Kate Hawkesby: The question that is hard to answer without being embarrassed to be a Kiwi

I was at my physio yesterday, she’s South African. She moved here to an allegedly ‘safe’ country with her children, they live on Auckland’s North Shore, they’ve eaten at the Albany restaurants where the axe attack took place.

She said it could have been them, her, or her children. She asked me what’s happened to this country and why it’s so violent now.

It’s hard to answer that question without feeing embarrassed as a New Zealander that our little slice of paradise has come to this.

“It’s complex”, I told her, sounding like a Labour politician trying to explain away our many and varied issues.

From being soft on crime and reducing the prison muster and leaving too much crime out on the streets, to an increase in gang memberships and gang notoriety thanks to an apologist media and government who seem enamoured with them instead of appalled by them.

Then to a mental health system in crisis, to the prevalence of drugs in our society, to a broken and divided country which got locked down for three years and has never really come right since then.

I don’t know what the circumstances are around the axe attack, but I’m assuming it will be a combination of one or more of those factors. None of that excuses the act. Just like none of the apologists standing up for gang culture, excuses the way they intimidate and offend.

The other day in Auckland’s swanky shopping precinct Newmarket, outside the new Westfield mall, a group of girls picked on an innocent victim, another young girl, and beat her up.

In broad daylight, four in the afternoon on a busy Saturday full of shoppers walking by.. none of whom stopped to do anything about it – she got slapped, punched kicked, fell to the ground then got kicked in the head some more.

She was 12 years old, did not know the offender apparently, who grabbed her by the hair and just randomly started beating her up. That’s someone’s daughter, age 12, middle of the day in a busy shopping area, just randomly being savagely attacked.

Imagine what that does to that girl once her injuries and bruises heal, what has that done to her mentally? Who are these children attacking other children and why are they so vicious and so unfiltered as to think this is in any way acceptable behaviour?

And where are the offenders now? Will it just be another case of tag and release? If they even get caught?  

I was talking to a bunch of high school kids the other day, they’re in their final couple of years at school, I was asking them what they’re doing when they leave, where they’re going for uni.

“ABNZ”, they all replied. Anywhere But New Zealand. They don’t want to stay here, they’re all seeking uni applications offshore.

When I asked them why, they looked at me like I was insane. “Why would we stay here?” they replied. That’s heart-breaking.

‘Where is safe these days for our teenage kids to go?’ my physio asked me. Where can they go that you don’t worry about them ending up a victim of crime?

It’s horrible to even have to ask that question in New Zealand now, it’s even worse that I can’t answer it.

Kate Hawkesby is a political broadcaster on Newstalk ZB - her articles can be seen HERE.