KEY POINTS:
I hate to kick a man when he's down. That would be wrong as well as cowardly. On the other hand, it's been a hellishly stressful week, I've worked long hours, I've hardly slept, I'm at a low ebb in my life, and if there was ever a week for losing it and lashing out, this would be it.
In fact, if this week I should beat my child so violently that she ends up in hospital with four cracked vertebrae, unable to walk or attend school for some time, and if somehow I convince her to lie about how she got her injuries (to spare her the humiliation of publicity), I hope you'll all just mind your own business and let me get on with mine, because either my intentions were loving but I went just a bit too far, or I "broke" and "lost it" but said sorry afterwards and promised never to do it again (and I was sorely provoked).
Is this how we're supposed to see Tony Veitch's "incident" with his former partner? Yes, according to a worrying number of Herald readers who seem to think we should regard this solely as a private matter, the regrettable but excusable lapse of an otherwise "good" bloke, and that the rest of us should get over our politically correct selves and move on.
And this would be fine, except that if the Dominion Post's description of what took place at Veitch's flash St Heliers home is true (and Veitch hasn't contested it), then the broadcaster's actions amount to a vicious assault, a criminal act of thuggery at the worst end of the domestic violence continuum that would very likely have landed him in jail if he had not had the money to make it go away.
Which is why we should care. This is not about Veitch's so-called status as a role model, though there's no denying that a return to the airwaves will say much about his employers' tolerance of seriously violent behaviour.
Not surprisingly, Veitch seems to have played down the seriousness of the assault, both when he told his bosses at TVNZ and The Radio Network late last year and when he made his carefully scripted public apology last week, in which he offered up the classic excuses familiar to those who work with the perpetrators of domestic violence.
Somehow he managed to paint himself as a victim of circumstances. He "agreed to let" his former girlfriend go over to his house; there had been, he told Paul Holmes later, "a terrible incident", as if he had been its helpless victim rather than an agent.
Was he as remorseful about having caused serious harm as the fact that he'd been found out? Jane Drumm, who's worked with hundreds of violent offenders as a probation officer and is now head of Preventing Violence in the Home, which helps both the victims and perpetrators of family violence, didn't detect in Veitch's apology the honest accounting of someone who'd faced up to his demons and dealt with his problems. He made too many excuses.
Among them, that he was working long hours at two jobs. Well, so do thousands of other New Zealanders, many out of sheer financial necessity. Veitch seemed to revel in his high-paying jobs, both of which he still held this time last week.
Drumm says excuses are a common recourse for those offenders who haven't fully accepted responsibility for their actions. "A lot of people are under a hell of a lot of pressure, the pressure of no work or too much work because they're trying to make ends meet. But they don't lash out."
Veitch doesn't fit the racialised picture of the violent thug that some commentators have been at pains to portray since last month's murders in South Auckland. He's not brown and he's not poor. He earns big money in high-profile jobs. He's described as a likeable larrikin. He has influential media friends like Paul Holmes who've been only too happy to give his sketchy side of the story a sympathetic airing.
So he may have done us a favour by exposing a truth about violence in this country. It isn't the sole preserve of poor brown people who are unemployed and on the benefit. Rich white men do it too; they're just better at hiding it. Money covers a multitude of sins and dysfunction. "We see plenty of Pakeha and professional people," says Drumm.
It may be unfortunate for Veitch that his story has come to light at a time when public awareness of violence is at an all-time high, thanks largely to the government's "It's Not Okay" campaign. But as publicity about another broadcaster, Derek Fox, shows, he won't be the last to face this kind of scrutiny.
What should these men do? Everyone deserves the chance to atone for past wrongdoing, but the path to redemption isn't through self-serving public relations statements. It's through an honest accounting. If Veitch is truly sorry, he'd go to the police, tell them everything, and take whatever consequences come his way. That would be the courageous thing to do.
Tapu.Misa@gmail.com
* Tapu Misa is on the board of Preventing Violence in the Home.
