John McLean: Bayly's Bonza Bill

A laudable legislative project

A Members’ Bill initiated National Party Member of Parliament Andrew Bayly has been randomly drawn from Parliament’s (actual) biscuit tin and will now progress through Parliament’s legislative process. Members’ Bills are pieces of proposed legislation initiated by individual MPs, rather than political parties.

Bayly’s Bill is the Crimes (Offence of Failing to Report Child Harm) Amendment Bill. The Bill, if enacted, will make it a criminal offence to fail, without a “reasonable excuse”, to report an assault on a child to the Police. Reasonable excuses include where someone fears for their, or another person’s, safety, or believes the information has already been reported by someone else.

\It’s a tribute to Bayly that he’s still trucking on in Parliament. His legislative initiative comes after New Zealand’s power-hungry, Woke Prime Minister Christopher Luxon forced Bayly to resign Bayly’s ministerial portfolios in February 2025. Bayly’s “crime”?...touching a lowly Parliamentary staffer’s arm in what Bayly described as “an animated discussion”.

Bayly’s bill alone, if it comes to fruition, promises to trump anything that Sir Luxalot has personally achieved during his time as Prime Minister.

A one year old boy named Ruthless-Empire Souljah Reign Rhind Shephard Wall was fatally attacked in his own “home” on 22 October 2023 and died in hospital, just short of his second birthday. The child is reported as affectionately known as “Baby Ru”, but of course he never got to feel true affection before he was murdered.

The only humans (if you can call them that) who were in the house at the time Ruthless-Empire was killed were his biological mother Storm Angel Wall (that’s her on the right), a female named Rosie Morunga and Rosie’s feral squeeze, Dylan Ross. One or more of these monsters killed Baby Ru. His atrocious mother Storm Wall and Dylan Ross roam free. Rosie Morunga was jailed in September 2024 for a variety of unrelated crimes, but is probably out of jail by now.

Almost three years after the little boy was killed, the diabolical threesome have closed ranks and not disclosed anything useful to the Police, who have not charged anyone in connection with the killing.

In February 2024, the Police announced they know the identity of a person who tried to clean up the crime scene and removed crucial evidence, as the boy’s dead body lay in hospital, but have not charged that person.

In October 2025, the officer in charge of the investigation of Ruthless-Empire’s murder, Nick Pritchard, announced the Police had “really comprehensive evidential foundation for consideration of criminal culpability” – as if there’s possible doubt that someone is criminally culpable – and described the investigation as a “very complex case”. But still nothing.

The murder with impunity of Baby Ru is just one of a long line of infanticides that have gone unpunished because people in the know have failed to disclose the killers to the Police. To list but a few of these atrocities:

Cris and Cru Kahui (2006)

Staranise Hinerangi Waru (2006)

Atreyu Taylor‑Matene (2013)

Soul Turany (2014)

Sofia Taueki-Jackson (2020)

Poseidyn Pickering (2020)

 

This parlous societal situation of kid killing with impunity begs the questions why Parliament has not legislated to:

• criminalise non-reporting to Police of assaults on children

• remove the general right to silence for child killers and anyone who knows the identity of a child killer

What politicians have resisted such legislative action?

In the wake of the unpunished 2020 killings of Poseidyn Pickering and Sofia Taueki-Jackson, then Minister of Justice and current Wellington mayor Andrew Little expressly rejected removing the right to silence in child killing cases. Little claimed – entirely incorrectly – that removing the right to silence would require amending New Zealand’s Bill of Rights Act, a statute that Little maintained is, “together with the Treaty of Waitangi, the equivalent of New Zealand’s constitution”.

It’s indisputable that removing the right to silence would not require any amendment of the Bill of Rights Act. The general right under the Bill of Rights Act for anyone arrested or detained to refrain from making a statement would be subject to any removal of a right to silence in connection with child killing and abuse, with the Courts expressly required to respect any such removal. Little was either dumb, or playing dumb, or worse. The Labour Party’s 2020-2023 regime passed multiple enforceable laws that breached the Bill of Rights, mainly in its authoritarian response to the COVID virus.

Little was not the only Labour Party Minister to reject removing the right to silence in child abuse (including killing) cases. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also weighed in on the side of child killers and their accomplices, asserting out of thin air that removing the right to silence had not worked in Australia.

In 2022, Kelvin Davis, as the Labour Party Minister of Children, together with Minister of Justice Andrew Little, rejected Dame Karen Poutasi’s recommendation for mandatory reporting.

Poutasi’s recommendation came in the wake of the killing of Malachi Subecz. Monstrous “caregiver” Michaela Barriball, a “friend” of Malachi’s mother (imprisoned for importing methamphetamine, along with Michaela’s mother), was convicted of murdering Malachi after atrociously abusing him over a prolonged period. Michaela’s sister Sharron Barriball was convicted of concealing evidence of Michaela’s abominable crimes.

I can’t understand why Little, Ardern, Davis and all the rest have resisted removing the right to silence for child killers and their accomplices, and instituted mandatory reporting of the sort sought by Andrew Bayly. And why hasn’t the National Party adopted and promoted Bayly’s member’s bill as that political party’s own legislative initiative? Any ideas?

As indicated, Ardern couched her 2020 opposition to removing the right to silence in an invented notion that such removal has failed to increase the number of successful convictions in Australia. However, on the contrary, overseas evidence is that removing the right to silence and/or mandatory reporting improves detection, reporting and rates of criminal convictions.

The evidence is less strong that right-to-silence removal/mandatory reporting reduces the extent of abuse itself, but so what? It’s perfectly logical to expect that the sorts of low-life sadistic sociopaths who abuse and kill children will not be put off by the prospect of being caught and convicted.

Let’s all hope Bayly’s Bill gets passed before the upcoming November general election, because it won’t be passed under a Labour-led Government.

John McLean is a citizen typist and enthusiastic amateur who blogs at John's Substack where this article was sourced