‘Primarily a lack of responsibility’
CANDIDATES IGNORE SIGNS
In response to Nicholas Boyack’s article, ( Hutt News, October 11).
Nicholas, I like your writingstyle and articles very much, but it surprises me that after 24 years of civic reporting you are perplexed at the (increasing) low voter turnouts at election time.
It has nothing to do with the public’s disinterest in council (or government) affairs at all. It’s incredibly simple - Would you vote for anyone who can’t read?
Most of us, these days, have notices displayed on our mailboxes stating:- No Advertising Material, No Circulars, No Junk Mail, NZ Post Mail Only etc etc.
This is the very first year that every Lower Hutt candidate, vying for a position on the council, has instructed their mail deliverers to ignore such requests.
This simplified things for me. I didn’t vote at all. Most of us can read and are aware of current issues but a blatant disregard for us, in having our mailboxes stuffed with advertising material (junk), is not a good way to pick up votes. Nor will it ever be.
I’m sure (with the low voter turnout) that most of the public feel the same way. Perhaps we need a new letterbox notice saying: ‘‘Stuff an advertising pamphlet in this mailbox guarantees you a lost vote’’.
I agree ‘‘Online voting is the way forward’’, but if it includes the usual mailbox trash, forget it - It won’t make an iota of difference.
Tony Athfield
Korokoro
TOWN NEEDS SAVING
Now that the Local Government is in place what policies and strategies do our local politicians have in mind to invigorate the Wainuiomata community?
We witness helplessly the closure of business around Queen St and almost certain closure of the mall.
There are those who advocate demolition of the mall to be replaced by more housing, this does not create community. A community is not a dormitory suburb. The fabric of a community has people, business, schools, organisations, recreation.
What is needed is employers in Wainuiomata who pay decent rates of pay to enable there workers to have disposable income to spend in Wainuiomata.
Central Goverment could assist by devolving some of their departments from a congested Wellington to the suburbs where many of the workers already live.
Kenneth Barclay
Wainuiomata
SAD CITY ENTRANCE
So the council’s administration building upgrade cost something like $22 million. I find it amazing that the council found money to do this (well they didn’t really they used ratepayers’ money), but they couldn’t afford to keep the flowerbeds outside the library. Since Queens Drive is in effect the gateway to the city I find it surprising they removed the flowerbeds.
Also with the proposed fourstar-plus hotel across the road I would have thought it was a good idea to have flowers instead of plain grass for guests to stroll by and enjoy.
Maybe the council needs to rethink this. If they really want to Make Lower Hutt a tourist destination. The entrance to the city needs to make an impact on people. It hardly does that at the present.
Karl Oliver
Lower Hutt
The belief that poverty causes crime existed long before anyone heard of political correctness. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius for instance, declared that ‘‘poverty is the mother of crime’’. Mind you, the same emperor also believed that, ‘‘Where life is possible, then it is possible to live the right life’’.
Police Minister Judith Collins would regard it as a far more acceptable line of thought.
As Collins controversially told the Police Association annual conference last week, she sees no links between material poverty and crime.
‘‘I see a poverty of ideas, a poverty of parental responsibility, a poverty of love, a poverty of caring. And I can tell you it is not just a lack of money, it is primarily a lack of responsibility…’’
In New Zealand, she claimed, money was available to anyone who needed it.
Cleverly, Collins was blaming only some of the poor, the criminal few. Most poor people are law-abiding, despite the grinding effects that poverty imposes on them day in, year out.
Unfortunately, the commentators who decry the corrosive effects of poverty and income inequality easily overlook the efforts of the virtuous poor, who are often the immediate victims of the criminal minority, and resent being tarred with the same brush.
Paradoxically, that’s why Collins’ message might be welcomed in parts of south Auckland. To the poor and honest majority, Collins could even seem to be on their side. Her remarks will also be applauded by older, New Zealand First voters fond of harking back to the poor-buthonest days of their parents.
Alas, poverty in 2016 is different in nature and effect from the poverty of the 1950s, when jobs were plentiful and social mobility was society’s reward for hard work.
Today, the manufacturing jobs that offered a crucial escape route from poverty have largely disappeared. Surely, Collins knows this.
None of the above means that poverty is a ‘get out of jail free’ card. Not even the most woollyjumpered liberal would claim that.
Yet by the same token, can Collins be so devoid of compassion that she cannot imagine how it might feel to see one’s own children being systematically denied the privileges and opportunities that other kids across town automatically receive, merely by the accidents of birth? Surely, that’s enough to make anyone angry.
Some people channel that anger into a drive to escape from
‘‘It is not just a lack of money, it is primarily a lack of responsibility.’’
poverty. A few make it out.
Conversely, a sizeable minority succumb to anger and lash out in socially destructive and self-destructive ways at the forces that perpetuate poverty. Usually, they pay the price.
Apparently, Collins expects the poor to continue to display superhuman patience and resilience, while she brings the full force of the state down on the criminal poor.
Obviously, a third option also exists if society really does want to rid itself of the cancer of poverty. We could, for starters, run the economy in a way that promotes employment, pays adequate wages and benefits, and builds affordable housing.
No doubt, it is a timeconsuming process to identify what causes crime, and devise solutions. For ambitious politicians however, such policy teamwork doesn’t generate much in the way of headlines, or personal publicity.