By Duncan Wilson Follow @DJDuncWilson



It was a rosy, "keeping it in the family" New Zealand story when it was announced that Reuben Shadbolt, son of Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt, was running for the Auckland Mayoralty.

"I'm not deluded," Shadbolt Jnr told the Herald back in August, when asked how he saw his chances of winning.

We beg to differ: If the Facebook messages he's been sending one Aucklander are anything to go by, he could be.

Taking the hardline atheist approach to other atheists on Facebook appears to be his game plan. Shadbolt appears to have sent unsolicited messages (known in most circles as "spam") to people marked "atheists" on the social networking site. His message: Vote for the atheist.

Auckland voter and atheist Blake Steele was so disturbed by Shadbolt Jnr's approach and subsequent exchange he contacted us with screenshots of the Mayoral hopeful's rantings, so all could see what he was really campaigning on.

In the message trail passed on to RadioLIVE, it takes only one reply from the spam recipient before an F-word is deployed, followed swiftly by a harsh gender-based slur.

"No I'm trying to get you to vote for me, hopefully because of your lack of superstitious religious bullshit and because of the fact I'm definitely not a brain dead godhead who will try to use government money to mind fuck you and or your kids while ignoring climate change :) for fuck's sake I'm sick of all you lame ass pussies who call yourselves atheists! grow an atheist pair you pussy!" was the response when quizzed about his canvassing technique.

The exchange continued for several messages, see below.

In an interview with Duncan Garner, Shadbolt was asked about the exchange. He denied any wrongdoing, as messages were sent privately.

"They're having a go at me personally and, as far as I'm concerned, if it's not publicly posted anywhere... I'm not putting this stuff on anything public," he reasoned with Garner.

Listener to Shadbolt's full interview with Duncan Garner here

source: data archive