Yesterday we published a Migrant Tale showing one immigrants’ reaction to New Zealand’s dismal ratings in the NZ Institutes’  ‘state of the nation’ report and new figures that had just been released showing that the country’s crime figures had sky rocketed.

Today we’d like highlight Kiwis’ take on the report and their feelings about where their country is headed, what is causing the disintegration of their society and what the solutions may be.

This is a thread from the Trademe Community Boards. A forum on New Zealand’s most popular online auction site.

There is a feeling that a succession of “weak, PC governments” are at fault, people feel powerless to protect themselves from crime and vigilante justice may be an answer:

“NZ 5th Most Violent Country in the world”
I’m embarrassed to live here…5th most violent country on the planet….not impressed!

Only Mexico, Finland, Hungary and the gun-toting US have higher “assault mortality” rates in the 30-member OECD, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10634799″

Responses

* “Well its not the planet, it the OECD, but still pretty bad. I’m sure there are more violent countries outside OECD eg. corrupt African nations etc.”

* “One thing I really notice here having lived overseas is the number of murders committed by women.”

* “Haven’t looked at the link but I’m guessing the OECD is only for developed nations? If so then yes we should be ashamed! In fact if we were as good as we claim to be we shouldn’t even be in the top 20. Does the ranking also include factors such as success rate of solving cases etc? If it does, then yeah, sounds about right. NZ’s sh!t when it comes to solving small criminal cases, sorry. They can’t even solve a simple theft crime fcs!”

* “It’s atrocious, how can we be behind countries like Thailand and Nepal, Mongolia, India, African nations etc where there should be huge crime (people are soo poor and only basically educated)…Oh, I know, we have wussy jails that pander to our crims …their jails are like HELL…”

* “This country is a mess 😦 im beginning to think there is too much wrong with NZ to fix.”

* “Yes. We’ve been saddled with many years of weak, PC , governments frightened to tackle the endemic problems of ‘culture’ .”

* “Actually the problems have been here for a very long time. For most of that time, hidden and not spoken about. Now these problems are out in the open, hopefully we can start to fix them

* Well with self defense being defacto illegal in NZ, it is no surprise. Yes, I know the law says you can defend yourself, but trying it against, for example, a machete wielding maniac will see you “fined ” $60k in legal bills, even if you “win”.”

* “So if NZ is so bad at putting crime to rights maybe we should consider some vigilante justice!”

* “I’m just so glad that we’ve developed the way we have….with undeveloped countries having better crime rates than ours…….so so proud! Not!”

* “I’d actually read somewhere when those twins were murdered that NZ was the third highest for child mortality.”

* “Stopped reading after “independent report” Many of those just pull figures out of their arses. The other side of this are the top 20 most liveable cities in the world. New Zealand claiming anywhere from 1-10 spots in the top 100 due to our ‘low crime rates.’ More ass pulling figures I’m sure~ Hmph.”