Letters to the editor: Racial abuse damages Tauranga's reputation

Visitors to Tauranga were shocked by a tirade of racial abuse, a reader says. Photo / file

Racial abuse damages Tauranga's reputation

I feel I have to write this letter because yesterday long-time family friends from Hong Kong visiting Tauranga for the first time were confronted by an elderly couple who verbally abused them for being Chinese and for not parking correctly in a designated parking spot.

The racial abuse and verbal attack can only be described as an assault and has certainly damaged Tauranga's reputation, if not New Zealand's, in the eyes of our international visitors.

Not only were they shocked and intimidated, they were totally surprised as reversing into parking spaces is actually common practice in many first world countries, affording drivers much clearer visibility as they pull out into traffic, as opposed to reversing, often blind, into the traffic flow.

If this was so offensive to this senior couple who weren't actually affected in any way, why didn't they simply and politely explain New Zealand's accepted practice?

Our friends speak English fluently and would have been happy to listen. They are also excellent drivers.

Sadly, in ignorance, this silver-haired, Pākehā New Zealand couple chose to verbally abuse them, so incensed it seems, that the male companion was unable to contain his spittle.

How sad that we become so enraged over what is seemingly an honest mistake or misunderstanding.

Given that tourism plays a huge role in New Zealand's economy, such reactions can only serve to damage our reputation as a friendly, tolerant and accepting nation.

It seems that racism and racial stereotyping is alive and well amongst certain members of Tauranga's population.

Thankfully, we live in Rotorua, where multi-culturalism thrives.

Geoff Rudsdale
Rotorua

Government's responsibility to te reo Māori

The view of Maureen Anderson (Letters, September 22) that because te reo Māori is waning as a language, and is not supported by mainstream New Zealanders, it should not therefore be supported by the government, in my opinion, is misleading.

Maureen is ignoring the fact that in 1975, Parliament put the Treaty of Waitangi into current law, and since then mainstream New Zealanders have not wanted parliament to reverse that decision.

The Treaty requires the government to support te reo Māori because it is a taonga to Māori.

Regardless of what mainstream New Zealanders think, as long as the Treaty is law the government has a legal responsibility to support te reo Māori, and even though the number of fluent speakers of Māori may be waning, actual support for te reo Māori is still strong.

Peter Dey
Welcome Bay

Roading solutions needed sooner than later

In regards to the State Highway 2 protest: Their signs should have read the National government should have fixed the bloody road.

They did not make State Highway 2 safer.

The speed limit needs to be 85km/h, people are driving unsafely and following too close to other vehicles.

People who use the road to go to work in Tauranga city need park and ride areas at Ōmokoroa, Te Puna and Bethlehem.

A bus hub should be built in Tauranga City and smaller buses used to drop people off.

Around the city with 1200 to 1500 people going to the university in the CBD, there will not be enough parking for them and other people.

Buses will be needed to drop them off and pick them up and take them to the supermarkets.

Rail freight needs to increase, our roads are overloaded with trucks and cars, and people feel unsafe driving among trucks - so do bikers and tourists.

More road police are needed. Congestion and greenhouse emissions have to reduce, buses used would help to keep road maintenance down.

Hilary Burrows
Papamoa