KEY POINTS:
On the day I was in Christchurch last week, the skies were blue and the sun was shining bright - but still, the mood of the people was sombre.
On the weekend before, a driver had driven his car into a crowd of mostly teenagers attending a party and killed two 16-year-old girls, Jane Young and Hannah Rossiter, and injured several others.
Being the small town that Christchurch is, everyone I met seemed to know someone who was at that party, or at least knew of someone who knew somebody there. So for many, the death of the girls hit home.
"It could have been my girl," a mother said to me.
Having lived in Christchurch for five years, I cannot remember another time when Cantabrians were this gloomy. It felt almost as if I was in the aftermath of Christchurch's own 9/11.
I had gone to the city for a series of meetings, and at each one of them, people were discussing the tragic circumstances of the Edgeware Rd party.
The news that the killings could have been racially motivated broke when I was at lunch with The Press editor Paul Thompson and his deputy Andrew Holden.
It was reported that party advertisements, circulated by text messaging, contained statements such as "No Asians, no gangsters", and that there were allegations of racist activity on the night of the party.
Exactly three years ago, I had co-organised an anti-racism march in Christchurch and we discussed whether race relations in the Garden City had deteriorated since then.
Almost everyone I met in Christchurch that day had his or her own theory on what happened at the party and an opinion on who was to blame.
Many speculated that party pills and booze rather than racism had a big part to play in the lead-up to the incident.
Discussions and arguments flowed into the pages of the next day's papers.
Some felt the police should have reacted earlier, soon after they received the first complaint of excessive noise at the party.
Others blamed parents for not keeping their teens under control.
Some residents on Edgeware Rd suggested the landlord of the property where the party was held was to blame. They said the house had a history of being a "party house" and the landlord should have cracked down on the tenants' behaviour sooner.
But it was a sub-head in the day's paper, which said "Alcohol and drug-fuelled parties are commonplace despite what controls parents may attempt to impose, teenagers say" that got me thinking.
It is easy to say parents and police should do this and that, but if we take a hard look at some of the laws in place in New Zealand, it may not be that easy for the police to do their policing, or even for parents to be parents.
Some of the laws are practically helping our teens get away with murder, and there is little society can do about it, because the law says so.
Take our drinking laws for example. Unlike the strict liquor laws which govern licensed restaurants and bars, there are no laws governing how much one can drink at private parties.
It is therefore perfectly legal for under-age party goers - such as those who were at the Edgeware party - to drink as much alcohol as they want, excessively even, as long as it is supplied by an adult.
When a can of beer is often cheaper than Coke at the supermarket, price is definitely no deterrent.
As long as a kid can enlist the help of an adult, access to alcohol and drugs is easy and party pills are legal and readily sold at shops. As a teenager of the 80s growing up in Singapore, I wouldn't have dared to dabble in any form of drugs, knowing the consequence could have been the death penalty.
So, if the law says it is okay for teens to drink and take drugs here, how then can we blame the police, who are merely enforcers of the law, for not acting preventively?
New Zealand also has no laws recognising offences of a race-hate nature, so until taunting turns into mayhem, there is really nothing much the police can do. The hands of parents have also been tied by some of these laws.
I have a friend who is at a loss as to how to help her 16-year-old daughter with a medical problem after the school refused to provide her with any information, citing privacy laws and confidentiality.
Parenting will get even harder, and the role of parents becomes even more confusing, when Sue Bradford's anti-smacking bill becomes law.
Health Minister Damien O'Connor has said New Zealand's drinking laws are now under review. I'm hoping that the Government would do the same with the other laws as well.
But any changes made will come too late for the two girls killed and for their families. What a waste of two beautiful young lives.
Jane Young and Hannah Rossiter, may you rest in peace.
