ASB announced an increase in rural floating rates from 5.80 per cent to 6.06 per cent. Photo / Dean Purcell
Banks called out to show leadership
Corporate New Zealand has been gifted an opportunity to demonstrate genuine leadership by helping those in flood ravaged regions. Some, like Chris Quin and his Foodstuffs Team have just been outstanding. They didn’t need to be asked, they just got stuck in.
We’ve got banks that have made huge profits and other multi-nationals like IBM and Unillever, just to mention a couple, that do very well out of this country. Every single CEO of a corporation has now been given an opportunity to stand up and demonstrate true leadership. Will they?
The banks could start by forgiving the mortgage debt owed by people who have had their houses destroyed. It wouldn’t hurt the banks. Sadly that’s unlikely to happen. If it did though, it would go a long way towards restoring the faith New Zealanders have in our banks.
Boris Sokratov, Campbells Bay
ASB criticised
Julie Pearce (Herald February 17) asks if ASB Bank might offer some practical help post Cyclone Gabrielle.
Nah. In fact, the exact opposite.
They’ve announced an increase in rural floating rates from 5.80 per cent to 6.06 per cent!
I guess $822 million profit is not enough to stop them adding to the rural heartache we see in the media every day.
Peter Warner, Herne Bay
Super city unleashed
Recent weather events in Auckland have exposed the unfortunate piece of the Local Government Act that has allowed the Super City, the Auckland Council, to do pretty much as it likes since its inception. Many Auckland ratepayers believe that the former local councils managed infinitely better than Auckland Council’s CCOs and committees which make decisions about planning, infrastructure, transport etc. with little or no input from local boards and residents. In Auckland millions have been spent on designing unnecessary projects which haven’t gone ahead while basic infrastructure, the things that really matter, has been neglected.
Money has also been spent on Commissions of Inquiry into the Super City which in every case has shown the Auckland Council as dysfunctional.
As others have said, ‘We can do better than this’, and many will say ‘We deserve better than this’. The devastating weather events have highlighted major deficiencies in the Super City set-up.
It’s time for the Government to do something about it.
Susan Wann, Milford
Public money
If there was ever a time when those who ceaselessly demand tax cuts and who favour “small government” might change their minds, surely this is it.
We will need vast sums of public money and extensive government services to begin to address the damage wreaked by the cyclone.
Tax cuts benefit the rich, not the poor. Those who struggle need better pay and access to reasonably priced accommodation; to offer a tax cut on a miserably low income is an insult.
I hope the “new look” Labour government will commit to tax reform (maybe starting with a capital gains tax?) so that the burden is equitably distributed and New Zealand can be equipped with the services we all need, especially in times of crisis.
Andrea Dawe, Sandringham
Ageing infrastructure
Flooding from torrential rain exposed the inadequacies in Auckland’s ageing stormwater system and even if the council manages to replace it high rise high density housing will only compound the problem. Logically properties that contain six to houses per property and that amount of extra roofing and waste water from each will increase the water flowing into the storm water eight to tenfold into stormwater pipes that were designed for only one dwelling. Clearly such high density housing properties should increase the diameter of the storm water pipes serving them accordingly. Knowing how governments and councils work on the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff principle flooding in Auckland, as we have just witnessed, in the near future will be ten times worse from an inadequate stormwater system once high-rise, high-density housing is fully established.
By that time the government and council architects of such disasters will have either been hidden away somewhere in New Zealand’s backblocks or been given a sinecured posting along with a distinguished New Zealand citizen award or even worse a knighthood in some obscure commonwealth country where angered and thoroughly duped New Zealand ratepayers and tax payers can’t lay their hands on them.
Gary Hollis, Mellons Bay
Co-use the roads
After the cyclone maybe the need to build roading infrastructure that is able to accommodate all means of transport being cars, trucks, buses and cycling should be paramount and ahead of just building bus, cycle and pedestrian lanes.
Train people to co-use the roading network so that we can build better and more resilient infrastructure into the future.
Mike Baker, Tauranga
Core citizen services
Over the past 50 years there has been decentralisation of water, power, roads, sewage, and other crucial social services. In all cases these services have slid into disrepair and ineffective service.
The cyclone, while a one-in-30-year event still highlights the deterioration in core services which must be classified as essential living services to citizens.
My son is a masters in network economics, currently a senior manager in Marathon Oil, US. He has always argued these core citizen services are decentralised at peril of failure of service to citizens. Further, that to be decentralised the network had to be very big, otherwise operators are insufficiently profitable at delivering the service and hence crimp on maintenance.
Even in very large networks, like the US rail network, there are serious issues such as the recent derailment of dangerous chemicals, deep community concern, and the small to medium privately owned rail operator declines to meet citizens to discuss.
(Abridged)
Graham Little, Birkenhead
Grief comes in all shapes and forms
It goes without saying, our communities, our country is in devastation.
Please remember to have compassion, be empathic and take the time to understand the stages of grief.
Not only do we experience grief when we lose a loved one, but when we lose significant parts of our lives, our homes, our livelihoods, our pets, or when our surroundings are unrecognisable and for some out there right now, they are dealing with not one or two losses but many.
We have a long road ahead to recover and there are still a lot of people and families out there that have not been able to communicate with their loved ones, this can be very stressful, frustrating, physically, and mentally draining.
Remember to have compassion, Understand the situation, Know the signs of grief and be empathetic,
We have been through so much together already, we can get through this too,
Remember you are not alone, no matter where you are.
Kia Kaha New Zealand, together we can get through this
A very big THANK YOU to everyone who is out there helping.
Kaylee Van Kempen, Matamata
The new free open-air saltwater pool is already proving popular.