Letters To Editor: Five star 'motels' for prisoners

Five star 'motels' for prisoners
Referring to the front-page photo of the rooftop protest, June 8, by five resident criminals. It makes me sick to see these prisoners protesting over whatever, also showing their lack of intelligence. Why would you be unhappy living in five-star accommodation, everything laid on, bed, three square meals, TV, further education etc, chicken sandwiches - the lot.
It infuriates me after watching Close Up the night before, to see our country not being able to pay for medicine to keep a very sick lady with two children alive because it costs too much, yet we feed these prisoners, clothe them, keep them fit and healthy just to let them back into society to commit more crime.
We must stop this liberal approach to these losers and get tough. Our justice system is a joke and these prisoners on the rooftop are the only ones laughing.
I don't know about you people out there but I want a decent future for my grandchildren.
Prison authorities should have made them stay up there on the rooftop for two or three more nights before letting them back into their motels.
Let's get tough.
John Hogan, Napier
Power of the sea
Keith Newman, spokesman for residents group Walking On Water, is laying it on pretty thick in his promotion for publicly paid sea defences at Haumoana.
Having witnessed in graphic detail the awesome power of the sea during the Japanese earthquake and with the ongoing threat of sea rise through global warming, it is inconceivable to expect anyone other than those who willingly chose to buy or build in Haumoana, to foot the bill for what would be a complete waste of money.
A similar exercise was tried in the 1970s on the Raumati beaches on the west coast above Wellington, but long before any knowledge of global warming, the sea inexorably took them away and in addition ate into the coastal properties.
At best, even if Groynes are effective, they are not altogether environmentally friendly as they create a problem known as terminal groyne syndrome.
This prevents the natural longshore drift of materials from being deposited further down the coast, thereby creating problems further down and aesthetically they are extremely detrimental.
Having worked in construction for many years, I was always conscious of building or buying within close proximity of the coast, rivers, flood plains, under and on top of cliffs/hills, landfill etc, etc.
Nature will always win and in my view doing nothing is the natural way of dealing with this issue.
Caveat emptor, the latin for buyer beware, is a term not used these days, but it has never been more relevant. Ken R TaylorFrimley ParkMarineland an assetIt's a shame Marineland had to close, I am from Belgium but live in Napier now and I think it should be reopened.
I've been to Marineland in south of France, also called Marineland and really did not have the feeling those dolphins were sad and in bad shape.
It would also be a plus for the city who could do a lot more with that Marine Parade!
The city should find sponsors and support the whole project!
Noel Remacle, Napier
Undemocratic
I do hope that your correspondent Richard Edmunds, with his claims about the "undemocratic" nature of MMP, isn't about to suggest a return to FPP or a change to its close relative, SM.
Those really are undemocratic systems (in the 1984 election, one of the last held under FPP, the New Zealand Party gained 12.3 per cent of the votes, but no seats).
How undemocratic is that?
If Richard Edmunds feels so strongly that constituency candidates should be excluded from entry to a party list, he should note that there is an independent review of MMP associated with the referendum later this year.
This review is intended to assess if there should be any changes to the way that the MMP system works. Maybe a submission to the review body might help to alter those aspects of MMP that so concern him. (The Electoral Commission in its 1986 report in fact considered the question of dual candidacies in some depth, and the idea of excluding constituency candidates from the list was one of the options mentioned at that time).
Improve the performance of MMP by all means, but please don't revert to a dinosaur non-proportional voting system.
Anthony Johnson, Hastings
Power dividends
I read with amusement the large advertisement in the Hastings Leader with National MP Craig Foss telling power consumers to shop around for a cheaper deal from the power companies when not very long ago Gerry Brownlee the National Party Energy Minister told the state-owned power companies he wanted an increase in the dividend paid to the government.
More smoke and mirrors from the National Government.
R Diskin, Flaxmere