Hansen was talking about the building of character, a message that we would do well to heed at a time when character seems to be taking a back seat to instant gratification, blaming others for whatever goes wrong, then demanding recompense. We've come a long way since our forebears built the foundations of all that is ours today. And while it is true that life is tough for some, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that life could be better for many if they rediscovered the inner strength, not to say the pride, that was once fundamental to our national character.
One should always resist the temptation to make assumptions, but news last week that Auckland's City Mission was facing increased demand for help from people who could not make ends meet, or more specifically celebrate Christmas with the trappings of dinner and gifts under the tree, offered a telling image of a queue outside the mission. Supposedly people who were unable to provide for themselves or their dependents, it was a generally well-dressed crowd, some of whom were whiling away the time with their cell phones. Maybe they desperately needed a top-up.
There is real need in this country, no question, but we seem to have come up with our own unique definition of poverty. And we have developed a penchant for taking whatever is going free, with no thought for what it says about us, or more importantly, what it teaches our kids.
A child not unrelated to the writer learned this lesson very early in life, when she fronted up at her school's Breakfast Club one morning. Her mother heard about it, and was not best pleased. The free food, she told her daughter, was for kids who arrived at school without having had breakfast, not for those who fancied two breakfasts. She did not join the queue again.
Common sense is best served in small doses, lest we be overwhelmed by it, of course, and Steve Hansen was countered last week by a discussion regarding the potential for an increase in tax on alcohol to curb our apparently growing habit of binge drinking. It worked with tobacco, so why shouldn't it work with alcohol?
For a start, it is reasonable to argue that alcoholism is a disease as opposed to deliberate flouting of societal expectations. Thus one would expect that those who struggle to live without alcohol on a daily basis will simply forgo other pleasures, like food, to pay for it.
It was also pointed out, not unreasonably, that a hefty lift in price would punish those who drink in moderation, doing no harm to themselves or anyone else, particularly casual imbibers at the lower end of the socio-economic scale. Not that that would deter some - we have a habit of legislating for the lowest common denominator, and penalising innocent people in the process.
No one involved in the discussion so far seems to have quantified how much of the harm done by alcohol can be attributed to genuine alcoholics, however. One imagines that the bulk of 'offenders' are not so much physically dependent on alcohol as they are displaying a selfish lack of interest in or care for the rights of others. It is doubtful that many of the young people who regularly adorn our television screens as they stagger along city streets, argue with police, vomit in gutters or entertain with their extraordinary alcohol-induced wit, are alcoholics. They're just young people who are doing what young people have long been doing, but more enthusiastically and much more visibly.
Alcohol is undoubtedly responsible for a great deal of domestic violence, not only because of the lack of self-control it leads to but the role it plays in adding to other pressures, like financial, and anything that will genuinely address that should be discussed. Making alcohol more expensive is unlikely to achieve anything though.
Many people, alcoholic or not, will continue to put their own pleasures first, and if that means there's even less for the kids to eat, or that their spouse is at even greater risk of a punch in the head for objecting, it's not the drinker's fault.
Binge drinking by the young is another issue, one that could well be influenced by a little common sense. Upping the price isn't likely to work though. Alcohol is already outrageously expensive at licensed premises, giving rise to the phenomenon known as pre-loading, and that doesn't seem to be doing the trick.
Perhaps the answer lies in treating public drunkenness, good old-fashioned drunk and disorderly, as the offence against society that it is. Instead of carefully rounding up these people, ensuring that they don't hurt themselves or someone else, or choke on their own vomit, then letting them go to do it again, they should be punished. Doesn't have to be elaborate, time-consuming or expensive. An instant, enforceable fine would do it. Your average hooray Henry would tire of forking out $500 every time he let rip in a public place. Even if he didn't, he would have $500 less to spend on booze next week.
We have enough rules and regulations in this country, and we hardly need more, but some people need to be made responsible for their actions in a way that encourages a change in behaviour. Even in the case of public drunkenness the onus has been shifted from the drunk to the person who sold the alcohol.
Anyway, this is not the time to be thinking of such things. Three more sleeps to Christmas, a magical time of year (hopefully) for the young, an important time for those who believe that God sent us His only son to die for our sins, a time for the enjoyment of friends and family, a time to count (and enjoy) our blessings.
The Northland Age wishes everyone a merry Christmas, however they might be celebrating. Be kind to one another, accept that there will be noise in homes containing children, and let the low-carb, low-sugar, low-calorie lapse for one day. There will be plenty of time to make recompense.
