29th Dec 2007

Boxing Day, the radio stations had reporters camped out in Auckland shopping malls from 7.30am whipping up the locals to indulge in the national obsession of shopping. It's a pretty sad indictment on our material society and sums up the values people hold as we near the end of year 2007.

Antisocial behaviour seems the norm. Not so very long ago, the police used to respond to acts of vandalism and property damage, but now it seems they are too busy. In todays Press newspaper there is a story on a householder being attacked by a gang of louts with paintball guns. On ringing the police, he was told they were to busy to respond to calls of such minor nature, (but eventually despatched a patrol car an hour later). Someone with initiative photographed the vehicle with clearly identified occupants and registration plate which will force the police to take action, though I won't hold my breath that the courts will do more than "tut tut" and warn them not to do it again.
In the same newspaper, we have Derek Erasmus the traffic cop manager vowing to have armies of officers out on the road looking for non seat belt wearers and manning drink-drive checkpoints. Priorities??

Further into the the newspaper we had Liz Gordon defending antisocial behaviour of youths terrorizing country neighbourhood with burn-outs and abuse. I'm sure her holier-than-thou attitude would change pretty smartly if she lived in one of those unfortunate areas.

Respect for other peoples' space as well as repect for the law is becoming a scarce commodity. It's probably not unique in the world, but it's sad to see it become to prevalent here.

TC