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Canberra Today 14°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Griffiths / That nasty crunch on the pavement

THE proliferation of CCTV means that more and more often when we hear police calling for witnesses to something horrible that happened outside Mooseheads or Academy or possibly the Civic Bus Interchange, we can also see the horrible thing happen.

John Griffiths.And lately it involves two blokes woofing at each other, in a style well known since before we came down from the trees, with the modern twist that while the two guys mouth off at each other, one of the guy’s mates sneakily comes up just out of peripheral vision to snot the unsuspecting victim from an unexpected angle.

The knees buckle, the head goes back and then there’s a nasty crunch as the victim’s head smashes on to the pavement.

It doesn’t happen all that often, at least to the extent the police release the CCTV and make a public appeal.

But it retains the ability to shock, particularly when you see it.

Possibly the worst part of it is the suspicion that the scheming buggers have been practising this move. They don’t know who they’re going to pull it on, they’ve just been practising really hurting someone at random.

Modern Canberrans live some of the safest lives in human history so it’s only natural that we find this kind of thing extremely disturbing.

And thus we demand that something be done about it.

Making laws about things is a relatively low-cost activity for the Legislative Assembly. It’s also much easier than seriously getting to grips with difficult things such as homelessness (and does anyone who matters seriously care about that?).

So the Liberals bang the Laura Norder drum with calls for minimum sentences. Simon Corbell in turn promises to review liquor licensing again.

As many have noted, Canberra is in the invidious position where we have the party of government also being the owner of a major drinking and gambling operation.

I’m sure there’s some third-world hell-hole with a more awful conflict of interest, but none spring immediately to mind.

The suspicion is always that changes to liquor licensing, well intended as they will always sound, will end up putting small pubs (which almost never play host to trouble) at a disadvantage while the big operators, the ones who have unlimited access to the party of government, will tweak the rules to their advantage.

Having said that, it’s not as if there isn’t room for improvement.

Civic after midnight on Friday and Saturday nights is, for my money, up there with Moscow in terms of menace.

Don’t make eye contact, don’t argue, keep walking, don’t let them surround you; good advice, but sometimes easier to say than do.

For policy making purposes though there are dangers in over-reaction. We already have laws about people punching other people.

Funding for more police to keep the peace would be a good place to start.

Does anyone think the coward’s punch videos of recent months would have occurred if there had been a pair of police in sight?

 

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Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

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