The Bay of Plenty Times welcomes letters and comments from readers. Below you can read the letters we have published in your newspaper today.
TODAY'S LETTERS
National tougher on crime, rest not so keen
I read with interest Lloyd Stone's letter (Your View, May 2). Like Mr Stone, I was very concerned by the facts relating to an offender granted bail as highlighted by the Bay of Plenty Times last week.
National proposes to further toughen the bail laws and has put out a discussion document on which public submissions are welcomed (www.justice.govt.nz/policy/criminal-justice has details).
Regarding law and order generally, this Government has significantly toughened things up. About 40 per cent of laws passed by this Parliament have been law and order-related and if I just refer to the specific matters Mr Stone has mentioned, we have moved to double-bunking in cells and have also passed the Three Strikes law toughening the parole and sentencing regime for the worst violent offenders. Readers will be interested to know most parties other than National and Act voted against these two measures.
Simon Bridges, MP for Tauranga
Let's face threat
Thanks to Mike Houlding (Your View, May 2) for challenging me to justify my statement about the standard of living of the developed world threatening the future.
There are many issues involved, but I will consider two:
1. We are consuming irreplaceable resources, some of which are rapidly being exhausted, leaving succeeding generations having to do without. Oil is the most dramatic item, but there are other minerals as well.
2. As we burn fossil fuels, our effluent is changing the planet in a way many scientists tell us will make the earth less inhabitable. The evidence seems to be with us now, but much worse is predicted.
So continuing to live like this will seriously compromise the living standards of future generations. Further, if less-developed people start to live as we do, as is their right, it makes the situation very much worse.
The point I made is that Anzac commemorates the way that we have been prepared to face threats to the future of our civilisation, but we don't seem to have that same commitment now.
Gray Southon, President, United Nations Association, Tauranga Branch
Dog act farcical
The Dog Control Act is a farce.
How many more people have to be attacked/killed before these vicious dogs are shot immediately after attacking someone?
Ridiculous that the owner has to agree the dog is "dangerous" before anything can lawfully be done, ridiculous!
Lorri Adams, Kawerau
Job for SPCA
How dare those sick people with nothing better to do than subject man's best friend to humiliation and ridicule by trying to make them something they are now? The SPCA should step in to make this an offence before it escalates.
S. Thomson, Bayfair Estate
Cup cash a waste
A couple of Bay of Plenty Times editorials last week have been fairly topical.
On the $36 million allocated by the previous Labour Government for an America's Cup Challenge, which in itself was silly enough, for the National Government to endorse it in the current economic climate was idiotic. The money could be better spent on Christchurch remedial work. The economy will get no mileage unless NZ wins the America's Cup. On the other hand, if NZ is unsuccessful it is a waste of money.
Turning to the recent Jazz Festival, it is accepted the organisers couldn't have predicted the Christchurch disaster, nor could they control the weather.
However, I think it wrong to say we must take a big-city attitude. In my view the event will continue to lose mana with its commercialism, and big-name, more expensive artists are not necessarily better - why not try to use more home-grown talent?
The festival, for what it's worth, was to some extent far more accessible and enjoyable a decade or so ago when it didn't try to be something it can never be.
Instead, it seems to have become an all-out excuse for a booze and nosh-up while supposedly listening to the music, at least that seems to be the case on The Strand.
(Abridged)
Rob Paterson, Tauranga
What future?
At last there is a party being formed that intends to put people's social and economic problems first.
They are promoting and organising upfront the politics of the underclass. In the meantime, talkback shows, the media and the red-neck brigade are having a field day belittling the organisation and running a Maori-bashing campaign.
So what if their leader is Maori, and as for spending taxpayers' money, the cause is the issue in question. We only have to cite some of the way-out recipients in the last year alone.
Never mind what the MPs receive of right, it is the legal non-taxable extras where the fiddle begins. The America's Cup, plastic Maori waka, the sporting arena, plus bailed-out finance companies, and who in the corporate sector are in receipt of shady loans?
As for our land and resources, we really don't know who owns what. In a low-wage economy, taxes have been increased disproportionately as the cost of living continues to rise. So much for the bright future and the broken promises.
Ross Boyte, Tauranga
Text Views
* Why send john keys 2 royal wedding where was nz maori king?
* The monarchy is outdated. Her High and Mighty Majesty was humbled 4 the 1st time in Her long life when She met the pirate Bill Gates.
* World cup vs strand car park. Great idea, lot of wasted space down there, there is also a lot of wasted space inside crosby head could use that to.
* More unemployable people out protesting re oil drilling should get a real job. Ar.
* Oil protesters- if these people able to protest they able to work so why arnt they at work doing some good for a change.
* I am appalled by the on-going dense insensitivity of judges in nz allowing obvious offenders out in society, when there r people "who will become victim/s" jrn of tga
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