You decide: Letters, 22 November

The Bay of Plenty Times welcomes letters and comments from readers. Here you can read the letters we have published in your newspaper today.

Exercise your right to decide who leads

With the election now upon us it is time to vote and I encourage everyone to do so.

To be able to vote is a privilege, not a right and we can see on the TV every night those who do not have this privilege.

If you choose not to vote you choose not to have a say in the way our country is run. If you don't vote you can't grumble.

This is a very important election for New Zealand as we stand at the crossroads of our destiny. The big world is no place for the faint-hearted and it looks likely to be another tough period/time going forward, and as such, we will need to make some tough decisions as a nation.

We all need to take full responsibility for ourselves and our actions and we all need to add value - to ourselves, to our families, to our communities and to our nation, in order to grow and succeed.

So go and vote folks and exercise this privilege.

Graeme Martin, Otumoetai

Devoy's grudge

Susan Devoy is still nursing a grievance regarding a thoughtless remark made by Winston Peters in 1988, when she was only 26 years old. She still remembers it vividly, and the extreme self-consciousness she says it caused her (Opinion, Nov 19) and it "dented" her ego.

We all have to learn that our perceived ego is our own responsibility, and it indicates our level of maturity. Nobody escapes, and some lessons are hard, and keep coming, but that's how we grow up, hopefully, unless we prefer to live in some Peter Pan existence. What is an ego, anyway, but a perception.

All these years, Susan Devoy. And after all the praise, admiration, not to mention the title granted you for your excellent record of success in your chosen sport, you feel it necessary to publish this now?

Obviously you hope to cause damage on the eve of an election, some sort of pound of flesh. Not very mature or gracious at this stage of your life, after all the recognition you have been shown.

And, as you comment, you are approaching the Gold Card years, courtesy of the man himself.

D Holm, Tauranga

Petty opinions

I find it abhorrent the way the TV, press and columnists exert their influence on the public these days. As if the rugby cup wasn't enough for their petty opinions, we are now being blatantly told who to vote for by some whose qualifications to vote, let alone express an opinion, leave much to be desired.

NZ used to be a proud nation with fantastic standards, which qualified it for the nickname Godzone. As we sink further into economic and social chaos, not helped by MMP with every little group wanting power and no leadership, God will have to defend New Zealand, as nobody else will want the job.

Send in the clowns.

Bonnie Leonard, Otumoetai

Lift the silence

I am heartily sick of having to witness the death of another infant at the hands of "not another Maori".

What is so sadistically wrong with this generation of Maori who pride themselves on aroha, te whanau, the kaumatua who are going to fix all these Maori problems on te marae.

The problems of infants put through a washing machine, twins killed off and "te koni silence" descends on the guilty persons.

The hero worship of violence Once were Warriors.

And we now have these radicals strutting around the country wanting everyone to vote for them because the white [man] treated us badly.

I went to school with a descendant of one respected Maori chief, Te Waharoa, and he came from a decent family and a great person to be with but all these radicals have turned me into a "red neck" and I don't like it.

There are some wonderful Maori people who are letting these scum desecrate the wonderful proud Maori race and we are letting it happen.

Come all decent Maori people, make these radicals be responsible for their reprehensible acts.

Where are these so-called elders who claim they can control and shame these rat bags of society?

Let's see if they can lift "te koni silence."

(Abridged)

Brian P Cotter, Mount Maunganui

Mistake? Oh no

The enterprising photographer left his expensive recording device secreted in an innocent-looking cloth bag on the table in the tea room and turned on to record "by mistake/inadvertently".

Yeah, right.

Roly Hammond, Matua

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