Cameron Slater is a controversial New Zealand based Internet blogger who is best known for publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog.[1] Slater is the son of former National Party President John Slater.[1]
Slater maintains that the name suppression laws in New Zealand need to be reformed.[2] In late 2009, he gained notoriety for naming two high profile sex offenders and consequently became the first blogger in New Zealand to be charged with breaching a name suppression order. In January 2010 he named a third person accused of sex offences, and in February 2010 named another person convicted on child pornography charges.
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On 23 December 2009, Slater was charged with five counts of breaching name suppression orders. The charges relate to two blog posts that contained pictures which revealed the identities of a prominent New Zealand entertainer and a former New Zealand Olympian who were each charged with sexual offenses.[2]
On 11 January 2010, Slater published a blog post that used binary and hexadecimal code to allege the identity of a former Member of Parliament charged with indecent assault on a 13 year old girl. The Nelson Bays police have announced that they will begin investigating this further breach of New Zealand's name suppression laws.[3]
He pleaded not guilty to the five name suppression charges on 9 February 2010, and the same day revealed the identity of a prominent Palmerston North resident whose name was suppressed after being found guilty of possessing thousands of pornographic images of children.[4] In August 2010 he went on trial, now facing ten charges of breaching suppression orders.[5] In September he was convicted of nine of the charges, eight of breaching suppression orders for offenders and one of naming a victim in a sexual abuse case. He was fined $750 and ordered to pay court costs of $130 for each of the nine cases.[6]
In May 2010, Slater published the name of a public servant who had permanent name suppression, after a Wellington District Court jury found him not guilty of assaulting his teenage son. The matter reignited the national debate over the internet and name supproession and the public servant's lawyer Mike Antunovic publicly labelled Cameron a "renegade."[7]
On the weekend of 29−30 May 2010, Slater and his wife lost their home after their income insurance provider, Fidelity Insurance, stopped payments for depression. His wife said that Slater has been living with clinical depression and has "...no thought of the consequences for himself or others or indeed his family".[8]