Belt-tightening
What gives the councillors the right to spend money like water that (a) does not belong to them (b) that they do not have?
They are acting like a kid in a lolly shop with an unlimited amount on a credit card. Who is going to pay back, with interest, the $150 million dollar debt?
The ratepayer who will be paying thrice, once to buy the building from the NRC, secondly for the Hundertwasser construction, and thirdly a fee to enter the building. What a rip off for ratepayers.
In this time of recession the word is belt-tightening budgeting NOT spend, spend, spend!
Our footpaths are disgraceful.
Our harbour is full of sewage.
Our streams and rivers are dirty.
We do not need any more statues and monuments that give self gratification to the present councillors. Too many frills and spills!
Sack the council and elect councillors that will listen to ratepayer concerns, get back to basics and be transparent!
Marie Kaire, Whangarei
Misleading taxpayers over GE
Nobody likes to be misled by a political party on their stance on an important issue, prior to a major election.
Hence the annoyance of taxpayers who have learned (thanks to an expose in the NZ Herald) what the National Party is up to behind the scenes - investigating further undermining of already inadequate rules regarding genetic engineering in the outdoors.
Misleading NZ taxpayers regarding the GE issue is not acceptable, and of great concern to country folk like ourselves.
Our farming family is in the business of producing safe, clean, high quality food for discerning customers. These customers do not want GE. Our key markets undertake to buy non GM food products, and will not tolerate even trace contamination of GE.
And yet the National Party is working behind the scenes to investigate weakening already inadequate legislation which is likely to result in our biosecurity and farmers being more at risk.
The Ministry for the Environment (MFE) under the National Government (Minister Nick Smith) has a proposal out for tender to examine lifting the existing restrictions on GMOs under national legislation. This would only further the biosecurity and economic risks to New Zealand from GMOs.
The fact that the announcement as to the tender winner for the study is four days after the election makes it hard to believe that it is not a political decision and that John Key and Nick Smith "didn't know".
In the face of central government inaction on the GE issue,
we need our local councils to be strong and vigilant and not compromise when it comes to our farmers, foresters, orchardists and biosecurity.
We are very glad that Auckland Council "super city" and all our Northland councils are working constructively and collaboratively to investigate putting in place an additional tier of protection from GMOs, in the face of central government inaction.
But is Northland Regional Council doing enough? Where is the council's (and communities) precautionary GE policy (also known as a "provision") in the NRC draft Regional Policy Statement, currently out for public consultation?
The time has come for some concrete action from the NRC that will actually give effect to the council's precautionary GE policy, We were promised that a strong precautionary provision would be in the NRC RPS.
Has the NRC "forgotten" to include this important precautionary GE approach, which council itself proposed in the NRC RPS Discussion document released last year before Christmas?
Zelka Grammer-Vallings, Maungakaramea
(Abridged)
