Hostages to fortune
Thank you for the editorial about Three Waters (NZ Herald, March 17). Co-governance is indeed the "elephant in the room" in Three Waters but also in the management of the Hauraki Gulf, regional parks, and the Tūpuna Maunga Authority (TMA). The latter has been operational since 2015
and there is an opportunity to observe the pitfalls. Co-governance depends upon goodwill and that has been absent in actions to date.
Although not in the approved TMA Integrated Management Plan, an objection to exotic trees led to their destruction on Pigeon and Māngere mountains. The replacement plantings on these maunga have largely failed.
Some residents of Mt Albert have protected 345 trees for more than 800 days. A recent Appeal Court judgment set aside both the TMA action and the non-notified consent issued by Auckland Council to purge the exotics. A good outcome but at a huge cost.
The iwi members of co-governance boards are not accountable to the wider community. Heritage assets, as at Owairaka, are subject to the arbitrary decisions of unaccountable members of the board. Co-governance in these terms gives a hostage to fortune. We must think again before entangling our water supply, our gulf, and our regional parks in it.
Harold Marshall, Mt Albert.
Continued aggression
As a young British soldier during the 1960s, I vividly recall standing beside the gigantic fence dividing West and East Germany.
As the Russian armies, during WWII, rolled across nations on their way to Berlin they installed puppet communist regimes that then became part of the USSR. Thankfully in the 1990s the walls and fences came down and many nations became free independent states again.
I am concerned with what is happening in Ukraine because Putin will not stop there. He may be content for a while to take all the Black Sea coastal areas and isolate the remainder of Ukraine. But he will continue to chip away until he has the whole of Ukraine under his control. He will then move on to other nations.
The one plus here is that this war has united other European nations as never before. During the past 20 years or so Nato nations, except the US, have reduced defence forces while Russia has been increasing.
There is also a lesson for New Zealand here as we have allowed our forces to fall to a dangerously low level.
Barrie Cavill, Henderson.
Opportune refuge
While New Zealand has offered to support a number of Ukrainian refugees, we have a severe shortage of accommodation for those already living in New Zealand. One answer might be to repurpose some of the MIQ hotels now being decommissioned from their Covid support role, to become homes for a year for Ukrainian refugees. The majority of these refugees will be women and children, so the hotels could offer a creche and English lessons along with accommodation. Parents could then be supported to work in some of our skill shortage areas. They would need to have appropriate visas to allow them to work, and the possibility of assisted family reunification either in New Zealand or back to Ukraine. Their situation is barely imaginable to most of us living in New Zealand, and this could be a practical way to help.
Caroline Miller, Birkenhead.
On the wards
Recent letters to the New Zealand Herald have commented on the current state of the nursing profession in New Zealand.
The removal of the nursing training away from the hospital-based training, which was an apprentice-type training; and placing the training in the Polytechnics, to my mind was one of the most foolish things ever done.
In the 60s, my nursing training was one of the most rewarding times I experienced in my life. We trained on the job, after a time in preliminary school and were paid for our work. It was not a huge salary but it was acknowledgment of our contribution. It also weeded out those who were not suited to nursing. Yes, we were given responsibility but most rose to the challenge.
Our ward sisters and the other trained staff, in the main, were supportive of us and our hospitals were run efficiently.
Perhaps it is time to relook at our nursing training.
Annette Stewart, Greenlane.
Raising expectations
Leo Molloy wants sprinklers to stop drunks and undesirables congregating at night in the central city. Social worker Aaron Henry says that hosing isn't humane and "better results would be achieved by giving those on the margins safe housing and the support they needed" (NZ Herald, March 22).
I suggest that there are thousands of Kiwis who would love to be given safe housing and support, unfortunately, they have to go out and earn it. I don't pretend to know the solution is but I suggest that raising an expectation that society will give anyone anything free is not a solution and probably contributes to the problem. Nothing is free and somebody has to pay for it.
Quentin Miller, Te Atatū South.
