Toa Greening: One night out jogging in South Auckland

One mild and moonless night last week I decided to go for a light jog to the Manurewa town centre to help clear my mind for an important presentation the next day. As I stepped on to my front porch I paused to reflect upon the main points of the presentation. I had spent the last two months gathering facts and figures to present a convincing argument to the Manukau City Council Community Safety Committee and was now looking forward to finally have my say.

I started off at a medium pace towards the town centre. We live on a road aptly named Hill Road and as a result the jog into the town centre is a very gentle downward gradient. The jog is very pleasant with the odd character home set amongst very large protected native trees. I passed the historic Nathan Homestead and also the medieval water tower set in the "Forest of Sherwood" like park.

As I approached the town centre I had to skirt piles of junk which had been put out for inorganic collection and an old car illegally parallel parked on the footpath. On my right I passed George Hawkins office and felt a small pang of regret over giving him a very hard time on the dwindling Police numbers a few years back. On my left I passed the town Library, bottle store and the Manurewa Central School directly opposite the bottle store. I paused on the corner of Great South Rd to tighten up my shoelace and then stood up to perform a quick surveillance of the town centre.

Across the road from me in the "tunnel" were two small figures hiding in the shadows. The "tunnel" has historically been a prostitute pickup point for many years and unfortunately child prostitutes had now entered the trade. Over the years efforts by myself and others in the community to report the vehicles who pick up these children had amounted to very little improvement in the situation. It seems that our politicians in Wellington cannot understand that prostitution is morally wrong and what occurs in the "tunnel" is the reality of their short-sightedness.

Before starting off on my run through the town centre I mulled over a couple of facts and figures for my presentation. I had reviewed a study that found 76 per cent of Auckland Liquor Outlets would sell Liquor to Minors and several other studies linking Liquor Outlet Density to crime and violence. I made one final survey of over 13 liquor outlets, bars, casinos and a TAB in the small Manurewa town centre and thought to myself that these results were not surprising.

I started off again at a medium-fast pace along the town centre foot path. Up ahead in the distance I spotted three stocky men dressed in black outside one of the bars. As I approached I had to slow down due to them blocking my path. One of the men noticed my approach, made signals to the other two and all three slowly turned around to stare. I quickly gave them the universal Polynesian greeting of raised eyebrows and they all returned with huge toothy smiles. One muttered in a low voice "Cheers Brother" and then proceeded to clear the way for me to continue.

I passed another bottle store and then came upon the "notorious" Manurewa bus shelter. If you approach the bus shelter from the north there is a building corner that juts out to the left of shelter which can hide a large group of people from the road and main footpath. You can go to right of the bus shelter but this means you are almost on the road. Making a quick decision and thinking "she'll be right" I decided to go to the left.

After a few steps I nearly piled into a large group of 8-10 youths congregating behind the bus shelter. They were assorted ages from 14-17, dressed in dark clothing, hoodies, beanies and coloured bandanas. One of the youths darted out in front of me and asked in a loud voice "HEY... you got two dollars?"

After the numerous incidents with youth gangs of the last few weeks I seriously thought about sprinting past. Instead I decided to stop and replied to the youth "no I don't", the youth smiled a cheeky fox-like grin and after a moment of thought I said "but I have a joke for you instead". I then proceeded to tell them one of my favourite side splitters. This had the effect of sending them all into fits of laughter at which point I gave them the universal Polynesian farewell of raised eyebrows and to the chorus of "later bro" I continued on my jog back home.

As I made my way slowly back up-hill I thought to myself if only the problems with child prostitution and youth gangs were as easily solved.

The next morning I went on to successfully deliver to the unanimous approval of the Manukau City Council Community Safety Committee my study on Liquor Outlets in Manukau.

* Toa Greening is a Papatoetoe Community Board Member and Secretary of the Manurewa Crimewatch Patrol Inc.