What a wonderful and enthralling year we have to look forward to, with the rising gang problem walking hand in hand with the looming state election across our fair city for the next few months.
It is a match made in political heaven. This will allow all candidates to concentrate their entire beings on this one issue and ignore dozens of others of equal importance. We are already seeing mainstream media attempting to shape the debate and run the agenda with their versions of what is happening in Wyndham.
I don’t have any insider insight. I read the same papers, watch the same television shows and hear the same radio stations and monitor the same social media platforms as you do.
Am I worried or scared? In relation to some things, yes.
Do I like what is happening in our city? No.
Do I have the solution? No.
Do I think anyone in the political arena has the answers? No, certainly not any one person or party.
I don’t see the solution coming from a community approach either, because the minute people disagree these days they shelve the point they are disagreeing about, and start a personal slanging match. This is not exclusive to those in political organisations, as a cursory look at Facebook forums on this subject will confirm. It’s a free for all. The emotion is like a bushfire, hard to contain and devastating in the damage it can do in a short amount of time.
I have yet to see any constructive leadership shown about the gang problem. The police have to do what they are directed to by their bosses. Their bosses are our state representatives who theoretically answer to the voters. If only it was that cut and dried and orderly.
It is easy to be an alarmist and even easier to brand this whole mess as a race-related issue. This is everyone’s problem and adopting the mob mentality is not the answer. Clear heads are needed and those heads must be non-political, non-aligned ethnically, and committed to the outcome which benefits everyone involved in this. Personal agendas have no place in the resolution of this.
