If only the 3 questions by Thomas Sowell were forced to be answered by officials, every time they come up with some new way to subsidise chaos.

The fabric of society breaks down when productive citizens are forced to invest time, money, and mental capacity in self-defence.

The professional caregivers, a large swathe of unaccountable NGOs, advocacy groups, and not-for-profits whose goal is to manage social dysfunction rather than solve it, step into this gap.

Small business owners, tradespeople, families, and the very people who are essential to local prosperity, the productive heart of the Territory, are caught in a difficult situation.

Freedom, with all its risk and messiness, remains the only antidote. It recognises that man, not the state, is the agent of change.

Philosophically, respect is tied to justice and fairness. True justice requires not only protecting rights but also enforcing duties.

Behind every stolen vehicle is a policy failure, whether in law enforcement, judicial practice, or social welfare, that reduces the cost of crime and amplifies its rewards.

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) uses environmental design to deter crime and enhance safety.

Where elders fear the youth, respect has died, and fear rules. This collapse is not inevitable but the product of choices, choices to tolerate lawlessness, to weaken authority, and to ignore cause and effect.

When petty crime pays more than work, the cost is high, social disorder, economic stagnation, and moral collapse. The remedy is straightforward but demanding restore accountability, enforce laws consistently, and reshape incentives so that honest labour once again becomes the rational, rewarded choice. Anything less condemns communities to poverty of character and opportunity.

The history and ongoing experience of the Northern Territory illustrates exactly why community leadership must return to principles of fiscal responsibility, empirical realism, and meaningful accountability, attributes perpetually absent when planning rests in bureaucratic and NGO hands.

That’s the Cloward-Piven Strategy. Not a mistake. Not mismanagement. A plan. One that replaces responsibility with resentment and freedom with a leash. And like all utopian schemes, its path leads not to equality, but to ruin, and inevitably death.

Leniency in regional towns is not kindness but a costly failure. It fuels repeat offending, fractures communities, and saps faith in justice. The solution lies in restoring accountability through firm, consistent application of the law, a principle rooted in cause and effect, personal responsibility, and practical wisdom. Without this, regional towns risk becoming battlegrounds for unchecked crime and enduring social decay.

We don’t build safer societies by stripping tools from the innocent. We do it by confronting the guilty, before they strike. Because the problem was never the tool. It’s always been the hand that wields it. And what is the point of giving weapons to the taxpayer funded who seldom turn up in the first place.

The solution is brutally simple, stop passing laws to feel good. Start enforcing the ones that matter. Tie legislative output to enforcement capacity. Prioritise laws that can be upheld with consistency. And if something can’t be enforced, scrap it, before it becomes another brick in the wall of institutional decay. Because once the law becomes optional, safety becomes impossible. And when words replace action, it’s not order that prevails, it’s entropy.

Every excuse given to a criminal is a burden shifted to a law-abiding citizen. Every time the system explains away a carjacking, a stabbing, or a home invasion, it quietly invites the next one. The moral equation is simple, the more you excuse, the less you prevent. And eventually, when the excuses run out, all that’s left is fear, and the shattered remains of what used to be a civil society.

It must end. Judicial appointments must reflect a commitment to law, not ideology. Sentencing should reflect the crime, not the identity of the criminal. Parole should be a privilege, not a political gesture. And most importantly, public safety, not judicial self-actualization, must return to the centre of the justice system. Because a society that prioritises the rights of criminals over the safety of its citizens is not compassionate. It’s suicidal.

Shame works because it addresses the fundamental human desire for respect and acceptance. Bringing back shame as a consequence for wrongdoing is neither cruel nor archaic, it is a rational, proven strategy to reduce crime and strengthen social cohesion. A society unwilling to shame harmful behaviour openly will soon find itself overwhelmed by it, paying the price in violence, disorder, and lost human potential.

Moral clarity does not require cruelty. It requires honesty. It means calling a thief a thief, a predator a predator, and a liar a liar, without waiting for a committee to redefine the terms. Criminal behaviour is not a misunderstood cry for help. It is a deliberate rejection of responsibility, often repeated, often escalating, and often protected by institutions that fear public disapproval more than they fear real harm.

A shopping centre with a history of youth disturbances every Thursday at 4:00 p.m. doesn’t need another committee, it needs a uniformed presence by 3:45. A bus station with a string of assaults between 7:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. doesn’t need more signage, it needs targeted visibility during those exact hours. A council carpark with repeated vandalism reports on weekend nights doesn’t need a policy review, it needs boots on the ground, eyes on the exits, and zero tolerance for l