Government to take action on text bullying

The Government has commissioned an urgent report into text-message bullying after the death of a 12-year-old Putaruru girl.

Calls for immediate action on the issue have also been supported by the mother of Oamaru boy Daniel Gillies, New Zealand's first known text-message bullying-related victim, found dead in 2003 after receiving a barrage of messages about his appearance.
Education Minister Steve Maharey has asked the Ministry of Education to put together a paper on the issue to help him work on ways of stamping out the practice.

The mother of Alex Teka, Deanne Teka, has also met with Labour MP Mark Burton to raise the idea of putting age restrictions on cellphones.

Mr Maharey said he would meet Mr Burton this week, but it was too early to decide whether restrictions should be placed on cellphone use in school hours, or age restrictions on those able to buy or use mobiles.

"Text bullying is something we need to have a serious look at because it's a pretty devastating thing to have happen to anyone.

"It has to be treated in exactly the same way [as other forms of bullying]. It cannot be tolerated."

Calls for age and use restrictions on cellphones have also been supported by Oamaru woman Helen Algar, whose son Daniel Gillies was found dead at the bottom of an 80m cliff.

Mrs Algar has no doubt her son killed himself because of bullying texts about his facial disfigurement.

"It broke our hearts to do what we did in terms of raising it as an issue," she said.

"But we did it because something needed to be done.

"But kids are still doing it, it's not working."

Secondary Principals' Association head Graham Young said schools had found it useful to restrict the use of cellphones during classroom hours, but banning them was not the right approach.

Liz Butterfield, director of internet and mobile phone safety group Netsafe, said the group received 334 calls last year about text bullying, and of those involving under-19-year olds, two out of five were serious enough to be referred to police.

Almost half of the calls were from adults.

Vodafone's Tracey Palmer said if a person was receiving unwanted texts, they needed to contact its customer call centre with examples so it could act: ph 0800 800 021.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY