Herald on Sunday letters to the editor

Are Kiwis missing Winston Peters yet? Photo / Dean Purcell

Opinion

Why older generation needs to listen

A global happiness survey recently showed that younger people are less happy and more pessimistic than older people for the first time in the survey's history. This makes sense.

Between housing prices, student debt, Covid, increased job competition, longer working hours and wage stagnation it's getting tough to argue the future is looking as bright as it was in the past.

This is not right. The average Kiwi will say they want their kids to have a better life than their own. This is not the reality, the stats back this up.

My friends in their 20s collectively feel hopeless at the idea of living in the same level of housing as their parents have. My family home was bought for $480,000 and recently sold for $3 million. It's tough for people to put themselves in others' shoes, especially when your wealth increased 20 per cent in the last year.

But we need the older generation to listen and look at the stats. It's not just random people's living standards that have gone down, so has your grandchildren's future happiness.
Harrison Newton, Mt Eden

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Welcome relief

The recent announcement from Minister of Transport Michael Wood that the Auckland light rail project is to be fully reassessed is a welcome relief for Aucklanders.

Auckland is in dire need of fast, efficient and electrified rapid transit to provide an alternative to congested roads and to reduce carbon emissions.

The fixation with building light rail to the airport needs to dropped and instead the city needs light rail to run along arterial roads of the central city to Mt Roskill and Westgate, where it is really needed to provide more capacity than buses will be able to cope with as the city continues to rapidly grow with intensified development.

T Gray, Dannemora

Deeper respect

I have a deeper respect for Winston Peters now that Labour has relaunched its insanely expensive light rail campaign for Auckland.

I can hear him saying to every taxpayer: "Missing me yet?"

Stewart Hawkins, St Heliers