Letters to the editor: Healthcare focus needed if Government wants to stand a chance of reelection

If Labour wants a win in 2023 it should focus on healthcare, a reader writes. Photo / 123RF

If this Government wants any chance of being re-elected next year, it will need to abandon all divisive policies that are tearing us apart.

For a start, I would recommend they direct their time, energy and our taxes to bolster our ailing medical and hospital infrastructure, something that will benefit us all.

Ian Young

Pāpāmoa Beach

Loans, levies and rates

Here we are, parts of Tauranga ripped up, we’ve borrowed to our limit, increased rates until everyone’s eyes are watering: so, we can’t borrow any more, right?

Well, no. The government will lend us $175m (News, December 6) which (now get this) won’t appear on our balance sheet.

There’s more - rates won’t increase. We will be charged a levy until it’s repaid. Oh, that’s all right then, we will hardly notice it. Just a levy. And it’s not really a loan, it’s a new government tool designed to get around the higher interest rate we would pay if it went on the balance sheet.

Dan Russell

Tauranga

Living cost concern on the money

Creative thinking by the Reserve Bank is always going to be a big ask.

The mindset is to raise the OCR and consequently mortgage interest rates to temper spending, reduce inflation and encourage people to save.

John MacDonald’s column ( Opinion, November 25) is right on the button when he says: “I don’t think I can recall a time when there’s been so much concern about what it’s costing to live day to day in this country.”

The Reserve Bank wants people to stop spending money and save more which, in our opinion, indicates how out of touch with reality it is.

Those of us who are mortgage-free and whose children have now left home are in a very privileged position but we are no longer the future generation.

For young families in particular, who are desperately trying to pay mortgages, with increasing interest and rate bills, along with spiralling energy and food costs, such a statement is, in our opinion, insulting, to say the least.

These are the people whose spending centres on the absolute necessities of life: food, shelter, health and transport.

Surely those spending on luxury items, such as overseas trips, dining out, new furniture, new cars, and gadgets are either mortgage-free or in the upper tax bracket.

Therefore the raising of mortgage interest rates affects them very little and their spending can continue.

However, when almost all of your income goes to essentials and you are suddenly faced with even more to pay for these, what more can you sacrifice and how can you save?

G & G Parker

Rotorua