I agree with much of what is written but you cannot absolve the rioters of responsibility. It was pure destructive anarchy and a lot of innocent people got hurt. Nevertheless, responsibility should also rest with government that failed to educate so many young people properly and then brought better educated immigrants to take the jobs they might otherwise have had. Some have argued it was rapid population growth and I think that contributes. You can't keep up services in education and training when there is a rapid rise in population. But by all means implement the proposals listed here but the government also has to slow the growth and try and get these young people educated - at least literate.

I think it could possibly happen here but I hope it doesnt. I think it possibly could be connected to the changing role of men in the family and in the life of children generally. Men are generally viewed with suspicion these days and so are not respected as much as they possibly once were. There is often an anarchic rebellion in teenagers and this might be what happened in London riots. Its telling that the Tottenham riots occurred not long after a massive cut to youth services in the area like youth after school programs. In a community I lived in after a period of break and enters over the school holidays the community responded by an increase in after school and weekend sports activities. This seemed to work in reducing gangs roaming around and getting into trouble.

Dear Matt, "Whose fault is is and could it happen here?"

Fault? 13 years of Labor governement.

Happen here? Not yet but if we keep heading the way we are, such riots as Cronnulla would simply move from being localised to being a trigger for the expression of wider discontent. Which is driven by governments that don't listen.

Matt - I can appreciate just how you would view these riots but the UK Prime Minister was closer than you are to the causes.. A lot of it was criminal, but the riots also show how there is now a large underclass of disadvantaged people in the UK - an underclass where criminal gangs have been allowed to fester..

That and the UK police's failure to organise a proper riot policing model. Those riots, whatever there cause, should have bene snuffed out after the first day.. the fact that they were not is a major cause for concern in itself for the UK government..

i said it before on Warwick's article & i will say it again.

it has already happened here several times & places.

#1, hoons destroy Bob Jane tyre store.

#2, Cronulla.

#3, Redfern, several times over the last few decades.

#4, Macquarie Fields.

& we all know why http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8630135369495797236# social engineering designed to produce failure.

They're not given enough, for gods sake.

Come on Mat how much can you give a bunch of yobs, before you wake up that the program is wrong.

How does it go? Give me a youth club, or I'll riot. Of course I'll still riot if you do, & I'll use the weight lifting gear as weapons.

The government didn't give them a good education. How the hell do you give something to someone who only wants to throw it in your face. Wake up mate, It doesn't work. You lot have been at it long enough to have learnt that surely, if you would just open your eyes.

Get the wimps out of schools. Make them tough places, & the tough kids will start to respect you.

Give them a reason to want an education.

My son was being lead into the belief that only wimps studied. He didn't want to be a wimp. That's when I explained to him, & a couple of his mates, that I only got to be a jet fighter pilot, in the navy, because my maths, & physics were the best of the 230 people who applied, with 6 selected for training.

That got through to them. My kid didn't make it into pilot training, but he is now a top engineer.

Give these kids some real reason to try, or give up. They are the only choices. You can't give an education to anyone who doesn't want it

The UK does have a history of anarchy, but the author overlooks an important issue, or perhaps that issue is not politically correct enough to write about.

About 50% of children in the UK are being born outside of marriage, which translates into about 30% of children living in poverty.

Many of those children will have a very difficult or impossible task of ever escaping from that poverty.

So they go on the rampage.

Governments can only provide technical solutions. Only communities themselves can decide what to do with their own social problems and governments need to facilitate this asap. But alas, name one political party that will invest in capacity building any community for the sake of it. Herein lies the problem.

• As a starting point we need a National Council of Elders.