Whats become of Australia?

Same mate. I might give him a piece of the steel cross bar he left behind ;)

Yeah. Says a lot about Sydney I guess. And I've lived there all my life. It was in the middle of the past two weeks of pouring rain so maybe some bloke decided he needed it more than me. Ended up with a tray full of water.

Friend of mine has seen school kids taking them as they are heading to the train station on their way to school. He was to late in stopping them. We suspect that they sell them for next to nothing at 'Cash Converter' type places for their smokes etc.

I don't think Sydney is the only place, we are in the bush, in Qld and had trouble. so now we have 3 large dogs and a shottttttiee not too far away under lock and key but with quick personal access, Just in case a fox is stalking the chooks ;-)

Willem, I agree. Its sadly becoming an apparently unavoidable part of life in the 21st century. We seem to heading toward the kind of society so often depicted in "futuristic" movies. Mad Max and WaterWorld don't seem so unreal anymore.

However, we only have ourselves to blame - probably borne from a sense of helplessness or impotence to have any influence on change. With a growing awareness that all potitical parties are basically the same (only concerned with obtaining and retaining power), and an ever growing perversion of our laws and justice system such that the perpetrators of crime become the protected, we do nothing and the problem grows.

Unfortunately much of the bame for the problem must be levelled directly at parents (yes, I am one). All too readily these days parents are abdigating their responsibilities for their children and relying on schools and other institutions to do the hard work for them. When young people do the wrong thing, parents throw up their hands and say `I had no idea' or `they're old enough to take responsibility for their own actions', etc. I've heard that last comment made about an 11 old boy who was being violent at school. Its a cop-out by parents.

I live in what was, not so long ago, considered a fairly boring, middle-class northern suburb of Sydney. It was considered a good place to raise a young family. Not anymore. Teenage and pre-teen kids now roam the streets in large groups at all hours (like 3 am on a Monday morning), drunk, probably drugged and violent. They cause malicious damage to both public and private property. Trees are set alight, scools vandalised, neighbours have had vehicles in driveways broken into and one even had a vehicle petrol-bombed in their garage. We've even had a butane torch (lit at the time, I believe) hurled through my daughters bedroom window. All this from what must be local kids as there is virtually no public transport to the area (and none at that time of the day/night) and these kids are on foot. Residents do nothing, from a combination of fear of future retribution and the cost and futility of involving the "law".

That parents don't know (and maybe don't care) where their 11 - 17 yr olds are, and what they are up to, at that time of night astounds me and is, I believe, a major cause of the problem. That they (the parents) are not held accountable, by law or society, for the actions of their children makes it all too easy for them to ignore it. Often these kids are clearly identified and police are advised. As elsewhere, little seems to be done. Making parents accountable for the behaviour of their kids and the damage done by them would IMHO go a long way to curbing this disturbing trend.

Damn, the soap box just collapsed. I'll have to stop now.Be good, or be quick.
Rohan (Sydney)