Boobs on bikes

Boobs on bikes is happening on Friday in Wellington and it looks like it will be a good day for it. Gordon Copeland has just put out a media release that calls on Parliament to step in and stop the parade. He said he would support an amendment to the Summary Offences Act to deem such parades " offensive".

Copeland is an MP. If he was so serious about this he would have written a bill years ago after the first boobs on bikes parade in Auckland. He still has time to write one and lodge it before the weekend. He should do so if he is serious.Copeland has been concerned about parades such as boobs on bikes for years. Empty words and complaining by press release mean nothing. You don't change the law by issuing media releases - you do it by amending legislation. Bills are one way of changing legisalation.

Why hasn't Copeland lodged a bill in the ballot that would amend the Summary Offences Act? Because it hasn't been written, that's why. And you know what the next question is.

Council cocks up on boobs on bikes and makes a dick of itself

As I predicted the Auckland City Council has failed to stop the Boobs on Bikes parade. The Court tried to get a court injunction based on morals because its bylaw was toothless – but forgot that injunctions are based on law and the law states that topless women are not indecent - even in public.

There could have been no other decision. That is because it is the role of parliament to change the law, not the courts. Injunctions, as far as I am aware, don’t set a court precedent.

So Boobs on Bikes is going ahead. No permit is needed, never was. I'm sure the Council is going to hope tomorrow is a freezing cold, wet, windy day and the bikes get punctures.

If It is cold they could always cover up and go in cars, I suppose, but bras in cars just won't have the same appeal.

Court injunction won't stop boobs on bikes parade

The media coverage of the Boobs on Bikes parade due to occur on Wednesday in Queen Street will ensure that this parade is the biggest yet.

Family First's Bob McCoskrie is complaining that topless women parading down Queen Street is offensive and indecent.

He may think so, but the law doesn't consider topless women indecent, and Steve Crow is well aware of this.

Crow also knows that a bylaw passed by the Council intending to stop indecent behaviour won't stop him either. The new bylaw declares the council can turn down a permit for an event if it "there is any other objectively justifiable and reasonable grounds for declining consent for example that the event will be or is likely to be offensive". It's a daft bylaw as it is based on morals, and both the police and the council are powerless to enforce such a bylaw on Boobs on Bikes as legally it is not offensive behaviour.

In fact the 40,000 people who saw the parade last year didn't find it offensive, especially the school boys who took time off school to attend.

So when the Council realised that its own bylaw had no teeth, it decided to seek a court injunction to stop the parade.

But Crow has announced that he will merely make the parade a protest. So Auckland City Councillor Cathy Casey has threatened to lie across Queen St with friends to stop the parade.

But that action would be illegal, whereas the parade, as a protest, will be lawful, provided it is conducted in an orderly fashion.