KEY POINTS:
This week, having recently watched a rugby game our Navy played against the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and having made a conscious effort to follow the World Cup, I was all ready to give my take on the national game.
But a letter responding to a column I
wrote three weeks ago changed that.
Les Thompson wrote: "I wish you would stop whining about how bad life is and citing examples like having your car stolen. I have had my car stolen, twice, and even my house burgled, but do I go around writing in the papers about it? No, I just get on with life. This is New Zealand, crime happens, learn to let go and just get on with life."
An email from another reader, Eddie, who said he was Polynesian and lived in Otara, claimed car thefts were so common one happens every 20 minutes and they were more often planned rather than opportunistic.
I shudder to think that Mr Thompson might represent what attitudes towards crime have become. Because it happens all the time is no reason for a justification that it is okay.
I thought of a conversation I had with an aunt in Singapore just before I moved here in 1997.
She had just returned from a long New Zealand holiday, and was telling me how lucky I was to be moving to paradise - where houses were built with no fences and people could sleep with their windows and doors open on warm summer nights.
"People are so honest and trusting there, there is no need to worry about crime," she said.
I marvelled at the aura of innocence and trust my aunt talked about during my first days in New Zealand. Having no local identification documents, I was amazed at how I could start a video rental membership using a birthday card as ID and proof of address. And how I could just walk into a motel, fill in a form, and get a room - no credit card needed.
However, reading a sign outside a barber's shop at the Devonport ferry terminal, "Please have your money with you before your haircut. We have had too many people leave and not coming back", I sense that this trust and innocence is long gone.
Recent developments in the crime scene have also made my aunt's claim that there is no need to worry about crime here sound rather like saying Portugal can still win the rugby World Cup.
I was shocked with the checks I made with some colleagues at iBall. All had fallen victim to crime in recent years.
One had his car vandalised, two had their flats burgled, one was mugged in Queen St and another, who ran a cookie stall at the market on weekends, had his day's takings of $1500 stolen from his van a fortnight ago.
Should they, like Mr Thompson suggests, just learn to let it go and get on with life? I think not. But due to circumstances, many of them may.
A colleague who had to wait a few days before the police responded to his report that his flat had been burgled - and got no response when he reported that his car windscreen had been smashed - said he would not bother making any future reports. In the police crime statistics released last week, offences involving violence had gone up 4 per cent. Assistant Police Commissioner Grant Nicholls said this was actually a good thing.
It showed more people coming forward to report such crimes and was a good reflection of the focus the community and police had placed on domestic and family violence.
Well, if this is true, then good on the police and community groups working with victims of violence.
In areas where the figures showed a reduction in crime such as in Auckland City (down 2 per cent) and dishonesty offences (down 3 per cent), the police were quick to claim that was because they were doing a good job.
How easy it is to put a PR spin on statistics. But could not other crime figures have come down because fewer people are coming forward to report them? Could there be more Mr Thompsons around than we realise?
A fortnight ago while dropping off some newspapers at a church in Northcote, I returned to find my supermarket shopping had been stolen. At that moment, this country sure didn't feel like the paradise my aunt described.
Car thefts and burglaries will never make headlines in the media like murder and violence. But that still does not make it all right or acceptable. I don't think it can ever be right for us to sink into the thinking that crime of any kind can or should be tolerated.
Having your wallet picked in a crowded market may be common. But that does not make it any less of a crime, or the person who stole it any less of a criminal.
