Recently, I tuned into the Kaikohe korero on National Radio when the gang of disconnected teenagers smashed their way into a local liquor store.
The usual lynch mob bayed for blood, as did the colonels of corporal punishment who wanted to bring back the boot camp and give these kids a damn good hiding - something they would have had more than enough of already.
My two bobs' worth when invited to comment on the programme was all about front-line resourcing. Moving it from back of office to front of whare.
"We need a clear, focused laxative to free up the constipated resources to the front line," was my korero with Jim Mora, the well-informed host.
"What we are seeing manifested on the streets of Kaikohe and in many other poorer parts of the country is a backlash of under-resourced front lines. The generals in charge of the troops (the crown agencies) need to put their putea where it is needed most - the front line."
The best comment on the subject came from an old kuia: "On the same day in the same town where these disconnected kids were playing merry hell I saw another group of well-guided kids in the local park practising their kapa haka," she empathised.
For my two bobs' worth of what the hell to do with these merry hell kids - the wise old kuia is right. It is all about reconnecting them.
These kids are lost, disconnected from society, from their whanau with very little hope.
We work with them every day and we know they need to know someone out there cares - before they need to know what we know, and help them reconnect.
In the real world they wake up to every day, good news - just like aroha and hope - is in short in supply.
For many of our Maori whanau, mana is the currency of good news - not money. To make mana happen, we need communities, backed up by their councils, to reconnect our youth back to positive kaupapa (programmes), like kapa haka, sports, kai gathering and one-on-one mentoring.
Sure money goes part of the way when resourced in the right direction. The reality is, right now, the social service resource system is constipated and it needs a good laxative to free up its internal workings.
For this to happen more is not always the answer, we need to reconfigure what we have and make it more efficient.
If we can create more good news stories by reconfiguring the resources, just as we have done in social housing with the 1240 properties signed across to Accessible Properties here in Tauranga, we will have many more good news stories.
You can jump and down and do the haka all day about the problem, and put the blame on whatever political potae (hat) is the flavour of the day. However at the end of the day, it is the hat of hope we need most, if we are to reconnect our troubled tamariki.
If we are naive enough to believe in talkback politics - on and off the airwaves - then we will be one step away from ghettoising the poorer pockets of New Zealand, much like the disconnected states of America.
The carpet up north and down south of Auckland has no more room for the inconvenient truth of poverty to hide underneath. Nor does it here in the Bay that has plenty.
Reconfiguration is the key.
There is always an answer if you know where to look and it usually sits just over the fence in our own back yards.
If we can turn off talkback, and turn up the voices of the front line to help reconnect our youth instead of punishing them, we will get the good news we all want to hear.
The old kuia and her words of wisdom should be listened to more, and the dial of talkback turned way down low.
Tommy Kapai is a best-selling author and writer. broblack@xtra.co.nz
