Letters: On Football Ferns, Auckland CBD shooting, crime, and transport

The Football Ferns celebrate their opening World Cup win over Norway at Eden Park. Photo / Michael Craig

Letter of the week: Niall Robertson

We are hardwired for short-term thinking. Therefore when I recently made comparisons between road and rail travel it was based on the potential of both, but very quickly there were responses based on the here and now, which is precisely my point. John Strevens and Al Corkin base their views on a system of urban sprawl whereby the nearest bus stop is 500-1000m away from one’s home and the same, or more, at the destination. A lot of lines in New Zealand are single track, but it is double track in the urban areas of Auckland and Wellington and as far south as Hamilton and as far north from Wellington to Waikanae. When I speak of capacity, I am speaking of urban use and pointing to the amount of arable land needed to build a railway compared to a road and, in an urban sense, what is the most efficient way of moving a lot of people around a city. Valerie Green-Moss says it all. She is a superannuitant who “must” rely on her car to go everywhere as there is no public transport for her. What I am talking about is investment, from now on, must be in the design of cities with more reliance on public transport. We believe that designing communities in ribbons, such as from Kumeu to Silverdale via Kaukapakapa, and from Silverdale to Albany, prevents urban sprawl and reduces the stresses of inner-city densification which can promote social problems. Ribbon development will create communities with a mix of high rise, terraced housing and where no one is more than a five-minute bike ride to a train and no more than 10-minute train ride to a supermarket. In the Northwest, the flood plain could be returned to a wetland to deal with flooding. However, we also need good passenger rail throughout the country. My point is that rail has been neglected in favour of roads. This needs to change now.

Niall Robertson, Public Transport Users Association chair.

Dream start

Wow! What an amazing start to the Fifa Women’s World Cup. In front of a record-breaking 42,137 spectators at Eden Park, the NZ Football Ferns beat a higher-ranked Norway 1-0. This was absolutely the dream start to what is the biggest women’s tournament ever held in our country. Hopefully our girls can carry on and beat the Philippines and/or Switzerland and progress out of the group stage. Guessing there will be sell-out crowds in both Wellington and Dunedin? Whatever the outcome I predict this tournament will be a huge success both here and across the ditch with our co-hosts Australia. Truly a dream start! Well done girls.

Glen Stanton, Mairangi Bay.

What a joy to watch the opening game of the Women’s World Cup and especially the complete absence of any protestations and harassment towards the referee.

John Norris, Whangamatā.

Downtown shooting

Firstly, commiserations to all those affected by the tragic events in Auckland. Following this very sad and unnecessary, tragic event in Auckland, surely the question must be asked about the Government’s policy of reducing the prison population through a greater use of home detention.

J. Porter, Taradale.

Ankle bracelet vs jail? This will create a lot of debate, especially given the violent history of the now-deceased perpetrator. Too much trust and hope lazily creeping into our justice system, and two good lives have been lost.

Glenn Forsyth, Taupō.

Am I wrong in thinking his parents let him down, and then the rest of us (society) also let him down? They, us, and ultimately himself let him down and the cost was not just his, his parents, and us, but the innocent victims of his disconnect from others and the unity that can negate the idolisation of self. So sad - and we are all in some way complicit.

B Neilsen, New Lynn.

Women and crime

It’s well known that poverty, racism, poor housing and unemployment underlie crime, particularly violent crime. Why is it then that there is a huge group in NZ that is poor, unemployed, lives in crowded, substandard housing, and is of Māori or Pacific origin, thus the victim of racism, yet commits few crimes, especially violent crimes. I’m talking about women, who commit about 5 per cent of violent crime, and less than 20 per cent of all crime. Women don’t seem to need to get their sense of worth from stealing cars and ramming them into shops. There’s plenty of research to help us understand why there’s this difference but I don’t hear politicians quoting this research at any stage when they rave on about reducing crime. If we don’t understand the causes, we won’t stop the actions.

Susan Grimsdell, Auckland Central.

Build jails if needed

Paul Cheshire (Letters, July 16) blames the rich (whoever they are) for the increase in the prison population together with Britain joining the EU for the closing of meatworks and the resulting formation of gangs. What rot! Having some experience as a contractor and supplier to the meatworks industry, it largely was the intransience of its trade unions and their total opposition to the introduction of new technology, Longburn for example. New technology and better ways of doing things is always evolving and the results have been a win for the largest proportion of the population, although it reduced the need for manual processes, typing pools and the now-extinct car and television assembling industries in New Zealand. The failure to adapt, the lack of discipline and breakdown of family values together with the opting out of education has contributed to some of our population taking what they want, illegally and often violently. Of course we need to have rehabilitation programmes in prison, but if more prisons are necessary to protect us until the message gets through, then build them.

David Hallett, Mount Maunganui.

AI in the military

We are terrified by the notion that AI is a new sentient being that will make weapons more dangerous to us. We have the Terminator series of movies reinforcing that idea. The reality is that human or human-programmed control of weapons is far more dangerous than AI. But we are humans so we find human control more palatable than having AI in control. Many modern long-range weapons use autonomous selection on final approach to their target. These weapons use non-AI systems that are weak at discriminating between friend and foe. Most anti-shipping missiles have worked this way for the past 50 years. They would make fewer mistakes if they used AI. Inappropriate targeting of civilians or friendly forces has been common ever since the bow and arrow was invented. In July 1988 the ship USS Vincennes used missiles to shoot down a climbing Iranian airliner, which the ship’s radar had identified as an approaching, descending fighter plane; 290 civilian plane passengers died as a result. An optical AI targeting system in the nose of those missiles would have easily detected the error and avoided the tragedy. We need to get real. Whether it is war, driving cars, or polluting the environment, humans are the most dangerous sentient beings on our planet.

Andrew Tichbon, Green Bay.

Hollywood strikes

It is sad to see scriptwriters and actors in Hollywood protesting at the use of AI in the production of many of our current movies. Sure, many will lose their jobs as many did in the past when we saw great leaps forward in the development of technology in the future. For instance, when the spinning Jenny first came around, it put many handweavers out of business. Kodak is a more recent example of technology wiping out photographic film developing. And I’m sure there were many stable boys and blacksmiths displaced following the development of motorcars. Sadly, this is called progress and many people benefit while others are left behind.

Dick Ayres, central Auckland