Um...

I'm quite intrigued by this whole idea of slashing public servant numbers (apparently we're overrun by them). What I am confused about is the idea that we need to get heaps more police at the same time eg Alexander's latest call for 1300 more cops. What really cracked me up was Brash's latest outburst that National will "treat the symptoms of crime earlier" Symptoms? What about causes? Now I can understand that the idea of hordes of beauracrats running around trying to figure out ways of reducing unemployment, improving the education and health system etc mught be an anethema to some. But I for one would prefer that we did something original like tried to tackle the causes of crime rather than crime itself. Maybe addressing the fact that a third of our kids are living in poverty? Maybe recognising the fact that most petty crime is related to economic oppression? Maybe doing somehting real to address the high levels of domestic violence in our communities? Maybe we should introduce Dr Brash to some of the women in our prison system who got there by stealing to feed their kids. The majority of whom have been either violently or sexually abused as children or by their partners... Hey and then we could get really radical and start putting the real criminals in jail. The people that bound into communities, convince people that they should participate in the development of factory X, drain the community of its resources and bugger off once people start getting sick cause they can't drink the water or swim in the river anymore cause it's full of dioxins... Oh, that's right, that's development and that's good. *Sigh*