Mike Hosking: We must still demand accountability

While everyone that might hold any level of responsibility and accountability ducks for cover under the old "there is an inquiry going on, so let's see how that goes” line, here's what I have learned out of last Thursday's killings in Auckland.

Firstly a week on, how quickly we move on. Once we hit the weekend I made a conscious note to keep checking each day on coverage. Who was saying what, how many questions were being asked, and how big a deal this was.

The answer was not that big.

Increasingly in this country big events vanish without much of a trace. It's a catastrophe on the day, it’s a record breaker at the time, it's unheard of for a moment them we seem to put it behind us.

In this case, it was the classic political move of inquiries. The idea being you can hide behind them.

The Criminal Bar Association had a bit of a crack on Monday, but they were on a hiding to nothing. Although the Sentencing Act says when you reach a point of two years jail, home detention must be considered. The key the word is considered. No one is forcing a judge to do anything.

And as for this bollocks about knowing all the detail, all you need to know is and has been out there.

The gunman had a record, had been on home detention, had committed a crime that most ordinary people would have seen as jail-able, and yet because of discounting through things like cultural reports, we get to the dreaded two years.

So what I have learned, the cultural reports are a scam. In 2017 they cost $1530. By May this year they cost over $800,000. Why? Because they are a boom industry. Anyone can get one, plead depravation, race, and or poverty and you'll see more discounts than Briscoes.

Secondly, the Sentencing Act is a joke. It's an excuse to take people, and because of discounting, get them at home instead of behind bars. What I know for a fact is a person behind bars doesn’t wander downtown with a gun and kill people.

The answers or at least some of them are there for all to see. There is no report required.

The danger here is if the criminality, lawlessness, thuggery, and chaos we have seen gets baked in, we are finished. It's vital what we saw last week still shocks us. It's vital it's fixed and there are simple ways to do it.

But yet again, the excuses flew and the inquiries were started.

And yet again, we postpone reality for another day.

Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.