The Bay of Plenty Times welcomes letters and comments from readers. Here you can read the letters we have published in your newspaper today.
Oil-spill plan allows for drilling - a fact of life
Re Karina Williams (Letters, October 24).
We welcome all help cleaning up the beach but the rest of her letter regarding the oil exploration is not realistic.
I see Karina came from Taumaranui, so I doubt she walked here. I don't mean to be smart, but if she didn't walk here then oil was used.
The rescue vessels also use oil, and we cannot function without it. We have to live with this, and if we use it then, where possible, we need to provide our share of oil.
Instead of campaigning against exploration I suggest the attention be focused on more stringent laws that the oil companies have to obey, such as a definite plan for emergencies, plus all the equipment standing by for this.
In addition, a sum of money to be put up as bond (in our Reserve Bank) to cover all events.
An actuary can tell us how much this would be.
The problem with our spill was that although the complex action plan seems to have begun pretty quickly, the simple requirement (the oil tanker to remove the oil) did not leave Auckland for four days as the weather worsened.
The booms were not positioned around the ship. They said it wouldn't work; funny that they are using them now. Even if they hadn't worked 100 per cent, it would have saved some oil from landing on our beach.
(Abridged.)
P Dillon, Tauranga
Anti-oil hypocrisy
With reference to Karina Williams' letter concerning the oil spill from the Rena and the future of drilling for oil around our coast, the words hypocrisy and tunnel vision spring to mind.
Her obvious dislike for oil leads me to assume she travelled from Taumaranui either by walking, riding a bicycle or using an electric car - and I would put money on my assumptions being wrong.
She is a typical "nimby".
If there are going to be oil spills then she wants them to happen elsewhere while she still enjoys the benefits of oil.
Also, I don't suppose it has registered with her that she is causing pollution every day by just living in the modern world. But of course that doesn't count.
Lew Lawson, Papamoa
What a win
What a weekend, what a win. What a legend Stephen Donald is. Viva Beaver!
Twenty-four years, four first-fives and a one-point win later - the Webb Ellis Cup is ours.
Donald wore the trousers for his team and he had to, given his jersey was made for a small sheila.
A week is a long time in World Cups. One moment he is whitebaiting on the Waikato and the next minute he's kicking the winning goal of the World Cup. How cool is that?
Many of his knockers may have called him Donald Duck before he bagged the winning point, but forever he will be remembered as the Waikato Whitebaiter who fried the Frenchies.
We all have our highlights of this amazing World Cup. For me it was our own Tauranga Moana Takitimu waka coming into the Viaduct Harbour for the opening ceremony.
The icing on the Cup cake for moi, alongside the brilliant Beaver, was Po Atarau - Now Is The Hour, sung so sweetly by Hayley Westenra.
A fairytale ending to one hell of a World Cup.
Tommy Kapai, Tauranga
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The Bay could be short of 180 primary school teachers in 2025, according to projections.