KEY POINTS:
There may well be a problem with the number of liquor outlets in this country. Civic leaders and police chiefs say where there are booze shops, there'll be riots, public drunkenness, under-age drinkers, brazen prostitutes and killings.
In the wake of the murder of Navtej Singh, a number of people in Manurewa pointed out that there had been a 700-signature petition against a liquor licence being granted for the store Mr Singh owned.
They believed it would be detrimental to the community and attract the wrong sorts of people to the neighbourhood. But the local licensing authority decided there was no good reason not to grant the licence, so it was issued.
In future, community objections will be given more weight if George Hawkins manages to get his private member's bill through Parliament. It's designed to make it easier for ordinary citizens to object to a liquor licence being granted and will force liquor licensing authorities to consider the social and environmental impacts of a booze shop opening in the neighbourhood.
All very well and good, but it muddies the waters to tie in the murder of Navtej Singh with the proliferation of bottle shops. Yes, the murder took place in Mr Singh's liquor outlet. But the liquor outlet is not the problem. The real problem is the murdering, amoral scumbags who can shoot a defenceless man and leave, laughing.
You can close every bottle store in town and we'll still have these craven, murdering lowlife among us. Shut the bottle stores and they'll kill dairy owners. Or service station proprietors. Or taxi drivers. Or anyone who looks at them sideways on the street.
Mr Singh was shot in his liquor store but Yin Ping Yang was beaten to death in her home, and Joanne Wang was run down in broad daylight in a shopping mall carpark.
Talking about tidying up liquor licensing in light of what's happened in South Auckland is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. It's been a miserable couple of weeks. Three murders in 14 days, all committed on defenceless individuals.
Many people feel angry, frustrated and defenceless. I bet there's been a rise in the number of people who've signed up to the Sensible Sentencing Trust this week. They want action and all the talk of this being an inter-generational problem which takes time to heal will be seen as politically correct nonsense.
Maybe it is. Visiting British crime expert David Fraser believes the right of the community to feel safe should override any sort of ideology about rehabilitation when it comes to violent offenders and that they should be locked up until they are no longer a danger to society. And if that takes 60 years, says David Fraser, so be it.
He certainly chose the right time to tour, preaching his message of justice for victims and tougher sentences for crims. His talks around the country have been packed with New Zealanders who need no convincing about the rightness of his views.
For people who have been raised in families where love, respect, boundaries and forgiveness are dominant, it's hard to conceive that there are some people who will never respond to kindness. Or that there are individuals who choose to steal or fight or rape or kill because they enjoy it.
They get the same sort of kick out of inflicting pain as they would from drugs. But eventually, the bodies start to pile up.
The grieving families become so numerous and the victims' tales so harrowing that even the most rosy of optimists is forced to concede that some people are evil to the core.
And for them, locking them up and throwing away the key may be the only answer.
