finding out that gathering food to feed families is a HUMAN skill?

      And that many Maori live around the central North Island lakes and only a few are poachers? Plenty of bush hunters, though.

      And that some of those poachers are very nasty when approached by Fish and Game rangers? To the point of swinging a gaff at their faces? (I’ve seen the scars. The ranger was Maori, though not local.)

      It might not be the Evil Racism but there is something, dunno what, about the glorification of one branch of Polynesians over the majority of ethnicities in this country. And the endless guilt-tripping – counter-productive, surely?

  17. Sounds like the Hunger Games.

    White people arrived in NZ, took down all the forests full of food (that didn’t need ‘farming’) stole all the ‘wild fish stocks’, polluted and damed up most of the rivers and introduced species to ruin whats left. 1080 drop scheduled for Waipori Falls reserve next month, mass death and poisoning by the government.

    Soon the CO2 heat death will finish off what white people started. Then let the games begin! Seems they have already started for most indigenous people and the poor. But the Capital will fall!

  18. We have had reports coming out for years telling the government that misreporting was a big problem and that fish stocks were a lot lower than they thought.
    The government’s attitude all through this (and the previous Labour government shares the blame) was to ask the fishing industry if this was true. The fishing industry put their hands on their hearts and swore that everything was honest and above board so the government simply said that was all they needed to hear so “carry on boys”.
    The question must be asked: How much in bribes was the fishing industry paying to the government to look the other way?
    A lot it would seem.
    Another piece of corruption synonymous with National.

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