Bill Dalton

The Green MP Keith Locke is one of those people that make me think that all prospective members of parliament should have to sit an IQ test – and yes, perhaps that should extend to local body representatives as well.

Locke has raved on, to anyone silly enough to listen to his opinion let alone respect it, about the introduction of Tasers to the New Zealand Police Force. Frankly his argument is illogical and lacks that important ingredient, common sense. Take the recent incident using a Taser as an example. A deranged individual was coming at Police with a knife. Simply put, if they hadn’t had access to a Taser, the Police would have shot this person with a gun, probably killing him. Is that what Mr Locke would prefer to have happened?

The sooner the New Zealand Police have a Taser in every car the better. Who knows it might just encourage some of the low-life in our society to have some respect for the Police. I know the New Zealand Police will have strict protocols around the use of the Taser and in any case, you can absolutely guarantee that if you are going about your lawful business in a decent and respectful manner, you will never be Tasered.

Objection to the Taser is just another example of a society that is going soft on discipline. On Sunday morning the head of the Primary School Headmasters group said, and I quote: “The days of wagging your finger and telling the kids to sit down and be quiet are history.” Doesn’t that just say it all? A senior headmaster in our primary school service, telling us that you can not, as a teacher, demand that the kids in your care sit down and shut up. I can tell you they would if I was their teacher.
Again it is a case of taking the easy way out – of not going to the trouble of instilling discipline in these kids at a young age and frankly our society is worse for it. And its’ only going to get worse. These kids who are not learning discipline, and respect for those in authority, are going to grow up and breed, and what chance have their kids got of growing up to be decent productive citizens.

The one word that seems to be missing from any discussion on discipline and respect is consequence. It seems if kids don’t do as they are told at school today they don’t suffer any consequences. It seems that fools like Keith Locke would prefer that violent lawbreakers do not suffer a painful consequence. And of course the fact that they may be shot dead instead doesn’t seem to enter his little head.

Bring on IQ tests.

I don’t know about you but this Global Warming argument is starting to wear a bit thin with me. We’ve just had the coldest winter I can remember – two weeks of spring – then straight back into the depths of winter. Right now you could make a very good argument for the place to be warmed up.

And as I sat by the fire on Sunday night, reports were coming in telling us that hundreds were stranded on the Napier-Taupo Road. But the report that really got me thinking on Sunday night was the one that told me that the police, including the armed offender’s squad, were pursuing a dangerous armed offender through rural southern Hawke’s Bay. These poor cops had been dragged away from their warm homes and families, to trudge through mud, snow and sleet, knowing that at any time the offender could take a pot shot at them.

These cops were working, as it turned out, long hours in appalling climatic conditions, in distinct danger and you know, as a society we take them for granted.

We pay them appalling wages and we don’t even think enough of them to provide them with decent working conditions. I have been in both Napier and Hastings police stations in recent times and the working conditions we ask our cops to work in are simply, in my opinion, unacceptable. Appalling interview rooms, lack of good clerical equipment, smoko rooms that are an insult to the staff, nowhere for the staff to put their bags so they all end up down the hall, the list goes on.

Right next door to the Hastings police station, the government has built a new courthouse and the court staff is justifiably proud of it. Wonderful facilities for all the staff, brilliant facilities for those accused of crimes and – well I won’t go into the palatial facilities for judges.

My argument is simply this. Somehow we can find the funds to build beautiful new courthouses whilst at the same time we deny our front line police what I would consider basic amenities.

And don’t start me on cost cutting by cutting down the number of police cars, etc.

It is high time we recognised the job our policemen and women do and rewarded them appropriately in every way.

On this, the morning of Len Snee’s funeral, I would like to offer my sincere condolences to the Snee family – especially to Joe who is a great friend of my son Mac. Mac and a number of Joe’s friends are flying in to be with Joe and the family at this time and I think that is just neat – that is what friendship and respect is all about.

And of course our thoughts are with those who were so badly injured and their families. We can only hope that their prospects brighten.

The police did an amazing job of resolving the situation on the hill with no further loss of life and no further serious injuries. And of course they weren’t without their critics. 

I was in Christchurch on Monday morning and the letters to the editor of The Press, included one from Waimarie and another from RD6 Christchurch. These fellows were expertly able to decide from rural Canterbury just where the police went wrong – how they could have handled the situation so much better and how the situation could have been resolved so much sooner.

In Napier we had some of the top policemen in New Zealand. We had the Special Tactics Group – the SAS of the police. We had the Armed Offenders Squad – a highly trained group of professionals. We had a specialist team from the army. We had psychologists and specialist negotiators. And yet scores of people from one end of the country to the other thought they knew a better way of handling the situation. They had no knowledge of the difficulty of access to the site – no knowledge of the background of the offender – no knowledge of what the police were being told by the offender and his associates and yet – they knew it all.

I wonder how keen these self styled experts would have been, for the police to throw caution to the wind and storm the building as they were suggesting, if their eldest son was an Armed Offenders Squad Officer in the front line.

Last night, at the request of a few ratepayers I went and had a look at a problem area in their suburb. Clearly it was a problem to some but not to everyone in the area.

These people lived alongside one of the alleyways that run between parallel streets and they are fed up with the appalling behaviour that goes on in that alleyway. Underage drinking – drugs – offensive language – broken glass – rocks thrown on roofs – it all happens in the alleyway.

They want it closed.

Other residents of the suburb say hang on – “you bought a house next to the alley – if you close the alleyway we will have to walk much further to get to the shops and school and the suburb designer thought it should be there.”

They want it left open.

Of course, since the suburb was designed, things have changed. Because of the problems of bad behaviour in our society, designers no longer put narrow dark alleys in suburbs. They include open grassy areas that encourage people to behave decently, if for no other reason than they can be seen.

The alleyway in question was narrow – poorly lit and not far from a very active bottle store. Evidence of poor behaviour was everywhere. Despite the efforts of the residents, you could see where the bottles had been smashed, the overhanging creeper had been set alight, graffiti had been sprayed down the tin fences and all sorts of things had been smoked.

I’m told that at times syringes are found in the alley and on the neighbour’s front lawns.

Of course 99% of this activity is at night.

The other residents of the suburb say: “We want the alleyway to remain. When we are walking the dog at 3pm it is a nice short-cut between streets. When we go to the shop to buy a few things, we now have less distance to carry things home.”

The “close the alley team” says they will have to walk for an extra one to two minutes.

So there’s no easy answer. You can’t open the alley during the day and close it after dark.

At the end we will have to make a decision which of course is what councillors are paid to do.

I have always said that my generation is the lucky generation.  Lucky because we haven’t known war or depression – both very strong influences in our parents’ lives.

But I’m beginning to re-think this “lucky” tag.  The communities our parents lived in, from my observation, seemed to be much nicer communities.  Murders were so infrequent they made headline news for days.  Certainly they didn’t have to cope with communities that contained the insidious gangs we now have to put up with.

We used to think that these appalling gangs, financed and fuelled by P, were confined to the big cities – largely South Auckland.  Now right here in Hawkes Bay we have them gate crashing parties and chopping and bashing people up with machetes and iron bars.  What is our society becoming and where to from here?

I’m sure our parents didn’t have to cope with the topsy turvy situation we find our financial sector in today.

Over the last couple of years we have seen a number of pretty rumpty financial companies fall over and I’m sure that poorly run companies have always collapsed.

But now with the so-called benefit of instant communications, we are starting to see sound, well run companies striking difficulties.  The problem is confidence or more specifically the lack of it.

Under the new continuous disclosure rules – finance companies have to report regularly the state of their finances.  Now you might think that’s a good idea but it can cause problems.

Most companies, at some stage, go through difficulties and in most cases trade through them and regain their strength.  When they have to tell the world they are having difficulties, even small problems seem huge in the eyes of an already nervous investing public.

So often small problems, become big problems because investors know information that in the past they would not have, and naturally take a conservative view.

The problem we have in New Zealand at the moment is a crisis of confidence.

The one thing my parents didn’t have in their day was a Governor of the Reserve Bank who could give some leadership.

In my view that is one thing that hasn’t changed.

The word crisis is so over-used these days that it has almost lost its meaning, but frankly the law and order situation in this country is a crisis in the true sense of the word.

In fact in some areas of the country – South Auckland for example – it appears that law and order as we know it has completely broken down.

And the question is why.  My view is that we are pumping huge resources into the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, where we should be stopping those that are likely to fall over that cliff.

We – the humble taxpayers – spend a fortune on legal aid – why don’t we spend that money on preventing crime.

Why don’t we have a fair and reasonable review of the New Zealand Police.  The New Zealand Police force is seriously under resourced.  We hear all this garbage about increasing police numbers by 1000 but lets look at the facts.

For years, when the police have asked for better pay they have been fobbed off with extra perks.  Now when a police officer leaves the college in Porirua, he or she starts with 7 weeks holiday per year.  They then get toil – time off in lieu – which can add up to several more weeks leave per year.  Many officers struggle to take the time off they are owed.

The truth is that most police officers don’t necessarily want that much time off.  They would prefer to have more standard leave provisions and to be paid a decent wage.

The government has lost the plot.  Take the wider public service for instance.  The government, concerned that they are failing to retain valuable civil servants, have announced they are going to give them an extra weeks leave.

How does that help?

How does a civil servant, including the police officer, pay for the inflated price of petrol or cheese with an extra weeks leave.  What they want is a wage that allows them to continue to serve their country.

And this propensity to grant extra leave rather then extra money, compounds the problem of the lack of service from civil servants – particularly the police.

It sounds wonderful to hear that we have an extra 1000 police to protect us. The truth is that inexperience is replacing experience and a substantial proportion of them are on leave anyway.

Until we sort out the resourcing of our police force the situation in South Auckland will get worse and spread throughout the country.

I am sure – if my kids were asked to name one word that came to mind, when discussing their upbringing – it would be the word consequence

If there was one thing I drummed into their little brains it was that their actions would have consequences. If they behaved well, there would be positive and good consequences, and if they were naughty there would be negative or bad consequences. And I make no excuses for the fact that sometimes that meant a smack on the bum.

So I was delighted when John Key announced the National Party’s policy on troubled youth yesterday. Delighted, because for too long these young yobbos have been able to roam our streets, tagging and terrorising, stabbing and stealing, and society seemed powerless to stop them.

For those dregs of society, unsociable and unlawful behaviour had no consequences.

So I applaud John Key’s announcement – the policy may need a little modification but at least he has recognised the problem and decided to do something about it.

Contrast this policy with Labour’s track record in the area of youth crime. In eight years Labour has totally failed to recognise and address the growing problem.

And in response to John Key’s address, Annette King came out with a statement that epitomises Labour’s whole approach to governance.

She said that National’s policy was short sighted because it concentrated on the minority who are trouble makers and ignored the vast majority who were good citizens.

How bloody silly is that? The policy announced, was specifically developed to deal with the trouble makers – that is the whole point of the exercise – a point clear to you and I, but obviously lost on Annette King.

Labour and its army of law drafters, has inflicted so many unnecessary laws and regulations on us over the last eight years, and now it would appear they want us to ignore the huge and growing problem of delinquent youngsters whilst we concentrate on those who are productive members of society.

Talk about putting your head in the sand.

Anyway, at least it’s election year.

A couple of weeks ago I spoke fairly strongly about the yobbos who are intent on destroying the beautiful environment we call Hawkes Bay. And the feedback has been amazing.Some of the comments centered around my somewhat intemperate language. I apologise to those who were offended by my utterences – but I make absolutely no apology for the message. It is time we all drew a line in the sand - it is time we said “enough is enough!”

It is not just the destruction of the environment that these taggers, vandals, graffiti artists, inflict on our cities, it is the enormous cost inflicted upon all ratepayers. And what about the council staff, who take real pride in their city? These people who spend hours out in all weathers – planting gardens – planting trees – maintaining parks – just to see them destroyed by the low-lifes of the night.

Most of the damage inflicted on our cities is done by young people who have nothing better to do than walk around all night looking for trouble. We need to find positive things for these people to do. And we need to let those that are intent on damaging our cities know, that they will get caught and punished.

So what to do? How do we catch these petty criminals – these people who will become real criminals if their lives are not turned around? Patrols are one tool but frankly there are only a limited number of functions they can perform. The answer, in my view is cameras and plenty of them. At the moment, the very few cameras that are available, are set up in positions that are considered to be at risk of trouble. The young yobbo’s know where they are – up go the hoods – the mindless damage is done – and away they go.

If further cameras were available these morons would be picked up later, as they shuffled through town, with their hoods down, and therefore identified. This footage together with the footage from the camera covering the damage area could result in the perpetrators of this nonsense being brought to justice.

Whenever I mention such a plan, some civil libertarian always grizzles about prying cameras – the intrusion into private lives – all that sort of nonsense.

The simple fact is – if you are going about your lawful business – who cares if you are filmed or not. I am told that if you spend a day in shopping in London and go out to dinner that night, you will have been filmed approximately 300 times. Who cares unless you are a shoplifter, vandal or indulge in some other anti- social behaviour.

We need to attack, what many see as only petty crime. We need to protect our beautiful cities whilst at the same time showing these young thugs that there are better things to do with their time than destroying the endeavours of others.

Ignoring the problem is no longer an option.

I am making these notes on Tuesday night – for my radio piece on Wednesday – because I am so bloody angry.I have had a good day. A solid days work – a meeting of the Colenso High School Charitable Trust – a couple of gins with Charlie Black – down to the restaurant to hear Shirley and Buddy Collins sing – and now home at 9pm.

And I have just looked at tonight’s paper and my blood boils. There is poor old John Harlow – one of natures gentlemen – looking understandably shattered because some scum-bags have been in and created havoc in Napier’s Bluff Hill cemetery – a cemetery that John Harlow is passionate about and a cemetery that he spends a large part of his life looking after.

Who are these scum-bags? Who are these morons who go out and destroy the beautiful things that Napier provides?

Some of the beautiful Pohutakawa trees planted along our foreshore have been ripped out. Poor old Tony Reid would be appalled. He fought like hell to have those trees planted and sadly he is no longer here to protect them.

The Rotary Pathway lights were damaged so new heavy duty ones were put in. These wankers of the night came back with pick-axes and destroyed the new ones. The lights are now gone.

How do we – the humble ratepayers – cope with this willful destruction?

Napier is one of the most attractive cities in New Zealand. That’s not Bill Dalton’s theory – it is the view of thousands of tourists who pass through our city every year. Imagine what our city could look like if we didn’t have this sub-species crawling around the streets, looking to destroy all that is good.

So what’s the solution?

In my view we need to act. We need to set traps. I would be the first to volunteer to lie in wait for these dregs of society – to capture them and hand them over to the authorities.

And then we need laws and a judicial system that will protect the rights of decent law abiding citizens. We need to punish the perpetrators of these crimes against us all and we need to punish them severely. Flogging is too good for them.

It is time we – the humble ratepayers – took a stand.