KEY POINTS:
It's not hard to understand the call for victims of crime to be compensated in cash from the Government. At last weekend's hui organised by energy bunny Garth McVicar, head of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, families whose lives have been shattered spoke of being fed up with being ignored; that the perpetrators of crimes too often get more care and attention than the victims receive.
So what I am about to write will not make me popular. Luckily for me it's far too late in my career to fret about being disliked, and anyway, that's not the role of a commentator. But why should every crime be the fault of the Government, and why should all taxpayers take financial responsibility?
If public money is used to pay people whose loved ones have been killed, we further risk sending messages to crims that it's not really their fault; society will step in and try to put right, in some small way, the appalling deeds they have done of their own free will.
At present, there is some compensation paid, albeit pathetic and on a drip-feed method taken from the miserable amount criminals get away with paying when a fine is imposed as part of sentencing.
One problem is the unions in this country oppose prisoners undertaking meaningful and well-remunerated employment because having inmates in work threatens the feather-bedding union bosses seek for their own members. That's their job, whether they represent doctors' associations or blue-collar organisations.
If prisoners could earn real money while behind bars, it would be relatively simple to have automatic payments going straight to the accounts of their victims.
But how do you define victims, and where do you draw the line? When children have been beaten to death by a member of their family, for instance Mum's boyfriend and Mum hasn't done anything to protect that child, does she get $50,000 from the Government?
Someone killed the Kahui twins, so should that family, which went into a huddle of self-protection when police were investigating the crime, get multiple payments?
What about when international students are killed here by other international students (it has happened in the past)? Should the New Zealand taxpayers fund compensation to overseas-domiciled families? And how would you feel if the family of a slain drug dealer, importer of methamphetamine, manufacturer of P - responsible for pushing misery on to our beautiful young children - was given some of your hard-earned taxes in compensation?
It's easy, when faced with the daughter or son of someone like Lois Dear, the teacher killed in her classroom, to say yes, these good people deserve a break so they can try to put their lives back together.
But then it gets difficult. There's nothing wrong with elevating the status of victims of crime, but perhaps we could start by denigrating the lives of those who commit them - and I mean really discriminating against these scum, instead of treating them like celebrities and parading their spruced-up images on television news as they saunter into court.
The Sensible Sentencing Trust is well-meaning, but much serious research needs to be given to this issue before a government like the current lot, with their grab-bag attitude to passing laws, rushes off to satisfy a noisily effective lobby group.
And speaking of victims, I'm going to segue to yet another victim of this country's biggest killer - cancer.
Anyone who shopped in Queen St over the past 50 years will remember Lyn Fitness as the bossy, forthright, incredibly caring pharmacist who owned Horsleys Chemist.
In 1995, the Herald's Jack Leigh featured Lady Fitness in his "About Town" column. If anyone gave her cheek, they felt the sharp edge of her tongue - notably Hugh Wright and Douglas Myers. But she befriended everyone, including the prostitutes who lined up for their drugs each morning.
Lyn was my best friend, my "mother", and my older sister, all rolled into one. We spoke on the phone every single day.
On my recent trip to Scotland I said goodbye forever to her by phone, a few hours before she died of cancer in Auckland. It was the worst thing I've ever had to do, and I miss her like crazy. She was a founding member and on the board of the Act Party, and in 2000 when she first asked me to stand for Parliament, I ran like the wind until she refused to take no for an answer.
So anyone who wants to hear John Banks and me celebrate the life of Lyn Fitness, this force of nature, come to lunch next Sunday at Milford's Royal Garden Restaurant (tickets from bnicolle@clear.net.nz) - all proceeds to Cap Rates Shore Can, the local body campaign she supported until her too-early death.
