http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10849174 Calling someone stupid or fat or b***** is ok. Threaten to kill the dog is ok. Calling someone Austrailan then you are guilty of racially aggravated public disorder. Oh dear! "She called me a stupid fat Australian b****. Because of my accent there can be some confusion over my nationality. She knew I was New Zealand," Ms O'Reilly said. How much did this case cost.........
Not true. Calling someone a "stupid fat b****" and threatening to kill a dog (in a similar context) would be public disorder. Just calling someone Australian isn't illegal at all. The racial aggravation aspect doesn't create the crime, it just augments it (not that I agree with that in principal but I don't agree with dishonesty either).
Except she was found guilty because she used the word "australian" in the sentence. She was found guilty of racism, not threatening behaviour But the story was from The Daily Mail, and knowing them, the whole story was probably not all there
In a previous case, an English man was arrested for racially abusing his German neighbour and it could be very insulting for anyone from New Zealand to be confused with Aussies because Australia has a different historical background and Ms Mills also attacked a police officer during her drunken tirade, who happened to witness the whole scene. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236307/Neighbour-guilty-racially-abusing-New-Zealand-born-woman-calling-stupid-fat-Australian.html
Sorry but you're simply wrong. The criminal offence as reported was "public disorder". The shouting, ranting, making threats and the like identify the public disorder and in itself it has nothing to do with racism. The "racism aggravation" aspect is additional to the core offence. Had she done and said exactly the same things but without using the word "Australian" she could (and all else being equal, probably would) have still been convicted of "public disorder". Almost certainly, and I bet the NZ Herald hack didn't make the slightest effort to check any facts. Copy, paste and insert your own by-line counts as "journalism" these days.
