Let us all remember the great victory at Al Alamein. No food, no bullets, but when the Germans heard the haka and the sharpening of bayonets they ran from their trenches.
The Maori people have been well honoured by John Key and his memorandum. They also served their people in the present Government with honour.
Winston Peters is another who wants power, but he is entirely destructive.
We want stability and MMP has had its day.
Toy-throwing activists have had their day.
We want a stable government that can led us through a recession, a Pike River, two major earthquakes and the Rena shipwreck. The team with the most votes should win, surely.
Jeff Ryan, Papamoa
Let's move on
Let's make election day a winner for the future of New Zealand.
In two weeks I'll be a pensioner, and to hear some of this group promoting their views on the re-entry of Winston Peters to politics irks me.
He was not solely responsible for the harbour bridge. Have they forgotten the foresight of Bob Owens?
Wasn't Winston only doing his job as our elected member? Have they not any memory of his past roles in Government?
We need to move forward to the future and think not of ourselves but of those coming after us. We are in a global recession and for any government this will create difficult times and decisions will not please everyone.
If we truly want to play a part here we should support compulsory KiwiSaver (many retired Australians have $160,000 or more accumulated from participating in their savings scheme) and use our local banks, such as Kiwibank, who all have the cheapest interest rates.
These will help us to be less reliant on overseas funds and provide money to invest in New Zealand.
On asset sales, people should listen to John Key. He wants us to invest in sound companies not in slush funds for greedy fund managers.
The Government is there to govern, not to be in business.
Things will never be like they were as we are in a fast-changing world.
A saying attributed to Abraham Lincoln goes: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."
Are we ready for this?
Jenny Bishop, Pyes Pa
MMP overhangIn 2008 United Future's Peter Dunne attacked Maori seats, saying they had a potential to create an overhang in that the party could potentially win more electorate seats than they were likely to achieve in the party vote, thereby distorting MMP and creating a situation that was "undemocratic, and unacceptable."
To avoid such an "undemocratic" overhang, any political party must achieve a minimum of 0.83 per cent of the vote for every electorate seat they win.
Mr Dunne's United Future party squeaked in last election, with a bare 0.87 per cent, but now it is a different case.
United Future party is polling, nationwide, at about one-eighth of that necessary figure.
Should Mr Dunne be fortunate enough on election night to retain his seat of Ohariu it would then be his party that would create the undemocratic and unacceptable spectacle of an overhang in Parliament.
Will Mr Dunne in such a circumstance display that he is a man of principle, and resign his seat in order to preserve democracy?
Peter Tashkoff, Henderson
Falling short
TV3's decision for the leaders debate - to use someone of the intellectual magnitude and political neutrality of Paul Henry - has indeed achieved a coup.
Whether it will mean that anyone will view their coverage of election night will depend on the calibre of the other team members.
Is New Zealand really so short of objective journalists for an important occasion such as an election review that someone with the reputation that Mr Henry has achieved has to be employed?
Norman Harris, Tauranga
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