What unemployment?
This letter has been a long time in coming, but what really motivated me to put pen to paper was the article headed 'Fires inspire a waka project' (Northland Age April 17), where they could not begin to build the waka as to date no suitable kauri or totara log could be sourced.
I do not know about totara, but I see on a daily basis kauri logs being trucked on our roads bound (so rumour has it) for China, where they are to be manufactured into coffins (no less) for the Chinese influential.
How absurd is this? We must have a wealth of carvers, wood turners etc who can be gainfully employed teaching our unemployed locals so many crafts. We could create a wondrous work shop (old Pak'n Save springs to mind), actually make crafts here and not export kauri to China, where they make items which are then imported back here and sold at local outlets. Just how ridiculous is that?
To have a workshop here would be a tremendous tourist attraction, plus, as forementioned, provide employment. This could put a stop to the so-called Far North poverty (sic) which is bandied about in all the newspapers and television.