Letters to the editor: Country gone soft on warrants and regos

The country has gone too soft in the area of warrants and regos, says a reader. Photo / NZME

I agree with Alister Blair's comments about the lack of car registration and warrants of fitness (Letters, June 23).

This country has gone way too soft in this area.

In my area, there are always parked vehicles with expired WOFs and registrations.
Imagine what these statistics must be nationally. It's a scary thought.

Surely, this is identified when vehicles go through toll road camera points.
I have also noticed an absence of roadside checkpoints for this sort of thing.

I thought with the amount of carnage on New Zealand roads having safe vehicles should be a priority but I suppose it points to the fact that our police have more important things to do with the resources that they have.

It is about time that those who make the rules see they are getting applied.

It's the old story again: Good citizens follow the rules and pay their dues while the rest have no respect for anyone - and there is a heap of them.

Jack Callesen
Mount Maunganui

Wonderful to see our jazz festival back up and running

Thank you to the Port of Tauranga for sponsoring this year's jazz festival.

In the middle of winter, and after such lousy lockdown and financial pressures, to have such a refreshing successful festival was just what we needed.

To the men and women who worked so hard to ensure that the festival was up to the usual high standard, we are all exceedingly grateful.

It was such a wonderful happy, quality event and we all loved it, regardless of the cold night air.

One of the highlights was the Tauranga Big Band players, who were outstanding. Seeing young musicians who had been with the band for a number of years was a credit to the teachers and leaders from schools such as Tauranga Boys College.

Ali Harper was another fantastic performer and her songs from Bert Bacharach were appreciated by her audience.

It was wonderful to see our jazz festival back up and running and long may it continue.

To see all this homegrown talent is quite amazing. I loved it.

Margaret Murray-Benge
Bethlehem

Special day

Matariki, our new public holiday has come and gone.

It was a special day, with roots in our past yet with relevance for today.

If only our Christian holidays of Easter and Christmas could again be similarly invested with meaning and relevance.

Don Campbell
Gate Pa

Thank you for pushing me

Ross W, Margaret M and Timothy T all made thought-provoking observations about co-governance and the promotion of Māori and te reo in a collection of responses to Liz Davies' column, What is fuelling the racial backlash to co-governance? on June 16.

Amidst all the current negativity about Three Waters, they were all so hopeful and forward-looking.

Timothy's ideas about learning a language were particularly convincing: that the value of knowing a second language lies not in the monetary advantages such as jobs and trade, but in the way that having a thriving national language enhances a society's awareness of its unique identity.

It is easy to be influenced by simplistic and outdated views, so thank you to all of you for pushing me to think beyond them.

Alison Richards
Ōtumoetai

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