Editor’s view: Horror moment that put it all in perspective

It is striking that in a week dominated by politicking and posturing over crime and human rights, all it took was one horror incident to put everything into perspective, writes the editor.

The horror continues, and the ugly reality of it played out yet again on Friday morning when a Gold Coast security guard suffered a frenzied attack allegedly by teens, one of whom was wielding a knife the size of a meat cleaver.

That security guard, aged 57, doing his regular shift at a suburban shopping centre, was allegedly attacked by a 19-year-old who was accompanied by a 17-year-old male and two girls aged 16 and 13. By last night, the 19-year-old and 13-year-old were charged with attempted murder.

The security guard was stabbed in the head, both legs and the stomach.

Police make an arrest after an attack on a security guard outside Westfield Helensvale Shopping Centre. Picture: 7News Brisbane

Bystanders who witnessed this hideous event grabbed towels and medical supplies from shops as they raced to the guard’s side to assist before he was taken to Gold Coast University Hospital where, yesterday afternoon, he was reported to be in a serious but stable condition.

This is the sort of mindless street violence we would normally associate with a failed state.

Yet this grotesque behaviour is rapidly becoming the new norm, and a norm we are in real danger of becoming psychologically acclimatised to.

And that is why we should thank those hundreds of people who marched on state parliament this week to demand the government do its job and protect the electorate from violent criminals.

Security guard John Whenuaroa, 57, was attacked at a Gold Coast Westfield. Picture: Supplied.

Those protesters will not allow the 18 people who have lost their lives in youth crime-related incidents in Queensland over the past two years to become mere statistics.

That Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk baulked at going out on to the street and addressing the protesters and trying to explain how she intends dealing with this issue did not speak well for her or her government.

Yet no one is seriously suggesting it’s the Premier or the government, or even previous administrations, which are solely responsible for this insanity which has crept up on us in the past few years. This juvenile crime crisis is a consequence of a societal breakdown and a disintegration of the family unit which has left more than 11,000 children in this state looking not to a mum or dad for their parenting, but to the state.

The sheer volume of kids in state care eclipses even the Queensland adult prison population which is still under 10,000.

That the huge majority of these juvenile criminals have little or no parental supervision is simply a statistical reality, and solving the problem they present is not easy.

But central to any answer has to be the issue of restraint.

Any human being with a demonstrated capacity to inflict physical harm on another must be physically restrained to protect both themselves and the wider community.

To that end, the suggestion this week by Katter’s Australian Party that youthful offenders be sent to isolated rehabilitation camps as a sentencing option so they could learn about “life, trade, business and leadership skills’’ does not seem outlandish. Even the Premier thought the idea had some merit.

The current approach, as the nightmare which unfolded yesterday morning graphically illustrated, is simply not working.

It is striking that in a week dominated by politicking and posturing over crime and human rights, one horror incident such as the one we woke to on Friday puts things into perspective.