Editorial: Please, just behave yourselves

Peter Jackson, editor, Northland Age.

The Houhora Big Game and Sports Fishing Club is between a rock and a hard place.

It knows it was bound by its original resource consent to make its boat ramp and jetty at Pukenui freely accessible to the public - and says it intends to continue doing just that, albeit barring vehicular access to non-members.

And it knows now, if it didn't before, that irks some local people, who clearly see the club as having been given the privilege of building on publicly-owned land, and accuse it of making its facilities inaccessible to all but swipe card-carrying members.

The issue, like so many others, would not have arisen if people displayed some common sense and courtesy.

The club can hardly be blamed for wanting to control the few who make life difficult for others, members and non-members alike, or for tiring of cleaning up after others.

This is just another example of a need for rules designed to enforce a standard of behaviour that once would have been second nature.

The club says it is unfair that its members pay for the privilege of using its ramp and jetty to launch and land boats while others do not.

That's not unreasonable, given the cost of maintaining the facilities. And at $70 a year, club membership is hardly exorbitant, especially for those who, as president Justin Kernan pointed out last week, arrive in "beautiful" boats, having spent perhaps as much as the annual sub on bait and several times as much on fuel for one day's fishing.

The club might have grinned and borne the cost, however, were it not for the congestion that is caused by those who park as close as they possibly can to the water, despite clear requests not to do so, and who reportedly tend to respond with abuse when they are asked to move.

A similar attitude has apparently been displayed by some who use the jetty as a diving platform, and believe it was built and is maintained purely for their pleasure, as opposed to a place for boats to tie up.

Then there are those who clean their fish there, and dump what they don't want to take home in the water, illegal overnight campers, who tend to depart in the morning without taking their rubbish with them, and those who congregate there to drink alcohol, and for some unfathomable reason can't resist the temptation to smash bottles.

The sad fact is that many of the rules and regulations that plague us all these days are inspired by the poor behaviour of a few.

In this case, the club has undertaken to maintain public pedestrian access to anyone and everyone who wants to go down to the water to swim or fish off the jetty.

They just won't be able to launch a boat, or drive down to the water, if they haven't paid a sub and acquired the swipe card they will need to get past the proposed barrier arm.

That will at least deal to the campers and the inconsiderate parkers, although the bottle smashers probably won't be deterred, but if the locals want to get grumpy with someone, let it be with those who have made considering a barrier necessary in the first place.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, one was able to freedom camp (a term that hadn't been invented then; we called it camping) at any beach in the Far North.

These people tended to be locals, and generally, perhaps universally, respected the privilege of spending time at some of the best beach locations this world has to offer.

They took their rubbish home with them, they buried what couldn't be taken, including fish remains and faeces, they used fire sensibly, and when they left no one would have known they had ever been there.

Then, for some reason, attitudes began to change. Increasingly some people, albeit a minority no doubt, began despoiling the environment that had attracted them in the first place.

That's why the No Camping signs have sprung up everywhere.

That's why the Far North District Council no longer allows camping on the reserve at Tokerau Beach - it allowed camping one summer, years ago, but very soon discovered that a walk of perhaps 100 metres, often significantly less, to the toilets was too much for some, who preferred to defecate where the urge took them.

So everyone was punished. Now we are all treated like ignorant louts, because rules and regulations cannot be drafted for, or imposed upon, the few. And not surprisingly, a lot of people don't like that.

It's too late now to go back to what we once had, but we might at least support those who are trying to do something for their community, and who have little choice but to impose some basic rules to enforce basic decent behaviour.

A barrier arm and swipe cards might not be the ideal solution for the fishing club at Pukenui, not least given the potential for even greater vehicle congestion at the entrance to the boat ramp and jetty than is occurring now, but the club clearly feels the need to do something. Any alternative suggestions would no doubt be welcomed.

Two of the best

With no wish at all to denigrate their successors, it is always a little sad to see an old(er) teacher hang up their duster.

The Far North lost two of the very best last week, when Mercia Smith and Gena Shepherd finally called it a day.

The sadness arises from the fact that as older teachers leave the classroom they take with them the wealth of experience and traditional teaching values that are needed now more than ever.

Neither Mrs Smith nor Mrs Shepherd have said it, but education ain't what it used to be.

Both remember with fondness a time when their profession was less encumbered with rules and rigidity, but they and others served as a bulwark against the greatest excesses of people who seemingly do not understand children and how best to educate them, how to recognise that every child is different, or that while they are as important as ever, there is much more to igniting a child's desire to learn than the three Rs.

It is easy to find people, grandparents of today's school children, who believe that they received a better education than their descendants are getting.

If that's true it will largely be thanks to the Mrs Smiths and Mrs Shepherds, who were once to be found in every school in the country, and were allowed to get on with teaching without 'expert' interference.

Education, even at pre-school level, has become extraordinarily complex, to the benefit of no one.

And every time a Mrs Smith or a Mrs Shepherd retires, we lose another link with a time when life, and schooling were simpler, and results, very arguably, were better.

Mrs Smith and Mrs Shepherd go to their weaving, gardening, breeding horses, painting and whatever else awaits them knowing that they have done a fantastic job for countless pupils who will have every reason to be grateful to have found themselves in front of a teacher of such ability, commitment, empathy with and understanding of young minds.

All the very best to you too, for Christmas and the New Year.

Be kind to one another, enjoy your family and friends, and go easy on the sugar and carbohydrates.