POSING NUDE ON A STREET CORNER

Someone told me – don’t know who, that having your photo emblazoned on a large billboard in a public place made you feel exposed like posing nude on a street corner.

Last night our Local Board hoardings went up all over Owairaka a subdivision of Albert Eden Roskill. When the first hoarding was hoisted high, regulations restricting it to 3 metres from ground to top, I didn’t feel exposed, laid bare. Quite the opposite I felt detached, removed from the situation almost as though I was watching a scene unfold that had nothing to do with me. I have no idea what that means in psychological, cerebral terms except to say that if I get tagged, I’m going to ask Maori Party’s Martin Cooper for advice on how to prevent it from ever happening again! It’s the small but significant things that cause you the most pain though; having your face defiled, is the ultimate personal insult. Even though rational folk know those that do the defiling are the unhinged it still cuts to the personal core. So while I didn’t feel exposed like standing naked on a street corner, I did wonder how long it would take before the billboards were bombed. It was then that I felt vulnerable. This brought me back to one of the many reasons for me standing for the Local Board. I’m tough on crime.

I’m absolutely against alcohol consumption in public places like shopping centres, parks and reserves. The drinking ban is successful in the CBD, and we deserve to have the same law here in the suburbs. But it’s because of the CBD ban that the illicit drinking has come to our streets – it’s pushed many of the ‘homeless’ out into the suburbs and with them come the additional criminal elements, the taggers, the glue sniffers, the intimidators. This riff-raff hang out at the Mt Albert train station, in the bus stops and even in shop doorways and around the ATM machines. These criminal elements threaten honest shoppers and hard working small business owners. It’s not on and it must stop.

No one should feel vulnerable in their homes and on their streets, whether they’re on billboards or shopping at their local butcher. This is the time to take control of our streets, our suburb and our city. The people of Owairaka Albert Eden Roskill have a depth of history unlike other suburbs. We span coast to coast from Manukau to Waitemata and from mountain top to mountain top Mt Albert/Owairaka, Mt Eden/Maungawhau and Mt Roskill/Puketapapa and let’s not forget Three Kings/Te Tatua-o-Riukiuta.

Yes, Albert Eden Roskill we are indeed heartland Auckland.

So let's hope the only activity around the billboard hoardings are between the various parties vying for prime position and not between taggers and candidates.