The Trying Times

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Community

reporter: Jonathan, 7.8.07

I've been thinking a lot lately (the last month or so) about the state of community in New Zealand.

I was delivering little booklets for church the other day to a few streets around and including Mahia Road, and was quite surprised at the state of properties in this area.

- Lots of graffiti
- Unrepaired
fences and gates
- Dogs wandering the streets
- Cars in disrepair
- Unmown lawns

This neighbourhood is clearly full of residents who simply don't care about their property.

This is not however a poverty issue. This is people choosing to live in a pig sty.

- It's not cheaper to let a dog roam the street than to not have a dog in the first place.
- It's not cheaper to graffiti than to not graffiti.
- It's not cheaper to have a car up on block with panels missing than to get a scrap metal company to take it away for free (or give you money to take it away). Especially when your other car is a late model 4x4 with 'We Want You Motor group' proudly displayed on the spare wheel cover.

People talk of the 'good old days', when;

- you could leave your car keys in ignition when you went into the shop
- you could leave you house unlocked
- you could park you car anywhere you wanted without concern of whether it will get stolen
- you could leave things in the back seat with out fear that some one might see it and break in to steal it
- you knew everyone in your street by name

This is no longer part of New Zealand Society, especially places like South Auckland. Why?

Actions that we may considered the right and safe thing to do at the time, I think, are in fact contributing to the escalation of crime.

In response to crime we;

- get burglar Alarms
- get insurance
- get bigger locks
- move out of the bad areas
- no longer walk down certain streets or alleyways
- no longer park in particular places
- don't venture into dodgy areas
- don't let our children off our property unless they're with an adult
- don't send our kids to that school anymore
- get more insurance

and the list goes on and on...

Because 'good' people no longer live or venture into 'bad' areas what hope do these area have to become 'good' again?

Because we have insurance it doesn't matter that the police don't have time for petty crime. sure it's an inconvenience but we got our money back.

Because we all have big locks and alarms people who happen to leave something unlocked 'deserve' to have their house broken into.

As a community we are withdrawing, and as we, rightly or wrongly, withdraw, we are creating space in our community. If it's not good upstanding members of the community filling this space then then who will fill this space?

There is a quote which says - all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men to do nothing

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil in our community is for good men to hide behind bigger locks, taller fences and more comprehensive insurance.

The Media are at it again

reporter: Jonathan, 30.5.07

Again an example that the media are not neutral.

On this page on the TV3 website I saw this heading...

'Destiny Church protests against freedom of religion'

That is misrepresentation!

Smack That!

reporter: Jonathan, 2.5.07

Goodness me...

Sue Bradford is a Lair!

In the face of massive public rejection of her Anti-Smacking Bill Sue Bradford blames this on the 'fact' that the opponents of her bill are 'mis-informing' the public!

RUBBISH!

The only person mis-informing the public is the likes of Sue Bradford

If you go here and watch the video of Sue on Close up. At around 3:50 on the time scale Sue start to ramble about the label 'Anti-Smacking' that has been given to her Bill. She claims that it's not an Anit-Smacking bill, she never called it that, and blames this 'mis-information' on the opponents of the bill.

Then go here... a Green Party Press Release dated 6th October 2003.

Further on in the video of Close-Up Simon Barnett, who did an awesome job in the interview, explains how Sue had told him in a radio interview that if she saw him smack his child in the supermarket she would report him to the Police. He went on to ask how can he be garanteed to not face prececution for giving a light smack. Hone Harawera's responce was "don't smack your kids".

Sue and Helen stop lying to the New Zealand Public... This is an 'Anti-Smacking Bill'

People of the land...

reporter: Jonathan, 2.4.07

please go here... it's very important.

If you've done that already then you can go here and see how it's going.

Clint Rickards

reporter: Jonathan, 9.3.07

I don't want to condone any behaviour of Clint Rickards (or Brad/Bob) but 'm very concerned!

I'm concerned at the number of high powered people making comment on the court cases. People basically implying that he is guilty when a jury (who actually saw all the evidence) has found him not guilty. Basically saying that the jury got it wrong!

Yet look at the outcry when Mr Rickards himself said the jury got it wrong when he defended his "mates".

What is happening to our country

Punks

reporter: Jonathan, 5.3.07

My Wife and I went to an open home yesterday and were away from the car no more than 10 minutes. While we were gone this happened...


The only thing visible in our car was a sports bag with tennis rackets, and these punks were prepared to break into a car on the side of the road in broad daylight at the promise of no more than a bag and 4 tennis rackets. Unforunately for us there was more stuff in the boot. All in all about 4k worth of stuff was taken.

The car the offenders used, a gold Mitsubishi Diamante ATS249, was a stolen vehicle. We have photos of the offender offending. We were on the scene within seconds of it occurring. We have at least 1 witness to the event. And we have the address of the offenders mate. And yet despite all this 'in our favour' the cops still did not deem this important enough to attend to.

Believe it or not...

reporter: Jonathan, 27.2.07

... I am still alive