It’s so refreshing to see a public official speaking truth to power as Children’s Commissioner Francis Eivers has done by saying a spike in young people behind the wheel in ram raids is being created by families living in a “total state of hopelessness”.
Ms Eivers says child welfare and criminality are social issues and increasing poverty cannot go ignored. And who is responsible for the poverty? The Prime Minister is also the Minister for Child Poverty reduction.
And Ms Eivers is giving some positive advice on ways forward which can be summed up as building community solidarity together with children and their families.
Thanks heaven for sane voices such as the Children’s Commissioner amongst the vitriolic voices which have vengeance as their solution.
Child poverdy should not be ignored.
Sadly it can be. The current policy setting of the government is “Fuck the Poor” and the future seems less bright than the present.
The latest ram raid in Auckland was a bottle store. Poor kids must have wanted a beer to wash down their ram raid food while playing on their ram raid phone, you think Francis?
Ethan Woke. Thing is Jenny Shipley insisted on lowering the drinking age to make our young people more civilised, like their Mediterranean countries’ counterparts. It panned out okay for the booze barons who flog the stuff, but stealing it is a bit counter-productive to the supposed vision of the woman from Ashburton and it affects the profits of the vendors. They may have to close shop, go back to where they came from. Oh dear.
Did Francis just smear all of those on struggle street (i.e. half the country) as selfish ugly ram raiders? I think she will find that although they are not the privileged elite that they are nevertheless good law abiding people.
Jody, Nope, she didn’t smear struggle street, she gave government a reminder that there are major social problems – I would say inequities – which underlie much of the unsettling behaviour of some of the young, you know, things like homelessness and child povidy. Luxon was the smearer, designating have-nots
‘ bottom feeders’, and showing what a hopeless hick he is.
The drinking age is a conscience vote. Probably more National members voted against the age reduction than for it. The reverse in Labour. I think just about all Alliance and Green members were for it. NZF mostly against. ACT all for it. It was a quite a close vote.
Wayne, thank you; I had the idea it was largely Shipley, and that particular pie-in-the -sky premise for lowering the drinking age never ever washed at all.
Cause – no permanent home (rather than poverty) – rental to rental and school to school. Thus high levels of truancy. The peer groups forming becoming raiding bands.
That’s Frances John. The Francis spelling usually indicates a male as in St Francis. Judge Frances is following the caring aspect of St Francis’ service though at the Office of the Children’s Commissioner – noted on google as a non-profit organisation in Wellington. I wonder if our government would have the same simple description?
St Francis of Assissi –
Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in Roman Catholic history. He founded the Franciscan orders, including the Poor Clares and the lay Third Order. He and St. Catherine of Siena are the patron saints of Italy, and he is also the patron saint of ecology and of animals.
Born: 1181 or 1182 Assisi Italy
Died: October 3, 1226 Assisi Italy
They don’t make ’em like that these days! Or are they hiding their light under a bushel?
(The parable of the lamp under a bushel is one of the parables of Jesus. It appears in Matthew 5:14–15, Mark 4:21–25 and Luke 8:16–18.) Christianity has lots of good in it, as well as unsatisfactory reports – note, may be needed yet, along with other religions preaching goodness in the main.)
ONG what is all this warbling about, so he spelt it the male way instead of the female, and as he was raised as a Catholic I think you will find he knows all the stuff about St Francis of Assisi too.
Is this what she is for? Is this what all our government departments do? Make statements about what we already know but do nothing?
How much does it cost us to be told the blindingly obvious, that entrenched poverty leads to crime.
Slow clap.
Who is fixing the poverty? The government is just making rich people and the civil service richer and everyone else poorer.
Where are the extra police, the smashing of gangs, the legalizing of weed, the holding accountable of parents with truant kids, the extra homes, the re nationalized basics like electricity? The teaching of responsibility for actions instead of victimhood?
Every dollar this opinion cost us could have been feeding a hungry kid.
Yes don’t let us keep calm and do the same year after year ignoring what people want when they have presented a case for a policy that will change things. Going through long involved processes so some ignorant overpaid geezers can decide they are not convinced or…, or…. etc. and not do what could easily be trialled and monitored. All that has to be done is say what can we lose, compared to what we have already lost and probably will continue to suffer – give this a go and those who want it to succeed guide it, and dare not muff the results to appear satisfactory or be taken to Court. They should have a suitable budget paid out in agreed stages as needed.
That of course requires us to care that things are done right but lately people have lied and fraudulently said they had certification and not much happens to themj because the lack of regulation in NZ is a disgrace. And our crowing how good we are is a lie. And that limitation and lack of firm resolve to keep to standards supporting an honest country and society of working people not speculators, is at the basis of all our failures.
Ram raids don’t represent criminality. It’s inequality.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/467228/children-s-commissioner-points-to-inequality-as-social-driver-of-ram-raids
Stop making this a big deal, stop making it the number one item on the news, stop reporting it. The kids will stop then.
https://dunedinstudy.otago.ac.nz/files/1571969294595.pdf
I like to look at good clinical research to enlighten me . This study shows poor self control as young as three as predictive, although it’s possible the ram raids may be different
I have been involved with kids one way or another for fifty years. Coaching rugby, soccer and cricket or as a mentor through Graeme Dingle Foundation and Rotary.
I regularly meet extraordinary kids who go on to be community heroes.
In the main our kids are wonderful people having to put up with pressures I never had to face yet still coming up positive.
The ‘troubled teens’ I mentored or knew of through Project K were all decent people, many with anxiety issues and in some cases had made a cry for help that had thankfully been picked up by a caring teacher. The one common factor in by far the majority of cases was a Missing Dad.
Let’s not overhype the issue.
Kids today are the same as the kids I grew up with in the sixties and if anything they know more and care more about the planet and the people in it than I or my mates ever did.
Social media, well all media for that fact, thrive on fear and sensationalism.
A Missing Dad. So help blokes sort their lives, their partners too and half the problems would go away. But don’t think of blaming it on the women for not being able to hold a man, to have a stable relationship. The government and society in general has made life difficult for families.
My sister a grandmother, is looking after a grandchild who has to be on a train at very early morning hours 5am or something in Auckland to get to some sport practice. Everyone expects so much from themselves, with high requirements – society is off its head. Care more about people and enjoyment of life, and participation and support I say. The kids are under pressure to perform and excel and tv doesn’t help.
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