A hall at Conondale is trashed. An elderly woman’s brick letterbox is smashed. Mindless vandals cover fences and walls with graffiti.

You have to wonder sometimes why basic human decency has been abandoned by some of our young.

Why is it that some don’t have any respect for the feelings of others, or for their property.

For the hooligans smashing an Alexandra Headland pensioner’s mailbox, it was probably just a bit of alcohol-fuelled fun.

How were they to know that their actions would leave an elderly woman in tears, wondering how she would get it rebuilt from her meagre pension?

Do these kids think about the impact their actions have on others or are they so filled with rage themselves that it’s a case of hitting out at any target they can find, regardless of the consequences?

On the weekend, I took the kids to the Palmwoods swimming pool and couldn’t help but notice a trio of young men who thought it was just great fun to swim across the lane ropes into the path of an elderly swimmer, despite pleas from the exasperated pool attendant to stick to the non-roped area of the pool.

These young blokes, who had smuggled alcohol into the community pool, couldn’t give a hoot about the impact their actions had on the old bloke.

For him, it was probably the one little pleasure he could enjoy each day – a swim in the local pool, in his own lane, in his own time.

And these clowns were determined to create their own fun by spoiling his – one of them eventually knocking into the old guy after diving into his lane.

Fortunately, after being busted with their alcohol, these young blokes were quickly ejected from the pool complex, no doubt to head off somewhere else to create havoc.

A similar story unfolded on Saturday night in Conondale – the last place you would expect to see holes punched in the wall of the local hall.

“The world has come to Conondale in 2008 and we don’t like it one bit.”

That was the grim summary by Bernie Bristow and other locals in the small hinterland town after the party.

Doors were smashed and hundreds of bottles littered the inside of the venue after more than 150 people turned up for the celebration.

The ground outside the hall was littered with broken glass, and timber boards had been ripped from walls, leaving a damage bill Mr Bristow expected would run into thousands of dollars.

“The hall has been standing for some 80 years and as far as I know there has never been anything like this happen,” he said.

Mr Bristow said he knew many of the local young people who were at the hall and had confronted some of them on Sunday morning.

“I had a real go at them and they were ashamed – they wouldn’t look me in the eye,” he said.

“This is a small community and people know who was responsible, so there is pressure for them to do the right thing now.’’

Mr Bristow was hoping that those responsible would do the right thing so his faith in young people could be restored.

The great tragedy of stories like these is that they tar the reputation of the majority of young people, who are decent human beings.

The real question we must ask ourselves is why are some young people so angry at life that they feel they want to take it out on the world?

What are they missing out on? What sort of upbringing have they had? What sort of parents have raised them? Why do they have no sense of purpose?

Only when we have answers to these questions will we be able to say why some kids are behaving so badly.

Kevin 07 to Kevin 747

He may be the boy from Nambour, but I’m getting a little tired of our high-flying prime minister.

Kevin 007 has become Kevin 747 and you have to wonder what sort of message the PM is sending when he appears to be spending more time talking to world leaders than with the battling families who elected him.

Mr Rudd, who has already spent 43 days overseas this year, justifies his latest trip by saying Australia must be involved in helping to fix the economic fallout from the credit crunch.

While in New York, he will address the United Nations General Assembly and meet the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Stephen Friedman.

He will also have contact with US President George W Bush and take part in a Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.

He is expected to have bilateral meetings with more than a dozen world leaders, and informal meetings with another 10 to 15.

With the PM still to deal with the plight of our pensioners, the image of him getting on and off jets at destinations around the world is a tad rich.

It leaves you wondering how much our PM – and for that matter our new opposition leader – are in touch with Aussies, especially when one of the debates in parliament last week was about the portion size of beef stroganoff in the dining room!