UPDATE: Dear Comrade Golriz: Once, twice, three times a shoplifter?

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
122
5784

Comrade Golriz

I admire you and respect you.

I haven’t always agreed with your more woke positions, but I’m a 50 year old heteronormative white cis male, and I roll my eyes at everything.

I’m also a bit of prick sometimes.

That aside, I agree with you 80% of the time, which is a higher agreement rate than I have with most of my family!

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These allegations against you aren’t fair and your presumption of innocence has been trampled by right wing attack media, however with a 3rd allegation now out there, you no longer have the luxury of taking your time to respond.

Your supporters and Green Party voters need to hear your side of the story.

Was this a stress issue? A medication issue? Forgetfulness? Burn out?

Is this some internal feminist revolt against capitalism? If so, let’s rock that frock, but we need to hear an explanation so we can put these allegations to rest.

We want to give you the benefit of the doubt but we need to hear a complete explanation from you as to your side of the story.

As for the Greens management of this. I appreciate everyone was exhausted and tired after a bruising election year, but your failure to grasp the enormity of these allegations is a terrible blunder that now makes you look incompetent.

This needs cauterising now.

When it comes to hungry people shoplifting at a Supermarket, I turn a blind eye, but you are a well paid MP and kleptomania looks less forgivable.

Golriz either provides a credible explanation to these allegations or she needs to stand down.

Staying quiet only makes things worse for her and the Party.

It is outrageous that shaming Golriz for shoplifting is a bigger story than NZ enabling America to bomb the poorest nation on earth while providing protection to Israel’s war crimes, but this is where we are as a political culture now.

The glee so many seem to have in destroying Golriz tells us just how polarised NZ politics has become.

Step up and provide your response and allow the public response to judge you, or step down.

Half steps are no longer a response to this.

 

UPDATE: And she has resigned.

Stress is being pointed to as the trigger for behaviour she has described as…

Ghahraman earlier said that her mental health had been “badly affected” by the stress of her work as an MP.

“This has led me to act in ways that are completely out of character. I am not trying to excuse my actions, but I do want to explain them.”

…she has done the right thing by resigning and I hope she gets the care and support she needs.

The Right will of course be howling with glee, because destroying human beings when they do wrong is all we are emotionally capable of in New Zealand.

Ok. Golriz has resigned – can we now get back to why the fuck NZ is enabling the bombing of the Houthie? 

 

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122 COMMENTS

  1. Those yuppie shops selling overpriced crap are receiving masses of free publicity over this( poor darlings suffering at hands of a muslim refugee).
    But obviously deviant behaviour by a young left leaning female politician must be checked. If not repressed she may go on to all forms of evil like brawling with other MPs, violent bullying, claiming accomodation allowances not entitled to, harassing waitresses with ponytails, inappropriately touching people, sending them obscene e-mails, lying about donations received, lying about the amount of shares held in trusts, aiding Chinese spies.
    I mean, it is not as though any sitting Members of Parliament have ever done these things – have they?
    In these days of electronic tags I wonder how anyone could walk out the door of a high end shop and not set off alarms if they had not paid for items. ( Excuse me did you forget to pay for something? Just hand it over and fuck off.)

    • Stevie. Some meat in a local supermarket is now security-tagged, and it’s not nearly as good as the meat in the other supermarket anyway. I only buy the yellow-stickered stuff, and most of the processed packages are crap, except for Polish-style sausage, loaded with garlic and lard, and utterly delicious.

      Who has the time to shop lift ? In the paid workforce I could barely keep up with household and garden chores and my busy GP said that he’d needed a hair cut for over a month, but hadn’t had time to get one. Shoplifting during working hours seems a bit peculiar.

  2. I am not sure this has anything to do with politics becoming more polarised. The evil Judith Collins proved that a while ago with her outing of an affair. The simple fact is you can’t have elected MPs running around circumventing the cost living crisis ( by removing the cost). Golritz has not been found guilty of anything but the silence is not helping people start to conclude she will be. I get a private citizen refusing to comment but this a representative of the public.

    • Yes Wheel I agree. The right wing media are like dogs with a bone they won’t leave it alone everyday a headline “oh to be so perfect in this imperfect world” comes to mind. Its’s a pity they don’t flesh out how the imperfect and the morally corrupt Judith Collins was made a QC. If that doesn’t warrant an investigation nothing does. Unfortunately the Green leadership better come out soon or the cause is lost and whatever the outcome now the mud will stick and Golriz’s future as an MP will be gone. Also unfortunately there will be the likes of the horrible Cam Slater ( Judith’s dirty worker ) who will be dancing with joy at these revelations and won’t let it rest.

      • I don’t think it’s right wing media. Media of any flavour likes these stories, but to be fair you can’t hold politicians to account by ignoring these stories.

        Anyway she did it, she has resigned, end of.

  4. Its highly unlikely her health condition had anything to do with it, considering that she immediately refused to open her bag when challenged by the store

  6. Shoplifting is now a hobby among middle class Brits, to the extent that it is impacting fiscally upon the targeted shops. The days when stealing a loaf of bread could result in deportation to Botany Bay are long gone. Cold and hunger are easily understood triggers, so much so that pious politicians vow to address them year after year, and charities and good people actually do so.

    Adolescents get kudos from swiping stuff, but grown-up brains having adrenaline highs from illegal or anti-social activities need to get a grip on something – probably themselves. Ms Gahraman is in a tight spot, and having to explain herself to the hoi polloi could achieve little more than provide fodder for salacious media hacks. She might serve herself and the punters best by popping down to a cop shop pronto and hoping that the police prioritise her case because she is a politician. This puts the cops in a tight spot too, but that’s how things are, and it may be up to them to figure out the best way of addressing an unfortunate situation.

    • At the end of the day, the greater good is more important. She had to go because this issue wasnt going to go away nicely. Golriz is just one woman. Plenty will take her place.

  8. If her defence was “I didn’t do it”, you think she would have already made it known by now. A public rebuttal to the allegations wouldn’t require much effort, particularly in the age of social media. Her continued silence is giving the impression that she can not find a way out of her predicament and a managed exit is being prepared.

  9. The current Green Party are sociopaths- targeting destruction of the family unit, racial harmony and even the “normal” gendering of society.
    It’s not a leap for a sociopath to steal.

    Also note the high end fashion taste of the Green social justice warriors.

      • Keepcalmandcarryon has always been a right wing sanctimonious sociopath.

        No personality though.

    • And you support the imposition of traditional values, white supramecy and biblical gender roles at gunpoint?

      How long before I see you calling for homosexuality to be recriminalised or children to be removed from unmarried parents?

    • That is the problem with people like you, going on about freedom, but telling people who they can marry, who they can fuck, when they can and cant have kids, who they can live with, what to wear, blah blah blah,

      You get get fucked you bible bashing bigot, I can live with and fuck who I fucking like.

  11. As yet it is trial by public opinion. But you have to wonder at her silence. Out of the country? Legal advice? But now if Ms Golriz has nothing on her conscience you’d think she’d be shouting that loud and clear.

  12. I’m not one of those against or for the politician one way or the other.

    Perspective: “The enormity of these allegations.”
    The life expectancy gap, now that’s enormous, in more ways than one. All sorts of things are enormous in New Zealand. The Golriz Ghahraman situation is a five minute wonder so minor in the overall scheme of things.

  13. Remember Metiria Turei? It seems that there is a presumption among certain folk on the left that it is ok to nick stuff from commercial enterprises or to defraud the state. The reasoning seems to be that capitalists are exploitative and the state is oppressive. While that may be true, it does not follow that we all have a social license to shoplift and defraud the welfare system. The politician and the political activist need to work openly, state the ethical principles which they believe should apply to all people and then live by those principles. I don’t think that anyone believes that everyone should nick stuff from shops and cheat WINZ. Even if we accept that such actions are in some respect justified, we must also realize that if everyone acted in that way the result would be social chaos in which another class of misfits and exploiters would become top dog. That is why serious proponents of social reform still adhere to old-fashioned standards of morality.

  14. While I have very little respect for Golriz given her support for regime change against nations that stand up against the American empire, I don’t think these allegations from the likes of Sonja Batt at Scotties and Melanie Smith at this Wellington store, who have been recently convicted of multiple cases of wage theft, including more than $28k from a single worker in 2021, are very credible. Batt and Smith both have very dubious ties.

    • Great comment Mohammed. Wage theft happens daily in this country, as well as hourly and minute by minute under capitalism in general terms. Marx and Engels demonstrated how this occurs with their theory of surplus value.

      Capitalist ownership and accumulation is based totally on theft, fear & loathing and exploitation.

      Golriz behaviour whatever it was may well have been due to her MS illness and the drugs she is treated with. Friend of mine, a respectable senior school Principal receiving cancer treatment, was in a small % that develop psychosis from taking steriods, she really went AWOL, including being “sectioned” for her own saftey, for a few weeks until the medical people got on top of the issue.

      Golriz accusers are the baddies here. Two pro Israeli bloggers, Ms Morten on TVNZ without it being mentioned that she was Nicolla Willis campaign manager or that she had worked for the Israeli Embassy in Australia for several years!

      • Wow so that’s why they are leaking footage to the media, what utter creeps completely unnecessary gratuitous and dispicable…and now the witch hunt begins.

  16. I like your reasoned, thoughtful response Martyn. Taking from shops can be an aberration, a sign of mental distress, and neediness from the inner being, the subconscious say. It has been done by people who have money and the ability to buy, and it’s not just greed. We are all under stress of conforming with rules that we know are regularly broken or unfair, that’s part of our complex human society. Probably is the basis of much of Monty Python’s skits – the one about reasoning and deciding who is a witch is good.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp_l5ntikaU

    Some let-up from viciousness of people poking at authority figures and leaders might help in creating a more positive and society with well-balanced minds.

  17. As reader know I am a National right wing supporter and dislike most Green policy BUT having suffered with depression for years I look back at thinks I did before it was diagnosed and I shudder. I did not steal but I did dangerous thinks that hurt people.
    Remember she is on medication which also effects your behavior.
    I hope she gets help .

  19. Golriz Gharhaman has taken responsibility for her actions, by resigning and apologising not only to the stores concerned, but also to the people of NZ for her behaviour.

    Nothing for the right to go on about now. However despite her accountability, I doubt they won’t be satisfied until blood is drawn!

    I don’t support shoplifting at all, but I wish Golriz well in the future. IMO she will be a loss to NZ politics.

    • A soothing light wine, or craft beer nicely chilled and some light eats to pick at and a rest in the shade I wish for you Den. You seem to be sour after Christmas – not yourself at all. Need to get your work-life balance going more sweetly I feel.

      Don’t wait for all the wrongdoings righted that you see with your keen eyes. They have been happening since our first molecules fought and decided to join to make something larger. It is unfortunate that there are so many variabilities at each step in our and society’s formation. We were made and born in stress and it seems that coping with it makes our blood run – so brouhaha is essential to our lives. Enjoy in 2024 and feel manahau, korawa along with it.

  22. Todd Muller has graciously acknowledged the support given to him by Trevor Mallard when he had his difficulties, let’s hope that Golzil has the same support.
    By the way, Martyn you often use the term woke-what does it mean?

  23. Kiwis need to carm down and stop feasting on people who need help.
    This is a mental health issue and the person needs support not hung out by the media and right wing conservative arseholes.
    It isn’t the first person in the public eye who has been caught shoplifting and want be the last.
    If you don’t think this is a metal heath problem then you need to seek help yourself.
    Sometimes Kiwis make me sick, with their holier-than-thou shit attitudes, predominantly displayed by National party self obsessed dickheads.

  24. I wasn’t keen on Golriz, myself.

    At a time when NZ was suffering massive immigration, with essentially no population planning, she invariably took the position that more migrants were better, and NZ was enriched by them. This was at best unhelpful, as low wage migrants drove down wages and compete for scarce resources like housing. She had and has no environmental grounding, and together with the gay Mexican whose contribution to any debate was that NZ needs more gay Mexicans, brought to a close my membership of and contributions to The Greens.

    I would characterize her as just another place seeker, which being the case she should have chosen Labour.

  25. Couple of points:

    * She’s entitled to be presumed innocent before proven otherwise, something that eludes woke and anti woke bloggers here.

    * Excuses are for the judge to hear, sentences for the judge. Only thing I care is she is treated the same way as you or I would be.

  26. All she is required to do is gift one of her own crafted wine(aka JK wine) and all is forgiven.
    By the way I’m Maori and she’s darker than me !

  27. After the dirty filthy tories finally put together their three headed monsta, The Daily Blog was a somewhat peaceful and loon free zone for several weeks–back to normal now it seems…

    Nothing like a young, brown, refugee woman politician to get the incels, public self pleasurers, potatoes (Māori that identify with Tau Iwi and capital more than their own culture) and trolls back on the job.

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