Letters: Empty rhetoric requires action

Police and MPI staff at the paua checkpoint at Ahipara on Saturday that found it was locals breaching fisheries rules

'Paua checkpoint catches everyone', read the headline (December 27).

The MPI Fishery compliance team members should be commended for their recent operation at Ahipara, when a number of paua poachers were apprehended at a checkpoint, and the appropriate infringement notices issued. It is reassuring to learn that some laws are being enforced here.

It would be great if those whom we depend upon to enforce the traffic laws in our area could find either the resources or the will, whichever it is that is missing (someone suggested the latter, and even vested interests, but surely that can't be so ... this is New Zealand, after all!) to set up random checkpoints, and do some issuing. Then we might read the headline 'Order restored to Ahipara streets.'

The first paragraph of the forward to the Road Policing Action Plan to 2020, presented by Road Policing's national manager, published July 2016 tells us; "Road safety, reducing crime and social harm, and building public trust and confidence are Our Business.

To reflect this, police developed this Road Policing Action Plan to 2020 for all of police. This means if any staff see something on the roads, they should attend to it. It emphasises that enforcement and prevention are complementary, that partnerships are crucial, and that effective leadership is the key to success in reducing road trauma and crime."

So, 'enforcement and prevention are complementary' then? And public trust? Law-abiding residents of and visitors to Ahipara might, with real justification, regard that statement, and the words that follow in the action plan, simply as empty rhetoric, given what has been allowed to persist upon the streets of Ahipara during the Christmas/New Year holiday.

The problem is, when victims (yes, victims) phone to complain, they are asked to supply details that are irrelevant to the overall situation. When someone decides to report a wheel-standing trail biker, for instance, he /she will typically be asked "What was he wearing? Did he have a helmet on? How fast do you think he was going? Which direction? How do you spell your street name?" etc.

It is not recognised that the caller is trying to convey to the authority that the incident is just one more typical of the ongoing mayhem around our streets, in the expectation that the information might be used to address the situation as promised in the Road Policing Plan.

Surely, all ratepayers, elderly and unwell residents, and the riders/drivers of registered, warranted vehicles, deserve greater protection from these miscreants than they are presently receiving?

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED
Ahipara