Editorial: Tarnished image not of media

A Hawke's Bay Today reporter recently received verbal ribbing while on assignment in Wairoa.

The thrust of the comments directed towards her were that this newspaper was only interested in portraying the township in a negative light.

She was there because of a window smashing spree in the main shopping area, which it is now estimated will cost $25,000 to repair. Legitimate news I would have thought.

And less than a fortnight later Wairoa is in the news again, for all the wrong reasons.

Police say it was a miracle nobody was hurt or killed when a Mongrel Mob member fired a shotgun into the crowd and in the air after a rugby match at Wairoa on Saturday attended by Black Power.

This follows several gang shootings in the township last year, including a broad daylight attack on a petrol station forecourt just days after an earlier shooting incident, and another firearms incident earlier this year.

It was more than 20 years ago when I first ventured to Wairoa, and received the same verbal ribbing. I was writing a feature on the Wairoa Races, which was welcome given all the "negative" press, I was told.

That year two people died in a gang shootout on the main street. That led to what was then the biggest murder trial in New Zealand history with 18 accused.

So time has made no difference to the problems facing this northern part of Hawke's Bay where a river runs through it, and the surrounds feature beautiful landscapes, including a jewel like Lake Waikaremoana.

It must be frustrating for the mostly good citizens, and in the modern economic climate it must almost seem like an insurmountable problem.

"The community needs to stand up and assist police ... the number of gang shootings in Wairoa is becoming ridiculous and it is only a matter of time before an innocent bystander is injured or killed," Detective Sergeant John McCarthy said yesterday.

It has to be asked why Wairoa didn't take action last year when a gang patch ban was suggested.

Police wanted it, but the district's councillors said Wairoa was not Wanganui, the problems were different and so would be the solutions. Feedback was against a ban, they said, and solutions had to be in council-police-community partnerships.

But for the police it was about more than removing symbols. It was about giving them greater powers to deal with the cancer, sometimes in remission, that has been present in this community throughout my media career.

Rather than ribbing a junior reporter, who off the top of her head wouldn't recall the positive stories we write about Wairoa, and worrying about whether or not Wairoa was branded as a "gang town", the community needs to get on with finding solutions to obvious social ills - admittedly not easy - and stop the gangs from thinking that shooting weapons in public is acceptable behaviour.

Because while it might only be a few tarnishing this town's image, tarnishing it they are.