Letters: Abolishing Three Waters a big mistake; Auckland rail woes; does NZ need snakes?

Auckland commuters were left stranded after multiple trains across Auckland Transport’s network were cancelled on Monday due to the heat.

Abolishing Three Waters a big mistake

Of course provincial councils are now having second thoughts about the coalition Government abolishing Three Waters.

Throwing the vital need to spend billions on upgrading the country’s ageing water infrastructure back on ratepayers was never going to work.

As Labour’s Kieran McAnulty points out, “instead of helping councils deal with water infrastructure, the Government’s kicking it back on residents and homeowners and washing their hands of the problem”.

Most councils have no way of paying billions for our failing water infrastructure repairs. Would ratepayers seriously entertain a doubling or even tripling of rates?

Yet many of these same councils loudly protested against Three Waters, which rightly put the burden on all taxpayers.

Abolishing Three Waters was a big mistake and it’s clearly dawning on many councils and voters. An act of ideological pique, like abolishing anti-smoking legislation, which will bite back hard.

Jeff Hayward, Auckland CBD.

Track changes

While Wellington might be grateful that KiwiRail has diverted attention away from their ongoing water deficiencies, we in Auckland have reason to be somewhat bemused by suggestions that our normal, temperate summer weather is too much for the iron railroad network here.

It would appear our nice European-built trains aren’t running on equivalent well-made tracks.

No, and it seems possible that the tracks haven’t been maintained as they should have been.

In many parts of the world, trains operate without issues in much higher summer temperatures than ours, and throughout freezing winters for that matter.

Is it too much to ask that our well-remunerated infrastructure execs fix this issue ASAP - or do we need to bring in experienced, professional people from Europe to do it properly?

Barry Watkin, Devonport.

Mind the gaps

When I was a lad, a long time ago, and travelled by train in England, the wheels went “clickety-clack” over the gaps in the rails. These gaps allowed for expansion in the hot summer days.

Does KiwiRail use this highly complex method to allow for heating rails?

I am sure trains in hot countries like Australia don’t have these problems.

Chris Blenkinsopp, Beach Haven.

History lesson

Helen Clark and Don Brash have advocated for New Zealand to retain an independent foreign policy while war rages in Eastern Europe and the Middle East (NZ Herald, February 13).

Eighty-four years ago another European war was being fought and in early 1940, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands all had independent foreign policies.

Perhaps Miss Clark and Dr Brash might like to explain to the New Zealand public how these six European nations’ independent foreign policies managed to keep them out of World War II.

Murray Dear, Hamilton.

China trade

I completely agree with Helen Clark and Don Brash’s comment regarding Aukus.

Why should we always rush to support the US in its endless pursuit of world control.

The Americans have bases all around China, I am not aware of any Chinese bases around the US. And yet they pressure us to stop Chinese expansion.

We will never have a free-trade agreement with the US, the attitude of its selfish farming lobby would never allow it.

However, we have a wonderful agreement beneficial to both China and New Zealand that, if removed, would lead to massive loss of income for our farmers and dramatically affect our quality of life.

Vince West, Milford.

Careless Chlöe

Correspondent Reg Dempster’s endorsement of Chlöe Swarbrick as the future co-leader of the Green Party (NZ Herald, February 13) needs to be taken with some degree of caution, despite her passionate advocacy for saving the planet.

She gets things wrong at times. One of these was her quip, “Okay boomer”, during a parliamentarian debate directed towards Todd Muller, a former National Party politician. Although this was regarded as clever and funny at the time, many people disregarded the fact that Muller’s birthdate does not in fact leave him in the boomer age bracket.

More serious is Swarbrick’s chant at demonstrations, “from the river to the sea”, in the context of the Israeli war with Hamas. It does not take much research to realise these words are contained in the Hamas charter and refer to the complete destruction of the Israeli state and its Jewish people.

We don’t need a politician who advocates genocide.

Bernard Walker, Pāpāmoa.

Reptiles v rodents

The warmer temperatures we’ve been having over the past couple of months have given pesky rodents perfect conditions to breed at will, to the extent that supermarkets are being targeted as food sources for them as well as us.

This happens in Australia frequently and as a result, many agricultural enterprises take an obvious and very cost-effective method of extermination: snakes.

They’re very efficient, cost nothing, make no demands on working conditions, no sick days, no holidays (or holiday, sick leave or overtime payments). They are introduced to areas where rodents wreak havoc and help keep the populations down.

Okay, some might be a bit venomous, but we don’t have to use them. Pythons are just the ones to get the job done.

Given a successful season, they will even provide the next generation of pest removers. It’s the perfect self-sustaining, eco-friendly solution. What could possibly go wrong?

Jeremy Coleman, Hillpark.