The New Zealand public received wonderful promises from politicians, especially from minor political parties. Photo / Chris Gorman
The New Zealand public received wonderful promises from politicians, especially from minor political parties. Photo / Chris Gorman
Letters to the Editor
Letter of the week: Holding parties to election promises
The New Zealand public received wonderful promises from politicians, especially from minor political parties, in the lead-up to the previous elections. Unfortunately promises given to the public are often not implemented when parties goes in coalition. I wouldn’t be surprised ifout of every 10 policies promised, only one or two are implemented, with the remaining policies being wasted promises. Such policy concession is unfair to the public. The solution? Legislation should be introduced by a ministry of regulation or the Electoral Commission to oversee election promises. If they are not implemented, the party should be penalised with fines and/or a ban from contesting future elections. Parties should itemise 10 policies during their election campaign to be implemented if the party becomes part of the next government.
Ilyas Patel, Remuera
Getting rid of tried and failed pair
Tweedle-dum and Tweddle-dummer (Labour and National) are at it again – dragging New Zealand down to their own pathetic standards. And now they are free to do it full-time. Their internecine scrapping is being conducted at the lowest levels – tax bribery, racial division, and the degradation of public services. Surely it is high time for Kiwi voters to rid themselves of these two hopeless tried-and-failed entities. Labour has grossly failed to use its rare absolute majority to make any genuine progress. National promises to do even worse. Only a vote for anyone other than one of them can drive change for a better future.
There is a desire nowadays for political parties to form a team of politicians that has gender balance. Why wouldn’t anyone want to ensure an equitable distribution of genders in parliament so that the most pressing issues of this country can be solved?
After the election, Labour won’t look back and regret that many of the promises they made are unfinished, they will look back and see many of their promises were never started!
Wendy Tighe-Umbers, Parnell
Justice quid pro quo
It amazes me that our lawmakers do not recognise a fundamental issue about serving out justice. It is laudable to offer opportunities for convicted prisoners to spend time in home detention, and that car chases should be halted if they become dangerous. But the quid pro quo for offering these concessions to lawbreakers is to balance them with additional and appropriate punishments should they be abused. Breaking home detention conditions should result in immediate incarceration with an additional, say, six months added to the prison term. Similarly, running from police in a car chase should result in an additional, say, six months prison on top of any other sentence imposed. The law is a laughing stock when concessions are made and criminals abuse them without consequences.
Nick Rowe, Greenlane
Repair cafe at the Durie Hill Village Market. Photo / Lewis Gardner
What a pleasure it was to read Diana Clement’s column about the repair cafes (HoS, August 27). The repair cafe brings to mind a mindset which was the norm when our parents had a shoe fixer, often in towns with less than 5000 people and largely on every continent. Shoes, belts, saddles and garments were fixed or restored to pristine condition for a fraction of their new costs. Repair craftmanship was just another trade. Those were the days when milk was delivered in glass, which was emptied, washed and returned for its next use. Nowadays the tide has not turned for the better. Our lifestyles, expectations and “time shortages” have turned us into consumption creatures, with little regard for what is being plundered from the Earth at a scale that is simply silly. Anyway, one of the main reasons why the entire repair trend is not easily scaleable is probably because of landlords’ necessarily high returns on properties, to make them viable to them. Renting a property to repair a few shoes, garments or appliances would be a recipe for failure in most smaller (than Auckland) urbanised towns. To re-sole a shoe at $25 would need at least 40 daily repairs, in order to pay for rent, compliance, materials, electricity and a mediocre wage or multiple wages, with little room left for a lot of discretionary spare change. A slow day would endanger all of the above payments. Rent-free property use would probably be the only option for success in times when living expenses are rocketing up faster than any income rise could keep pace with. Although our awareness of the mess we have created on Planet Earth is being raised, we are still a long way off turning our awareness into a sensible way forward. Luckily for the currently ageing generation, the youngest generations are nowadays being made aware of our present idiotic approach to consumerism, which hopefully takes the repair cafe culture from niche to normal. Let’s all get behind it!
Rene Blezer, Taupō
Irony of division
It seems somewhat ironic that the Prime Minister says he doesn’t want to be part of a Government with divisive policies. This is the same Government that prevented Kiwi families from returning to New Zealand, that encouraged us to dob in our neighbours, set the non- vaccinated against the vaccinated and introduced racially-based policies. This is as credible as Donald Trump self-declaring his own modesty.
Chris Moore, Newmarket
Show me the money
Politicians do not give us the real finance numbers, especially around election time. So the available government savings “discovered” by Grant Robertson will probably be about $8 billion. Grant has helpfully guided Nicola Willis to the “pot of gold” for National’s election spending proposals and robbed himself of the “where are you going to get the money from” argument. The real waste from Labour has been the $60b extra spent with nothing to show for it over the last three years. Meanwhile the Greens, in La La Land, merrily promise anything and everything to all, to be paid for by a wealth tax. David Seymour has cost Act about 3 per cent of their total share of the vote with loose lips, which will boost National’s vote, so a change of government is still on the cards for October.
