There's a feeling afoot, backed with evidence, that the state is increasingly on the side of wrong-doers.
Take the issue of forcing blameless people to live next to anti-social, criminal neighbours.
In 2018 the HNZ chief operating officer said:
"We measure our success by not having any evictions. Every eviction is a failure [so] the lower the number, the better."
Evictions fell from over a hundred during the last National government's term to zero in the last 3 years.
Yet HNZ 'success' is leading to social cohesion failure highlighted by a number of recent nightmare cases which we read about and quietly murmur to ourselves, "There but for the grace..."
When challenged about gangs Stuart Nash says there is nothing to fear. In May:
“In terms of feeling unsafe, unless you’re a gang member, you have no reason to feel unsafe."
Tell that to the poor pensioner in Northland who was told by a gang member neighbour he would cut the old man's throat. Stop and think for a moment how you would feel if that was your father.
I grew up in a time when we took for granted that actually the police - or other authorities - would act to safeguard innocent people. I now think that trust is a faded memory.
If it was merely a matter of inadequate resourcing it would be fixable.
But the application of inverted thinking is far more difficult to confront.
It wouldn't surpprise if some on the left, some of academia, some of the brain-washed graduates secretly think the 'privileged' are on their own. Suck it up as punishment for what your colonial ancestors did.
That is a very dangerous rejection of a system of laws, and consequences for breaking those laws, that must treat all citizens equally. Yes, there are systemic failures but the principle must still hold fast. The alternative is unthinkable.
This soft-on-crime attitude must have preceded the current government because I well recall then ACT MP Stephen Franks' observation about the naivety which expressed as "If we just keep being kind to crims for long enough they'll start being kind back."
Unfortunately I now think the proliferating philosophy is under-pinned, at least in part, by more sinister motivations.
5 comments:
Be good if we could get Steven Franks back into Parliament - he is a natural fit for Minister of Justice or Attorney General.
Lindsay, gangs have become mainstream, they have the ear of powerful people in high places. Their influence will permeate through the proposed new structures which will benefit selected Maori over the rest of the population.
I suggest gang influencers already have positions of authority within government quango's which administer the flow of huge amounts of tax money into area's of vested interest. The Mongrel Mob recently receiving 2.5 million dollars for dubious reasons is an example.
Gangs per-se control vast amounts of money in their own right and money buys influence. The thousands of large expensive motorbikes/cars gang members ride/drive come from businesses which are in the business of making money. Gang money is as good as any other. Why gangs haven't moved into the business of Harley Davidson and KFC franchising eludes me. But in the murky world of international finance, who's to say they haven't?
When the gangs are in town, the police as well as the general population show deference.
But having said that, I do admire the moment of madness and plucky nature shown by the pensioner you mentioned in your story. The gang member reacted in the only way they knew how. How sad is that?
"We measure our success by not having any evictions. Every eviction is a failure [so] the lower the number, the better."
Any social housing provider is going to be conflicted with this as a KPI (is it a KPI? Idk). Either they accept tenants who are disadvantaged in the housing market, or vet tenants carefully so you only help those who are most likely to be offered housing elsewhere.
Makes gated retirement villages look very inviting. Leave the riff raff to fight it out in the Badlands.
We need a new government, and this country cannot afford 2 more years of this, let alone any more after that.
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