Letters: Mental health, border checks, farmer protests and Rod Jackson

'The Prime Minister's purveyed simulacron of kindness and compassion appears absent when it comes to mental health.' Photo / Getty Images, File

Opinion

The anguish goes unheard

I guess we have all borne witness, generally in silence, to the broken promises of a billion trees to be planted; Kiwibuild; a capital gains tax; a liveable community wage; progress on child poverty; and light rail to the airport.
We have seen nurses striking; farmers protesting in the streets; and increasing violence in our society, more frequently involving firearms.
We have overburdened hospitals and an overwhelmed general practice, coping with 13.4 million consultations per year.
But to me the last straw has been to find hundreds of millions directed towards improving our dire mental health services, and that all the rhetoric about there being an immediate start, has been yet another lie. Not 5 per cent of the monies has been extended. For this criminal negligence, New Zealanders are dying, most particular our rural and farming folk - unsupported and in psycho-social isolation - and our adolescents who die at their own hands with their whole, vital lives still ahead of them.
The Prime Minister's purveyed simulacrum of kindness and compassion appears absent when it comes to mental health.
We need, with some urgency, a better way of holding our politicians to account.
We deserve better than this New Zealand.
Dr John Elliot, Kumeū.

Travel unchecked
We have just returned from a short holiday in Melbourne Australia. We already had our flight booked, and as it turned out, it was the last one out of Melbourne before lockdown and border closure.
As part of the conditions to get back into New Zealand, we had to have a Covid test, that had been done less than 72 hours before returning. We had to supply a printout of that test showing a negative result.
The cost of that test was $150 each, total $300. Imagine to my surprise that no one at the border asked to see that piece of paper to prove I wasn't bringing the virus into NZ.
Maybe Labour needs to work on border controls.
Christine Tate, Bucklands Beach.

Planet protesting
Your editorial "Our planet's howling in protest too" (NZ Herald, July 19) is a direct and informative statement of our planet's lack of care and attention by its inhabitants.
It's a statement which should be cut out and put in the pockets of all journalists to refer to when reporting from sites of frequent disasters. It would give us less of the wide-eyed innocent account as "one in a hundred years" (drought, fire, flooding), and instead refer to it as another change taking place to a protesting land.
It may also aid our Government to take more care and "properly explain reasons for changes and find practical ways to ease the burden on hard-hit sectors".
This statement does suggest however, that farmers knew nothing about it and feel hard done by, by being singled out. What we really need is to see it as another pandemic, but this time without a vaccine.
We're in this together and all beginning to suffer higher costs and intrusions from our changing lives. The reasons why should be well and truly known by now.
Emma Mackintosh, Birkenhead.

Expert view
Bravo Rod Jackson (NZ Herald, July 19). It is both refreshing and valuable to read an article by an academic citing material from his expert discipline to reinforce his view.
Too often there are opinion pieces written by academics on topics outside of their speciality, as if their stance should be heeded more than any other citizen.
Janfrie Wakim, Epsom.

Living proof
Rod Jackson (NZ Herald, July 19) painted a scary scenario and at last someone was prepared to put some numbers to the theory that we should learn to live with Covid -19. Ten thousand New Zealanders would equate to a small town being wiped out every year until the virus was eliminated.
Perhaps the writers of those reports and articles should be honest and headline them: "Living with Covid - the final solution."
John Capener, Kawerau.

Waiting game
How pleasant it was for me to read the opinion piece by Professor Rod Jackson (NZ Herald, July 19). The calm voice of expert reason was such a contrast to the whining we get from business who demand "certainty" or a "roadmap" from the Government when these terms are meaningless.
The end to the border controls will happen when it's safe.
The economy has never been stronger and unemployment hasn't been lower in two generations.
Mark Nixon, Remuera.

Words fail
Your correspondent Thomas Rae (NZ Herald, July 19), a retired schoolteacher, complains of replacing English with te reo for everyday terms and institutions.
New Zealand has three official languages, as I am sure he knows. So how does one language become more important than another? New Zealanders should be proud and embrace te reo, not feel threatened by it. We should have all been taught te reo while at school.
Another correspondent, Brent Cooper, complains that Jacinda Ardern is changing the name of our country to Aotearoa without a referendum. Such ignorance never fails to amaze me. As a 6-year-old, I wrote a song which I called Aotearoa, and that was in 1946.
Sharon Marks, Te Aroha.

Health priorities
Dr Lester Levy (NZ Herald, July 15) is quite right. Many diseases that consume the health budget are preventable if people were made more aware of causes.
Greater expenditure on public health information and strategies to prevent disease, starting with those of young age, would seem urgent if we are to contain future health budget blowouts.
Dr Graeme Woodfield, Hamilton.

Living history
It is pleasing that the Royal Society of New Zealand has joined many others in outlining the multiple inadequacies of the Ministry of Education's draft NZ history curriculum.
Given the increasing references to te ao Māori and tikanga in everyday life in New Zealand, it is salutary that the Royal Society highlighted the omission from the curriculum of the 600 years of Māori life, prior to European colonisation .
The Musket Wars by Ron Crosby, lawyer, historian and Waitangi Tribunal member, offers a vignette of what life was like for Māori in the decades preceding signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and would repay reading by all New Zealanders.
It is a chilling account of the longest period of warfare in New Zealand's history.
It is currently fashionable to decry colonisation. For many Māori, the rule of law that accompanied colonisation was the difference between life and death.
Cam Calder, Devonport.

Other ways
Reg Dempster's (NZ Herald, July 19) defence of the Government is misguided.
The big issue is that you cannot unfairly tax farmers and trades if there are no alternatives. It is quite simple: there are no electric utes.
To have a toll road, there must be a viable alternative.
Dave Miller, Tauranga.

Pier shaped
Did the designers of the new ferry terminal really think it through?
A mad dash of 30m in the rain to get aboard; no seating in the departure areas if you have to wait; the fancy departure area is no more than a wind tunnel.
I can only assume the job is not finished.
Russell Herbert, Bucklands Beach.

In a name
Your correspondent Brent Cooper (NZ Herald, July 19) doesn't seem to be aware that since Māori is one of our three official languages, there is no need for any mandate for change to enable the use of Aotearoa to refer to our country. Aotearoa is already one of our country's names.
The attempt (usually by older, white males like me) to resist the process of progress towards a genuinely multicultural, tolerant, unified and compassionate society in Aotearoa/New Zealand is futile. Such antediluvian resistance is past its use-by date.
A. J. Forster, Mt Eden.

Short & sweet

On Aotearoa
No disrespect to the Netherlands intended but I would rather have a Māori name for my country than a Dutch one. Julie Pearce, Matamata.

May I refer Brent Cooper (NZ Herald, July 19 ) to your paper of February 3, 2020 in which it was reported that the PM, Jacinda Ardern, did not favour using Aotearoa in place of New Zealand. Frank Tay, Papanui.

On Sideswipe
Top marks go to Sideswipe column. Each item (NZ Herald, July 19) had me chuckling. Thank you Ana. Keep them coming. V. Hall, Whangaparāoa.

On vaccines
"Massive boost": 370,000 Pfizer vaccine doses arrive in NZ. Woo hoo, we can get on and vaccinate another 3.4 per cent of the population. Andrew Montgomery, Remuera.

On Toa
I know where I prefer my taxpayer dollar to go: to keep the young orca alive and well instead of subsidising holiday returnees and seamen. A Parsons, Pakuranga.

On cheques
The collusion between all banks to eliminate cheques is a retrograde step and not to the advantage of customers. The first to break this cartel will be one I will support. D G Woodfield, Hamilton.

The premium debate

Living with Covid

No one is sensibly claiming we should have a plan right now that has all the answers and that we can expect to be able to roll it out without deviation. However, there are some things that can and should have been done within the bounds of any broad strategic approach that we were following, and haven't been. A coherent vaccination rollout. Early adoption of saliva testing. No jab, no job for front-facing border workers - months ago. Ingraining mask wearing into our culture. Don't sign in (for tracing), can't come in, etc. Greg M

No one likes this, but we like the experience of other countries even less. Let's hold our nerve. Alisa B

No one is asking for open borders - there is more to it than black and white. With some will and effort, MIQ places could be increased, and there are lots of additional safety measures that can allow a screened and staggered partial opening. Currently the ongoing failure of border staff testing and vaccination, the slackness of checking people returning from Australia and the slow vaccination roll out though indicates this Government is not able to deliver a more comprehensive, effective and efficient system. Potter O

The key blind spot of "learn to live with Covid" commentators is a failure to understand "exponential spread'". I just don't understand how people still seem to miss this point. Because we've (so far) been spared the worst of Covid, we've become blase about the risks. But we've only been spared the worst because of our restrictions and efforts. Barbara M

Such good sense. I'm just a little old lady from the North, but I simply cannot understand why everyone complains so much about how our Government is handling this situation. We are so lucky. It just takes patience and continuing to follow the simplest rules and getting vaccinated. Lily J

There seem to be a lot of naive people who believe we can continue to be locked away from the rest of the world. Covid is out there and is not going away. We will need to learn to live with it and the only way is to get as many people as possible vaccinated. Steve P

The experience of Israel is informative. Once the poster child for vaccination, now a surge in cases due to the Delta variant means masks and quarantine are making a return. Also it is said that around half of these new cases are vaccinated (most likely with Pfizer.) Not only do we not have a road map out of Covid, we don't even know in which direction we should be heading. Toni-Anne R