Police won't proceed with councillor's online hate speech complaint

Monday, 16 December 2019

Police won't prosecute the people responsible for posting racist and abusive comments online about Auckland councillor Josephine Bartley.

That's despite the fact social media giant Facebook has taken action and removed one page that had the material for breaching its standards.

The Maungakiekie-Tāmaki councillor re-posted some of the offensive comments, along with her own statement about them, on her own Facebook page last month in a bid to name and shame those responsible. The comments included derogatory, racist and abusive comments about herself and Māori and Pacific Islanders.

Bartley said she contacted police last week about the social media abuse, but the detective sergeant she spoke to said they had looked into it and decided it wasn't criminal offending as the comments didn't involve any direct threats against her. But Police 'opened a file' and told her to contact them if she received any other threats.

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* Code of conduct complaint against Auckland councillor thrown out**

'I think they went as far as they could in the circumstances,' Bartley said.

Bartley is a member of the Tūpuna Maunga Authority (TMA), which co-governs Ōwairaka/Mt Albert with Auckland Council. She said she found the offensive comments after following a link from the Honour the Maunga group's Facebook page.

Honour the Maunga is protesting plans by the Tūpuna Maunga Authority (TMA), which co-governs Ōwairaka/Mt Albert with Auckland Council, to cut down 345 non-native trees on the volcano and replace them with around 13,000 native trees.

Police confirmed they had received a report in early December in relation to the complaint. 

'Information provided was assessed and the informant was advised to report the comments to Facebook. The informant was also advised to contact Police again if any direct threats were made and the matter would be reassessed.'

Bartley was the subject of a recent code of conduct complaint that was dismissed by Auckland Council chief executive Steven Town last month. The complaint related to an allegation over Bartley's response to a member of the public's presentation about tree removal from Māngere Mountain and other Auckland maunga.

A spokesperson for Facebook said it had decided to take down the page that was hosting the racist and abusive comments.

'Our Community Standards outline what is not allowed to be shared on our services. Upon review, we determined that this account violates our policies and has been removed from Facebook.'