Law and Order, the Economy and Health have all had a major airing lately in both local and national politics giving the feeling that New Zealand is moving through another period of general unrest. If you read the newspapers few people seem to be happy with their lot.

In the Law and Order arena the problem seems to be that  people are not being made accountable for their own actions. If you beat up your kids it is the Governments fault, so therefore, it’s OK and yet amazingly the majority  of parents don’t harm their kids even though they may feel the Government hasn’t adequately provided for them.  Most parents also bring up their kids to respect others and their property.

Wanganui and Rotorua Councils are trying to get tough on people who don’t respect how the majority wish to live. Rotorua’s problem - a group of people who constantly target central city businesses and blatantly steal from them. It is like a game to fill in your day when you haven’t got a job. They say we don’t care what you think or do, we are still going to do it. These tactics seem to be based on the mentality that businesses are run by rich people who haven’t got their own families they are trying to feed, provide for and educate. These ‘loosers” overlook the reality that if it gets too tough for retailers to survive because of thefts, they will be forced to just close up and go.  Less local services for the community, Tourists won’t bother coming and as a consequence less overall employment opportunities. And where is the Government on this issue? – well sorry guys you need to get tougher on the penalties, stop the “namby pamby” approach and make the offenders seriously accountable for their first crime as hopefully a significant deterrent for future re-offending.

Of course the perfect answer to the problem appears to be to continue to respect the bad peoples human rights, and yes they should be allowed to roam the streets and steal when they like. Perhaps it would be better justice if  our Judges could order the ‘civil libertarians” of our communities  to be the minders of these miscreants when they are on the loose.  Or perhaps we just ban civil libertarians from the CBD. Isn’t it ironic that the criminals of our Society seem to have more rights than our citizens who are busy adding value to their community.

There also is very little respect for other peoples property or rights and  obeying the law of the land. There is even talk of the Government changing the law so they can’t get prosecuted for breaking it when they overspend at election time. Woops, sorry people we only make the law, we don’t actually understand it.
Another example, where very little is being done to remind us to respect our laws and be accountable for our own actions, is in our own fair City. Have you noticed that few people seem to stop at ‘stop signs’. I think it is because our traffic bosses have the Traffic Police mainly out on the highways saving us from getting killed by speed, whilst collecting the odd dollar with quotas which don’t even go back into making our roads any safer to travel on. The Traffic Police appear to be somewhat disinterested in making people accountable for causing crashes and mayhem at our intersections. Wouldn’t it would be nice to see the Traffic Department a bit more visible and proactive around these major areas of accidents and for starters the intersection at the foot of St Johns Hill/Victoria Avenue needs some close attention.

It probably is the Governments fault that the country is slipping behind economically and not just this Government but a succession of them in the past. The average wage in New Zealand has only gone from $22,700 twenty years ago to around $28,900 in 2006. Only one indicator but surely a reflection of how successive governments have not been very businesslike in running the economy of the country. We seem to have a lot of people in the Beehive who spend their day ‘slagging’ each other off, and pointing the fingers. Why can’t New Zealand be run like a private Company with a Board whose goal is to make ‘the Business of NZ’ a highly profitable enterprise that benefits its valuable citizens( the shareholders). Instead we appear to have a bunch of political points scoring individuals. New Zealanders’ standard of living is now slipping behind many of the countries we were once ahead of.

On a more positive note it is good to see that Wanganui people are passionate about standing up for the retention of Hospital services provided by Good Health Wanganui. We can ill afford to lose permanently to Palmerston North  any of the current services and it is vital that we strenuously work together towards finding and retaining the medical professionals necessary to provide services on a 24/7 basis at our Hospital. It tends to be a vicious circle with any reduction of local health services not only causing grief to our citizens, but also discouraging people to choose Wanganui to live in, to make it less desirable to attract qualified clinicians and ultimately impacting  on population growth and the viability of local businesses.

One of the prime selling points for Wanganui Hospital in attracting  prospective employees is the “value added” benefits of working in our excellent city. The hospital uses the Chamber and also the Councils marketing material to offer people a great family lifestyle, and first class health and education facilities for their children as a key reason to move here. The recent public scrap through the paper about our hospital resources and services doesn’t make our City appear the kind of place we all believe it to be and unlikely to impress outsiders.  Whilst transparency to keep everyone informed  is important I thought it would have been better in this situation to have solved any individual concerns about internal issues inside the Board Room.

It is hard to be helpfully constructive as we don’t know all of the facts that have lead to these  problems faced by the Hospital Board and Administration but it is up to us all to offer our support in whatever capacity. The hospital is our biggest employer and from a user of its services for various reasons, to me it is extremely well run and has very dedicated staff.

The time is right for the proposed Task Force to bundle everything Wanganui has to offer into one “package” so we can all become better ambassadors in selling our City to families, people who have specialist skills, and business people. We need more successful businesses to employ even more successful people.

Speaking of successful businesses, I wish all the entrants in the ABN AMRO Craigs Wanganui Chamber Business Awards on the 28th October every success.

Warren Ruscoe
President Wanganui Chamber of Commerce.