Brian Anderson The Western Front www.sunlive.co.nz

Naples in 2002 was unbelievably broken down. Whole families were sleeping in the streets and even setting up house on traffic islands in the centre of town.

e counted at least 100 sleeping on the street in the main square. Spaced out druggies were down on the steps of the closed entrance to the underground openly injecting and taking themselves off to other worlds. Around the Bay in Capri the rich were being taken through the town to their luxurious hotels passing a row of shops full of names that included Cartier, Versace and Hugo Boss. During the three days we were in town, I spoke with our hotel receptionist who happened to be an out of work economist. He explained to me the difficulties his government and the EU were starting to experience. He forecast a collapse of the European economies before the end of the decade. We now are hearing reports of protests throughout the whole world against the social inequities in economies and targeting the blatant rich, corporate greed, banks and financial structures. There are protests on the streets in Australia, but the Global Financial Crisis seems to have, for the moment, slipped our attention in New Zealand. Blame it on the Rugby World Cup, but we will soon be swept up in this global protest movement. Negative protest is easy and in many countries, governments are collapsing. ‘Revolution not Evolution' is on placards, but what new initiatives are we, the people, going to demand for New Zealand?

Politic games out the window

Politics is irrelevant in any real crisis or war, playing political games has to go out the window. In our current Rena crisis, some of the most stringent public criticism has been against politicians sniping and trying to make political capital. But the Rena crisis has given us a small window on how we should respond to the GFC. Rena drew a line in the sand at the high tide mark which also marks the physical boundaries for responsibilities between regional council, district council, coastguard, maritime authorities, Tauranga City and the Port Authority. Not one of them was fully prepared for the crisis, but collectively, they all were responsible and when the people turned up in droves they all moved together to protect the Bay we love. We were not going to allow it to be ruined. Are we going to start our GFC protest by moaning about politicians, demanding a change of government, burning effigies in the street or do we have it in us to decide to be involved, join together and fight for change and support the country we love?

We were all able to see the implications of the Rena grounding. We all believed we could help and we arrived looking for information and leadership. When the implications of the GFC and the protests movements overseas hit us we will have to know what is going on. We will need to be debating the issues of the day and be considering solutions. After World War Two, I remember my grandfather still listening to parliament. He monitored every debate on the radio and the newspapers as everybody was kept up to date as the country recovered from war. This was a time of leaders like Michael Joseph Savage, Bob Semple and Walter Nash, but it was not a time of personality politics. Granddad and his mates could argue for hours on the latest moves by government and, when they voted, they voted with purpose on issues of the day. The recent demands for council transparency and accountability is recognition that we will be needing all the information we can get if we are going to play our part in understanding the issues and finding our way out of the recession.

Using the Rena experience, we are close to day one of our GFC protest. We need information now. The council has to be open in all its dealings. We want clear leadership and, if it is not forthcoming, we will have to supply it ourselves. It will be easy to recognise day one. We get angry and we turn up in our gumboots.