National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis looks on as leader Christopher Luxon, right, remonstrates during Question Time in Parliament. Photo / Jed Bradley, File
Adversarial politics
It is possible one can be forgiven for being astonished that adversarial politics can come at the expense of the greater good of the nation. Is it that the public perception of a politician outweighs to them the greater good of a democratic society? During wartime in Britain, petty point-scoring and argument were replaced by a Cabinet drawn from the best from both parties. Today in New Zealand, we are also at war, this time with so many critical issues of the moment and of the future. Cannot contrary politicians forget the personal glory of point-scoring and nod-nod politics and do what Britain did so many years ago? The results there were spectacular.
David Stevenson, Howick.
Farce post
Can anybody seriously be surprised at the news that NZ Post is about to lay off some 750 workers? Since 2021, it has spent $15 million on rebranding (repainting) its fleet of vans, and over $150m on updating its mail distribution centres. Along with this expenditure, it has hiked the postage rate by over 15 per cent, whilst cutting back on delivery days and providing an abysmal level of service which can see (and has seen) a delivery time of over a month for a letter to cross Auckland. If you overload your expenditure, then alienate your customer base by overcharging and under-performing, there is going to be only one outcome.
David Bevan, Howick.
Surplus stock
Unbelievable. We have $160 million of Rapid Antigen Test (Rat) kits about to expire. This is in addition to the $312,000 of expired MMR vaccines dumped in 2022. What else have we spent money on that is not used in our health system due to expiry dates? Who authorised such a huge expenditure? It is us as taxpayers paying for this waste.
Lesley Baillie, Murrays Bay.
Expired debate
During the height of the Covid pandemic, both Opposition parties were baying at Labour to purchase more vaccines, Rats and PPE gear in their FOMO panic that New Zealanders might suffer due to global shortages. Now they are baying at Labour for having a “due to expire” surplus and calling the Health Minister out for wastage and overspending. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t, and now playing the unfair blame game in order to gain votes. No credit is given to the thousands of lives saved nor responsibility for the mighty push by the Opposition to buy all this equipment in the first place.
Marie Kaire, Whangārei.
Free-for-all
Jonathan Ayling asserts that “free speech is the antithesis of violence” (NZ Herald, June 26). My experience in Albert Park on March 25 was that free speech and violence can be the best of friends. Freedom of speech has to allow for people’s freedom to pay no attention when being spoken to. I assumed that most people hadn’t read Shon Faye’s book The Transgender Issue, so I went along to Albert Park with my little placard. As I watched from a safe distance, free speech slid effortlessly into a physically forceful suppression of free speech. In an old play, Tybalt says, “A word with one of you.” And Mercutio responds, “Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow.”
Arch Thomson, Mt Wellington.
Snow bound
I wonder what all those Act-voting skiers are thinking right now? Labour is acting more business-friendly than Act here, preserving the ski season on Whakapapa and Tūroa (NZ Herald, June 27), and keeping hundreds of jobs going as well. In the meantime, David Seymour says that he would have let this year’s Ruapehu season collapse - something apparently to do with leaving it all to the markets, as well as the mountains whose snow is being melted by the global warming that Seymour also wants to leave to happen. Oh, the irony.
Jeremy Hall, Hauraki.
Called out
The report that Nanaia Mahuta received a “dressing down” from her Chinese counterpart (NZ Herald, June 24) seems to have avoided any critical response from our media. It is outlandish that our representative should have to endure such insulting behaviour. According to reports, the tirade went on for an hour. Even if Mahuta doesn’t have the smarts to realise that the Chinese representative had gone way “off script”, her assistants should have. Surely a note passed to Mahuta: ‘’I think we should leave”, followed by action would have sent the appropriate message. She should then have told the interpreter: “Ask the minister to write to me about his concerns”. Having lived in China, I can tell you that cutting the senior person out of the dialogue would have caused considerable loss of face. The Chinese minister was clearly out of control and having been “fingered” by tiny New Zealand, President Xi would have had a hard job justifying his minister’s behaviour.
Rob Harris, Dannevirke.
Cycle of waste
After a very poor excuse for quantitative market research (internally conducted without the knowledge of the vast majority of the 40,000 local residents) and receiving just 80 responses from those informed in advance about the “research” (Bike Auckland & their associated acolytes) the Auckland Transport board voted 6-2 to approve wasting $28 million on Great North Rd “improvements”. After consulting almost exclusively with the “Bike Auckland echo chamber”, the decision to go against local residents and users and spend such a huge amount of our money on deliberately congesting such a major thoroughfare for no positive result is badly misinformed, a terrible waste of ratepayers’ money and a reflection on the poor make-up of the board. Let’s hope that Wayne Brown and Maurice Williamson have the governance nous to immediately refuse to provide approval to waste this $28m on a project that no one outside AT needs or wants to pay for from our rates. The money would be much better spent on a North Western Motorway busway.
Roger Hawkins, Ponsonby.
Handouts
The Government gives funding for universities to survive and yet, nurses who were educated by them and at the forefront of that pandemic battle relentlessly for better pay. One could argue that it is a further degradation of gender imbalance.
John Ford, Taradale.
Caterwauling
I see the protesters against the destruction of feral cats and other introduced pests in Canterbury are at it again (NZ Herald, June 27), complaining about “innocent” animals being killed for sport. The only innocent creatures in the New Zealand bush are the endemic ones, all protected by law but unfortunately, not from predators. I have yet to meet a vegetarian cat, possum, hedgehog or stoat, so these should be eradicated by whatever method is most effective. Even those introduced invaders which are vegetarian such as deer, thar and wallabies, threaten the continued existence of some of the world’s rarest and endangered species, through habitat destruction. Which animals would the protesters prefer to find in our forests? Kiwi, tuatara, geckos, giant weta, etc, or the cats and others which brought them to extinction?
Jeremy Coleman, Hillpark.
American flight
The notion that the Silicon Valley billionaires have bought land here “as a hideout from the ills of the world” was fine until Max Harris’ inference (NZ Herald, June 27) that motivating them was “the thought goes that NZ would be protected from the extremities of global trends of sea rise and severe weather events”. Wrong, sorry. They are in the main motivated to insure against political anarchy, a concern that is triggered by the likes of the Twin Towers, Donald Trump, and the Ukraine war ramifications - not escaping climate change.
John Pausina, Kohimarama.
On gangs
At least 65 years years ago, Keith Holyoake had some style: “We’ll confiscate their motorbikes.” That didn’t happen either. Just 15 weeks to go, fellas. Gerry O’Meeghan, Pāpāmoa.
On China
By travelling to Beijing in two of our “state-of-the-art” airforce planes, PM Hipkins, and his entourage of business heavyweights have given President Xi Jinping and the people of China, the very clear message that New Zealand is not a country to be trifled with. Philip Lenton, Somerville.
On Rattue
In his Winners and Losers column (NZH, June 27), Chris Rattue identified one loser, (rugby of course), one split decision, and a very impressive seven winners. Is it possible he is mellowing with age? Dave Murray, Grey Lynn.
On Russia
The hypocrisy of Putin and Prigozhin is breathtaking. Both claimed to have acted during the recent crisis in order to avoid spilling Russian blood. These two, who have sent tens of thousands of Russian men to their deaths. Sally Baughn, Hamilton.
On universities
When is a bailout not a bailout? Obviously, when Grant Robertson says it’s not. But we all know that it is. Mike Baker, Tauranga.
On migrants
Almost 100,000 foreigners settled here in the last year, but not one general practitioner. We don’t need more dairies, liquor stores or vape shops, we need doctors and nurses. C. C. McDowall, Rotorua.
Afterpay pushes for watered-down rules
In another article, somebody is calling for taxpayers to forgive beneficiaries’ debt, and wants a “respectful system”. We need a “respectful system” all right, that teaches respect for loans and respects that borrowers have personal responsibility for incurring debt and repaying it. A system that respects the taxpayers who provide the loans would certainly be in order. Afterpay is a trap and it needs to be regulated to protect those who don’t have the sense to realise the implications of failing to repay debt in a timely manner. Patrick F.
If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it. Buy now, pay later schemes are a disaster for people who are unable to keep to their payments. Anita W.
The “don’t-do-it” mantra has been failing for thousands of years. Welly G.
People missing payments is what these companies bank on. Mark Y.
For goodness’ sake, we need to get bureaucracy out of micro-managing people’s lives. Let people take personal responsibility and suffer the consequences if they don’t meet their obligations. The service provider would also suffer the consequences so, ultimately, it’s neither in the customer’s or the service provider’s interests to have a failure of performance. Let the market decide - banish the bureaucracy. Glen W.
I don’t see it as having a future, as what we have is an increasing lack of respect for the law. There will be an increasing number of people who will buy now - and not pay later. Andrew M.
The Wellington to Picton ferry had a technical issue and was being towed back to port.