Paula Bennett: ‘I went into mum mode’ - the day I broke up a fight

A Mount Eden liquor store after a ram raid. Photo / Hayden Woodward

In January 2009 I broke up a fight between around 30 youths outside Henderson Mall. I don’t think I would do that now.

I had been in my Henderson electorate office. It was still school holidays and I was there by myself catching up on some work. John Key called and asked me to look into subsidising school holiday programmes for people who couldn’t afford them. He had just spent the school holidays with his own children and said that he had been thinking about how hard it would be for those that couldn’t afford outings or school holiday programmes.

I liked the idea and thought I would take a walk in the sunshine, think about it and go and get some lunch at the local mall. The area outside the mall was known as a youth hangout and many retailers had been reporting to me about drug transactions and general intimidation that some were causing. It was affecting their businesses and scaring some of the locals.

I had been working with local police and community patrols to try and do something about it. As I walked towards the mall I saw a large gathering of young people. There was tension in the air and there was pushing and shoving. That soon turned to punches being thrown.

I saw retailers locking their doors with customers huddling inside and looking genuinely scared. I felt really angry and without thinking about it too much ran into the middle of the fight and started shouting at them to stop and tried to separate them. In the few seconds it took me to get there I told myself not to physically touch any of the kids (they were about 15 to 20 years old), not to swear and to try not to get hit myself.

I was trying to separate them and then realised that I didn’t know who was against who and the fighting was continuing. So I went into mum mode and pointed a finger at them individually and forcefully told them to sit down exactly where they were. And they did. For about a minute they sat down, which sucked the tension out of the situation. Then they realised what they were doing and started shouting at me. By this time security from the mall and police turned up.

I don’t think they were used to being told what to do by an adult and that is why they temporarily complied. They were used to doing whatever they wanted and weren’t used to an adult taking control.

Things have become worse. Youths who have no respect for authority have older teens and even their own families telling them of their rights. They laugh at police as they know there will be no consequences for their illegal actions. If I came across that fight today I wouldn’t step in. I would presume they are emboldened, maybe armed with weapons and that my intervention could make the situation worse.

I get that a whole lot of kids have tough upbringings but if we keep making excuses for them and they don’t see consequences for their actions then ram raids and violence will continue to get worse.

Paula Bennett is a former Deputy Prime Minister and National Party politician who now works at Bayleys Real Estate as national director-customer engagement.