Letters to the editor: Council legal costs and assisted dying

A reader wants a breakdown of the council's legal costs over the begging ban. Photo / File

You recently reported that it cost more than $100,000 for a legal opinion re legality of banning beggars in town.

Do you have breakdown of this cost?

I feel the rights of the shopkeepers to earn a living and provide a service is extremely important.

The social problem of the homeless is for the Government to solve, not shopkeepers.

Prior to the ban, fulltime beggars were being dropped off to the various centres and picked up in evening.

(Abridged)

P Dillon, Tauranga

Assisted dying bill needed

Thank you to the Rotorua Community Trust for the service of remembrance, which they hosted.

Sadly, not all deaths can be remembered as peaceful, despite the best palliative care, and my own mother was one.

She would have welcomed the passing of the End of Life Choice Act, which (in very limited circumstances) allows an application for assisted dying. The End of Life Choice Act Is to be the subject of a binding referendum at our general election on September 19.

I would like the trust to consider its position if the referendum results in the Act coming into force, and current polls suggest that it will.

Overseas, more and more end-of-life facilities are opting to provide a dignity sanctuary room, in which families can be with their loved one who has chosen to have their suffering ended under the End of Life Choice Act.

I hope Rotorua will eventually get one also. By the time they are ready to die, patients are in no condition to be moved. (Abridged).

Sue Reynolds, Tauranga

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