Letters: Choosing New Zealand over Australia; praise for Luxon; the smoking decision

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Christopher Luxon continues to draw media criticism and doubt from media pundits, not to mention ongoing lampooning from newspaper cartoonists. It seems all he has achieved in his short time in politics means little to those who seek to deride.

His leadership has in fact been responsible for instilling discipline into a fractured and factioned National Party. He has modelled an ill-disciplined, ineffectual group of individuals into an effective political machine capable of contesting and winning an election. All of this in an astonishingly short time frame.

He then was able to form a Government from a less than favourable election result that required the cooperation and goodwill of three political parties, all of whom had to accept compromise on a range of their policy priorities. Again, the parties involved in coalition talks were disciplined in maintaining confidentiality throughout.

The leadership skills shown to date are a strong indication that an enduring coalition will be successful in achieving the goals set.

George Williams, Whangamatā.

No snakes, spiders or crocs

With reference to “Is the grass really greener over the ditch” (Herald on Sunday, November 26), many years ago I was given a chance to work and live in Brisbane. I turned it down for the following reasons:

In Auckland, I’m only 30 mins or less drive to many beaches, Waitākere Ranges Nature Reserve, many volcanic summits to climb, lots of bays for fishing and boating, green grass, not brown in colour, no snakes, big spiders or crocodiles, three big public hospitals.

Tiong Ang, Mt Roskill.

Smoking decision

I am aghast that the new government intends to allow people to smoke because it needs the revenue from smoking tax to fund its own tax reduction policy. I recall Nicola Willis and Chris Luxon assuring us that funding for its tax policy was rock solid, and had been verified by experts It seems strange that it is now having to endanger people’s health to fund its policy. It also seems strange that the policy was adopted by Nicola Willis with the full support of the Act and NZ First Parties. It appears the government’s Minister of Health, Shane Reti, had no say in it.

Laurie Wesley, Birkenhead.

A matter of choice

So Ayesha Verrall is disgusted National “aims to fund its tax cuts through enabling more children to start smoking”. Under the Labour Government vaping was widely touted as a way to quit smoking, and that it was not for children. But Labour with its lax rules around vaping actually enabled young children to start vaping and consequently become addicted. Pot, kettle comes to mind. We all have free choice and whether a person starts smoking, or as we’ve seen, vaping, that’s entirely their choice.

Lorraine Kidd, Warkworth.

A different view

Sasha Borrisenko (NZ Herald, November 26) bemoans the spread of mis/disinformation while citing in support of her opinion comments from the Disinformation Project. This organisation continues to receive Government funding despite the fact that its research is not rigorous, not objective, driven by anecdote and “story-telling” and uses a critical theory approach to its material. It is of doubtful authority.

Borrisenko impliedly criticises those who wave the “freedom of expression flag”, missing the irony that she benefits from freedom of expression (and the press) guaranteed under the Bill of Rights Act yet is critical of what she calls “offensive rhetoric” which clearly is material with which she disagrees. Salman Rushdie said that without the freedom to offend freedom of expression ceases to exist.

Borrisenko refers to the Harmful Digital Communications Act and suggests Netsafe can seek an order from the District Court. It cannot. Applications to the court must be made by the person suffering harm from the communication after having approached Netsafe. That is plain from a reading of the Act.

Finally, she invokes the Department of Internal Affairs’ seriously flawed Safer Online Services and Media Platforms discussion paper. Hopefully this body of work will go no further but rather than introducing another agency that would place restraints of communication, some simple amendments to the Harmful Digital Communications Act will provide some added assistance to those who suffer harm from online “keyboard warriors”.

David Harvey, Epsom.