He asked us today why we're all so worked up about this one shooting on Ponsonby Road - and why if you open any of the local newspapers' websites today, it’s right there at the top of the front page.
As Jack says, this happens all the time in London, it's no big deal. He even watched a guy get knifed in a park in front of him while he was out having a durry not long before he moved here. He then went back inside to work at the radio station - and the knifing wasn’t even worth putting in the bulletin.
I can answer that question for Jack - the reason we are so worked up about this is because this is still new to us.
We can all remember a time when this kind of thing didn’t happen in nice places like Ponsonby. And it wasn’t that long ago - five years ago, maybe?
But then in the last few years, there was the shooting in Dr Rudi's on the Viaduct in Auckland, and the shooting in the Sofitel lobby in Wynyard Quarter, and there was the guy on the scooter who shot the other guy on Queen Street, and then the guy who took a gun to work and shot his co-workers on the construction site in Auckland CBD.
And it's still rare enough that the significant shootings in Auckland can still be recalled and counted on a hand - but I think we suspect that those, by contrast, innocent days are over.
We now have guys going out for a drink on a Sunday night with a firearm in a Guess manbag draped over their shoulder.
And I think we know why this has happened - because the Australians have deported hundreds, if not thousands of criminals, that are way harder and way more trigger happy than the ones we’ve gotten used to.
And unfortunately for us, they like going to the bars we go to. Nice people go to those bars - and so do these guys with the guns in their manbags. It's a bit freaky, isn’t it?
And the most honest amongst us will admit it’s probably only a matter of years before we have the same reaction as Jack - and don't find it scary or interesting anymore.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.
7 comments:
Jack must be dimwit Londoner - or has he come to NZ with the mistaken idea that this is "an innocent natural paradise ?"
Please, Jack ...... wake up to real life!
Does jack ever walk down dystopian queen street and see all.the beggars urinating in public and all the weird dysfunction and crime happening right before your eyes? You don't see this in vibrsnt covent garden or leicester square. Plus london has 16 million people whereas akl has 1.5 million..Our crime would be way worse per capita.
Yeah nah… we should not accept this as the new normal, we should not try and blame some other country. IMHO we should harden up our laws and speak up. Go hard on the 501s if they fall foul, lock em up. Go hard on any wanna be gangsters (sorry, gansta). Being kind, eleventy-seven chances, they’ve had it hard…. Blah blah. FFS. Life is hard, maybe not in fluffy journo-land.
Going back further to the days of my youth the number of murders each year coud be counted on one hand and I can remember details of many of them. But then we had a race based immigration policy which ensured similar culture was imported. And maori had not been indoctrinated to imagine decolonisation. Many persons still attended church or their parents had and a semblance of ethics pervaded throughout society. Violence in film was often associated with cowboys, pirates, war etc , situations not immediately identified with ordinary life. But today youth watch hours of graphic violence in more ordinary situations. And the rope was somewhat more of a disincentive than a spell of board all found with mates.
No Heather, there will never be a time where I will have the same reaction as Jack.
Remember one thing.
If it can happen to anyone it will likely happen to you as well and that is never acceptable.
Random, inexplicable violence is an anathema to civil society and should always be that way
Heather, couldn't agree more, except I'm pretty much immune to the violence now. This is a shame.
I blame labour for their racist policies and their attitude of telling us that there is definitely no crime issues in this country. Ardern said that as recently as 2 months before resigning. With their lax attitude toward crime I blame them for the rise in violence and not doing anything about it.
If this violence was only committed against the left who clearly want violence in society I would not be overly fussed, but it's often the good people (as you point out) who are the victims. Then to watch the perpetrators get let off because they have a cultural report paid for by me is hard to stomach, all while the left are out there telling me that white males are the only ones who commit crime. Yeh right.
To those that read this, there are evil amongst us, evil people often can present as normal but if you scratch the surface a bit you will find their insidious agendas. This is the left for you.
Well hold on, of the 5 specific shootings described here - do we have it on record these were all Aussie deportees? If that is the case it should be easy to specify that as fact.
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