Women's Refuge New Zealand must be silently thanking Chris Brown for his unpaid celebrity endorsement to raise awareness of domestic violence in this country.
In the past few weeks, the hoohah over whether the US hip hop star should be allowed into the country to perform, given his previous domestic conviction against former girlfriend Rihanna, has given more column inches to the issue than many past publicity campaigns.
Brown has concerts planned for New Zealand and Australia towards the end of the year but his schedule is under scrutiny.
NZME has reported that Brown would likely be banned because of his conviction for assault and that Brown's cause had been further damaged by repeated violent incidents in the years since.
Here, high profile New Zealanders have waded into the debate.
MP Judith Collins - who lost a relative in an assault incident - said no, that New Zealand has "enough wifebeaters".
She is right. We have a terrible record of domestic violence.
Yet Brown has received backing from prominent Maori women such as Dame Tariana Turia and former Women's Refuge chief executive Merepeka Raukawa-Tait.
This week church leader Brian Tamaki also backed Brown and invited him to contribute to Destiny Church's Man Up programme, which aims to help male members of its congregation with troubled backgrounds.
Mr Tamaki put out a video message after being asked how he felt about the "Chris Brown saga" and about his "previous abuse - violence, so-called".
NZME reported that Tamaki urged people to accept people who made "mistakes even if it comes to physical violence".
"They're going to need the ability to not just have a second chance. I'm talking about a third, fourth and fifth chance. None of us can actually survive in life with just having another chance. We need more than just one or two chances. All of us make these mistakes."
He said Brown should be given the chance to show he had begun reforming, asking: "How can they get the opportunity to believe that they can change to be better people if society continually berates them and shuts the door on them."
The church has said it would write a letter of support to accompany Brown's application to Immigration New Zealand.
While Tamaki's statement that everyone deserves a second chance in life is true, unless Brown was committed to making a public stand on domestic violence while in New Zealand, then I cannot see how he can help the cause.
Boys and young men do need good role models and they need them in the families and communities around them. Our culture is very repressive of male emotion - watch a young boy fall over and cry and he will be told to harden up, whereas a girl will be comforted.
Our strong sports and tough Kiwi man culture leaves little room for boys to grow up learning to express emotions in safe ways which can lead to bottled anger, substance and alcohol abuse and violence.
There are many complex reasons for domestic violence but there should be no excuses.
Even if Chris Brown did make a stand here.
And even if he did make a stand, would this really make a difference?
It may seem glamorous to have such a celebrity to take on the cause but if he has not become the poster child for anti-violence against women in his native America, then why would he here?
Turia and Tamaki seem inexplicably star-struck.
Unfortunately our shameful domestic violence record cannot be solved by Brown rocking out a few songs to potential Kiwi wifebeaters in the hope of making them change their mind about bashing their partners when they get home. Just listen to the lyrics of a latest Brown song, way after he bashed his girlfriend. These lyrics don't convey to me a man who has any respect for women whatsoever.
Like the lovely titled Bitches n marijuana.
"You can tell by the way I walk that I got 'em
... any girl that I wanna
Got bitches n marijuana
Ooh, she bad, she don't do it for free
....I'm known to keep my bitches on a leash...".
A charmer isn't he? Is he really the sort of role model for young men that we should be lobbying to come to New Zealand?
Turia, Merepeka Raukawa-Tait and Brian Tamaki should put their energies into bringing someone here who really would do more for the anti-domestic violence cause, is more deserving, and is more talented, cool and inspiring than Brown could ever dream of being.
Rihanna.