The parole of Stewart Murray Wilson at Kaitoke represents a significant failure for this community.
In the interest of accountability, there's plenty of blame to go around. Most striking is the failure of Anne Tolley, the Minister of Corrections, to exercise good judgment in deciding to impose this dangerous person on our community. To suggest there is no other place for him because of the proximity of his victims is beyond absurd. This is a small country in terms of population but large in geography. New Zealand is roughly the size of California with 10 per cent its population. Surely his many victims are not spread throughout the country.
But beyond his placement here is the manner in which it was done. Not only was there no consultation but no plan of any kind to prepare the community for this eventuality. It represents the worst of the high-handedness of this government and of this minister. Worse, it erodes any confidence we might have had in the competence of Corrections to manage this parole safely.
The essence of providing for release from prison, under any terms, for such a dangerous man is provision of safety, safety for the community, safety for victims, safety for the paroled prisoner. Safety in the absence of communication is non-existent.
Sadly, our two local parliamentary ministers, Tariana Turia and Chester Borrows, have been shown to be not only powerless but dangerously uninformed.
Surely Pita Sharples, Associate Minister of Corrections, would have spoken with Tariana - if he knew in advance. This shows you what the government thinks of its Maori governing partners.
Shamefully, Chester Borrows supports this imposition. Chester acts as an obedient National Party mouthpiece, repeating its rationale for bad decisions that affect this community, much as he did originally with the maternal health issue, until forced by community pressure to support keeping our service here. It's of note that prior to this rebranding of us as sex offender city, Chester's signal accomplishment in the last term was aiding legislation that helped label us a gang-plagued city.
Isn't it time both of these old war horses were put to pasture?
To remind readers, Anne Tolley as Education Minister, in refusing to delay implementing NCEA standards in Christchurch, said the children were using the earthquake as an "excuse". What's her excuse for failing Wanganui in every sense and for lacking in the courage to show up herself and face the public outcry?
With little or no expectation of help from our elected parliamentary representatives, we are nonetheless not powerless, as they seem to be. This is a community which organised itself to stand up for its families, for its women and their children, born and yet to come. Together, across cultural divides, we organised through social media, through marches, together with a core group of activists, action to stop the government, through the DHB, sending 400 pregnant women 72 km to another hospital to deliver.
We stopped that and reversed what was originally an arrogant, imposed solution to the DHB's own problem. That showed the strength of which we are capable when aroused.
We need to demand exploration of alternatives to the present lack of plan. To take only one avenue to assure overall safety, Mr Wilson ought to be assessed under the Mental Health Act (1992).
Ms Tolley's management team gave us a bland statement that he was ineligible. That's nonsense. The Act defines mental disorder as "an abnormal state of mind (whether of a continuous or an intermittent nature), characterised by delusions, or by disorders of mood or perception or volition or cognition, of such a degree that it - poses a serious danger to the health or safety of that person or of others."(Italics mine).
An assessment by our own appointed psychiatrist might recommend treatment in a forensic hospital. Ironically, successive governments have dismantled Stanford House as a treatment facility for such an offender. He might have to be treated in Auckland or Christchurch.