Letters: Culture a key part of New Zealand’s Olympic success; the high price of privatising our railways

Kiwi athletes during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. Photo / Getty Images

Team culture sets gold standard

In more than 60 years of watching the Olympics, I cannot recall any as interesting and exciting as the Paris Games. The television coverage was superb, the reporters and commentators were well-informed and generous (almost to a fault) in their support of our athletes. Never once did I hear the word failed – that used to curl my toes during the coverage of past Games.

Our success was based on many things aligning, but one that is probably underestimated is team culture and the environment the more than 200 athletes operated from.

With any organisation, culture is led from the top. The team’s Chef de Mission, Nigel Avery, and his staff should be congratulated for creating a culture that was embraced by each sport’s managers, coaches and support systems and, most crucially, the athletes. This came through in all television interviews.

A supportive culture breeds success, success breeds pride and this breeds more success.

Our nation is being weakened by many issues. A basic one is a general lack of pride; in ourselves, our family, our environment. Just as so many of our athletes were helped to excel by their team culture that generated pride and empowered their performances, perhaps we can be inspired by the fact that from more than 200 nations, probably only the Netherlands can match our 2024 Olympics success per capita.

Dave Norris, Mangawhai Heads.

Cost of privatisation

Back when Roger Douglas and Richard Prebble were inadvertently shredding the social fabric of small-town and rural New Zealand with their sweeping Rogernomic reforms, Prebble made the observation along the lines that New Zealand Railways was our biggest social welfare organisation. He was probably right, but NZR did provide the dignity, purpose and structure of meaningful work.

Similarly, in another public-to-private wealth transfer, the forest assets were later sold by the National, sending a lot of employment offshore and also creating market failures (as with the electricity market).

My primary school comprised up to 40% railway children, most of who went on to be outstanding people. In the years since we lost that relative quality blue-collar work, it has been seen as expedient to import skilled and not-so-skilled labour rather than invest in our own people.

With the incorrigibly unemployed, we are reaping what we sowed (or didn’t sow). If National is serious about solving this social problem, these people (hopefully a very small percentage) don’t need headline-grabbing Victorian-era style opprobrium, they need massive wrap-around investment in almost all aspects of their lives before any employer will look at them.

Andrew Moyle, Kerikeri.

Grim lessons

Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee claims that she has been dealing with the police and various stakeholders in the move to modernise our firearms legislation. I wonder if she has consulted the families of the people who lost family members in the Christchurch mosque attack? They are stakeholders too. The Christchurch massacre was preceded by one in Aramoana, where a similar weapon was used.

McKee needs to remember that the reason this atrocity occurred in New Zealand was because in Australia, Brenton Tarrant was unable to obtain the type of firearms he required. He was a member of a gun club and trained specifically for this type of atrocity. Chris Cahill is right – Nicole McKee must go.

Neville Cameron, Coromandel.

Project delays

Auckland’s 3.5km Central Rail Link has been in progress for eight years. In 1830, the US began building their first railway and, 30 years later, they had built 48,000km across every kind of terrain. They also constructed the 584km Erie Canal starting in 1817, with 83 locks and 18 aqueducts, in eight years. The equipment used was mainly pick and shovel.

Why does it take us so incredibly long to complete projects in New Zealand? Do we focus all our brains and energy on selling houses to one another?

Susan Grimsdell, Auckland Central.

Power move

Andrew Moyles’ letter (NZ Herald, August 13) ably summarises the mess our sham market in electricity has created for us. The answer is to declare the supply of electricity an “essential commodity” for all of us, regulate for that, including repossessing the portion Sir John Key sold off against our wishes, and then take the entire proposition to the nation in a referendum. As regards finance for that, well, Key did find enough money for his farcical attempt to change our flag.

Stan Jones, Hamilton.

Weighty issue

Apart from the weather, the single biggest cause of damage to our roads is the increase in weight limits for heavy vehicles. From a nominal 32-tonne limit with frequent dispensations of up to 44 tonnes , the maximum was increased by the then Transport Minister Simon Bridges to 50 tonnes. To bring the limit down again would be the most cost-effective way to reduce damage to road surfaces.

Bob van Ruyssevelt, Glendene.