The Bay of Plenty Times welcomes letters and comments from readers. Below you can read the letters we have published in your newspaper today.
TODAY'S LETTERS:
Sensible buying needed
Re: Trade Me heater death trap.
Yet again, we have all these rules to try and make people have "common sense".
Let me see if I get this right (based on the above statement): "People need to exercise particular caution when buying items that could expose themselves or their families to serious harm if they are faulty."
Does that not sound like common sense to you? People have been buying goods from auctions, garage sales, friends, neighbours, friends of friends and surely always used a little "common sense". Do you buy a car without getting it checked out? Do you turn on an electric blanket without testing it? Do you pull out a heater from storage, turn it on and walk out of the room?
Think about it people, how is this any different from what the average person has always done?
Are we trying to say that before all the "appliances" were imported we never had any faulty equipment and these never caused fires. If so, what has the fire brigade been doing for the last 50 years?
Let's stop slamming the importers and sellers and say it's those people buying who need a slap upside their head for not using "common sense".
DONNA HANNAH, Katikati
Youth punished
It was such a pity that our local young people had their party cancelled recently because of fears about the harm alcohol can cause.
They really are the victims of the over commercialised alcohol environment we have in New Zealand.
Our chief science adviser's report indicates that one in three youth suffer alcohol-related harm in this country, and now we see those young people who don't even want to drink have their social initiatives taken away from them due to fears of alcohol-related unruliness.
It appears as if the adults have let them down, with tolerance of cheap and available alcohol and an absurd drink drive limit. I wonder if John Key's Government will take any notice of Peter Gluckman's advice. If any young people want to do something about this, please write to us at Tauranga Alcohol Action, PO Box 5176, Mount Maunganui 5170.
We would love to hear your ideas and solutions to this situation, which really sucks.
TONY FARRELL, Tauranga
Cellist impresses
Re: Sunday 19th Cello Recital in Art Gallery at 2pm by Santiago Canon-Valencia.
I wish to share my excitement and pleasure at the astonishingly polished and mature performance of this young man.
The over-capacity audience, with me were entranced and thrilled by his skill and quality.
Santiago Canon Valencia shows great promise for the future. I look forward to more and greater things from him as his career blossoms.
MARC ERICKSON, Te Puke
Let's be fair
So, John Key does not agree that dairy farmers should be made to pay for an increased research and development grant.
He says that this would only lead to "creative accounting" by these farmers.
This statement came after the news that the average tax paid by a New Zealand dairy farmer was only $1500 for the year.
That's less than a pensioner, with no other income, pays.
Obviously, "creative accounting" is already alive and well. Some questions then for Mr Key:
1. When does "creative accounting" become fraud and what is he doing to curb the practice?
2. What does he intend to do to ensure dairy farmers pay their fair share of the tax take?
This Government's proposed crackdown on beneficiaries and dole bludgers would be applauded if only it was fair and achievable.
There simply are not the real jobs out there for these targeted people to go to and also, obviously, they are not the only ones "routing the system". Fair play for all.
BARRY HILL, Otumoetai
Be a real man
At the risk of being thought skiting, I am a rare creature, a man, 40 years in merchant ships as a navigator and skipper who didn't drink. I make nothing of that.
At the end of my career, as master of a large ferry running between Britain and Holland and having 1200 passengers asleep below, running into dense fog, stuck for hours on a radar, alcohol was not on the menu.
Having once logged a seaman for being drunk on duty, I said to him: "Being drunk isn't clever. It doesn't make you a man. A real man would say 'no more thank you, I've had enough'."
I told my children the same thing.
Standing outside the crowd is hard but it proves you are real men.
How many young New Zealand men can do that?
Few, I guess. So it says one thing. The majority of young New Zealanders with a few exceptions, are not "real men".
R B WYLD, Tauranga
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