Western Bay of Plenty mayor Garry Webber has been appointed by Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta to serve on the newly established national working group with other local government leaders and iwi leaders to resolve sticking points in the Government's proposal for Three Waters infrastructure (News, November 12).
Letters to the editor: Reform group should say no one owns the water
Bay of Plenty Times
4 mins to read
Western Bay of Plenty District mayor Garry Webber has been appointed to a Three Waters reform working group. Photo / George Novak
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But that was simply dealt with by a grant from Internal Affairs, and didn't require what in my view is the kind of wholesale theft of council assets which the Government now proposes.
Margaret Murray-Benge
Western Bay of Plenty District councillor
Bethlehem
Why blame colonialism?
Why do so many Māori spokespeople blame colonialism and the system generally for the low vaccination rates for Māori?
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NZ has had Covid for nearly two years so we all have had ample time to make our choices on how to handle this new scenario.
Our imperfect Government affects all of us, and yes, the rollouts should have had more community involvement, provided they obey the rules.
Māori have had, and still have, many great leaders but during my lifetime I have observed a significant number blindly follow the wrong leaders. That is not unusual in any society.
A lot of Māori live in rural areas wherein it has been more difficult to become vaccinated than in the cities. However, the media never state the status of non-Māori vaccination rates in such areas so the real issue can be identified.
Remoteness brings a complacency which is sometimes good, sometimes bad.
Vaccination is a simple choice.
There are far greater issues for our poor and disadvantaged than vaccination.
Bill Capamagian
Tauranga
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Nazi comparisons noxious
Many thanks to Jo Raphael for another eminently sensible editorial, Stop comparing NZ to Nazi Germany, (Opinion, November 12).
Forty years ago, I spent six months in the company of a number of concentration camp survivors with tell-tale tattoos.
My Dad and two of my uncles served in the Second World War following in the footsteps of their fathers in the First World War, so I always had an interest in these conflicts and their causes.
One woman I met back then had a different story to tell.
When Hanke and her family were being rounded up, a Ukrainian SS soldier (let's not forget about them) took a shine to a gold watch she'd recently been given for her 18th birthday.
She refused to give it up so he beat her with his rifle butt in front of her family, stole the watch and left her for dead, in the snow.
She was rescued by local Polish neighbours (gentiles) and spent the rest of the war in one of the ghettos ready to jump out of her third-storey window if the Gestapo came calling.
At least she survived. Her entire extended family perished in the camps.
Not sure if it's simply a particularly noxious stupidity, but people who spout nonsense comparing our government and Hitler's Germany should be instantly disqualified from any civil debate about Covid.
Graeme Simpson
Rotorua
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