Letters: On healthcare workers, solar power, compassion and union-funded advertising

Is solar power the answer?

On Monday we read of both the “primary care crisis” (in the context of the tragic deaths of eight babies in the past year) and the strike of the association of salaried medical specialists (ASMS). Huge delays in casualty departments, loss of staff in Palmerston North where the “postcode lottery” has not been solved, drastic nursing shortfalls, many GP practices with closed books ... such news is published almost daily.

The recurring theme across the medical (and nursing) workforce is one of healthcare professionals having to go “cap in hand” to validate their worth to bureaucrats at Te Whatu Ora. They know not only that insufficient newly qualified doctors are coming through to assist them, but many of their numbers are either burnt out, retiring, or simply leaving for much better remuneration and far less stress elsewhere.

The current Government has been in power for six years. This is in fact the same time required for students to enter medical school and graduate as a doctor. And yet seemingly only in the past few months has the health minister realised that we must train more doctors to make the health system function properly. In reality, however, the extra 50 medical school places she is proposing is well short of what is required and amounts to little more than a public-relations exercise — and implies that she has simply not grasped the scope of the looming shortfall. National’s plan for a third medical school seems a better proposition. but the initial numbers planned will still fall short of the projected need,

Unfortunately, in prioritising the establishment of a monolithic structural entity, Health New Zealand, over the people actually working at the coalface, the incumbent government in failing to plan wisely has effectively been planning to fail.

What is most important? In the words of the Maori proverb: He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. It’s the people, it’s the people, it’s the people!

Dr John Kyle, Orewa.

Union-funded advertisements

Recent full-page ads attacking Chris Luxon were paid for by the Council of Trade Unions, whose funding comes from union membership fees. This includes fees paid to the various education unions whose members all received a taxpayer-funded $5000 bonus in their latest salary agreements. A bonus paid only if they were in the union and clearly meant to encourage membership and subsidise the payment of the union dues this membership requires.

What that means to me is a portion of my taxes, and yours, is being directed, via the Education Union and the CTU, to fund politically biased advertising. If any political donation machinations are to be investigated by the Electoral Commission, surely this is it.

John Denton, Napier.

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Letters: Struggling families, squashed bottom, National Party, ethnic divide, and climate change

Is the picture actually worse?

With an election on the way it’s ramping up again — political opposition parties playing the “law and order” card to try to scare the public into voting for them.

Admittedly, things don’t look good on the crime front, with ram raids and gang crime very prominent, but is the overall picture worse than ever? Certainly not if you look at statistics and compare today with times past.

I recently came across a Herald clipping that lists a litany of mayhem and woeful crimes worthy of considerable fear at the time it was written.

There is the whole bundle here: axe attacks on police; rampant sexual offending against children; offenders assaulting intellectually disabled victims; offenders getting away with millions in fraud; abused babies being found dead in their cots; assaults on police up 40 per cent in five years; trusted officials embezzling their charitable employers; disturbing numbers of teachers in relationships with their students; and so it goes on.

The date of the article I mention? October 9, 1996.

Chris Watson, Remuera.

ROI on solar power

Patrick Smellie’s recent review of domestic solar power was interesting but not entirely accurate. Being unaware (at the time) of the economic stupidity of installing domestic solar, we went ahead and did it.

Our average power bill “before” was approximately $300. Our average power bill now is about zero.

We started out with 23 cells and one battery and when we bought a PHEV we added four more cells and an additional battery.

One of our neighbours told us that the return on investment was not adequate. He was re-carpeting his house at that time. I asked him what the ROI for that project was. “It’s not the same thing”, he said.

I put it to Smellie and everyone else that even if you get a small return on your investment in solar power, it is a return. What other household expenditure does that? Lottery tickets?

I do now acknowledge that the environmental hype about solar power warrants use of the Greek noun hyperbole.

Bruce Rogan, Mangawhai Heads.

Numbers mean nothing

As Simon Wilson has rightly pointed out, political numbers will never describe the true reality of the costs that we face. There are plenty of examples to explain this; the CRL is the most recent I can think of. Auckland’s light rail is the next one that springs to mind.

Most of these fiscal assumptions are too hard to quantify with certainty. The best thing we can do in the lead-up to the October election is to remain ever vigilant, sceptical even. That way we can work out for ourselves what is fact, and what is fiction.

John Ford, Napier.

What’s going on?

Can someone tell me why we are being inflicted with a plethora of pedestrian crossings plus traffic lights plus speed humps — and I do not mean at intersections. The pedestrian crossings we already have are rarely used.

Greg Cave, Sunnyvale.

A matter of priorities

The opinion piece written by Dr Rodger Tiedemann makes for sobering reading in pointing out that medical treatment here often lags a decade or more behind other countries due largely in part to a lack of modern pharmaceuticals.

Politicians, though, have had no problems with handing out millions to flag referendums, gangs, rail and bridge projects that were never going anywhere. Surely the funding of pharmaceuticals that can now give up to a 60 per cent improvement to those in need should be a no-brainer and, as was pointed out, overall it’s not that expensive, it just needs a readjustment of funding coupled with sound management.

Transform the political wastage of public money into funding the health sector and we’d never look back.

Paul Beck, West Harbour.

Bin the charge

I expect that like many other residents in the east Auckland area who have paid their first rates instalment, which included the charge for the new food scraps recycling bin, find it galling that we have not, in fact, had this item delivered to us. Are we all entitled to a rates rebate? Hmmm, think not somehow.

Anne Parsons, Pakuranga.

‘A fundamental fault’

New Zealand’s 2023 elections have become meaningless. My understanding about politics was that the rich were conservative and blue in colour. In NZ these were farmers who voted National. This was a “right-wing” party. The poor, the workers, were represented by the Labour Party, which was red in colour and regarded as “left wing”. You voted blue or red. But then we got Greens! The Greens were radical environmentalists. Anything radical was deemed “far left”.

Today everything has changed.

The blues, the reds and the greens have all become centrist parties. Every MP in Wellington now follows the same agendas and accords from overseas so it’ll make no difference to the way I am going to be governed whether I vote blue, green, red or pinko.

Communist countries have become capitalist and, with the advent of pandemic emergencies, both styles of government have become totalitarian.

Not one of the aspiring political parties offers any change to this fundamental fault in our system of government.

John Veysey, Coromandel.

What will be taxed?

It is often said, with truth, that the devil is always in the detail. I have tried to find details of the Green Party’s capital gains tax online but without success. A recently published letter from a supporter asserted it would not be retrospective, but I have seen nothing to back that assertion.

I and many other older New Zealanders would like to know whether they intend to charge a tax on buildings (or other assets: Paintings? Jewellery? Antiques?) purchased 30 or more years ago.

Tony Turner, Pakuranga.

Tax cuts and lower wages

Why is it that our wages are always behind Australia? Well, here is a thought.

National believes tax cuts rather than wage increases are the best way to satisfy workers and keep businesses happy. In their last tenure, wage increases were kept to a minimum. On the surface this seems a reasonable strategy except for two major pitfalls: tax cuts means less government revenue so either indirect taxation is implemented or services suffer.

We suffer a brain drain as those with skills chase the pot of gold across the Tasman.

Senior doctors, for instance, know it’s probably now or never for their cause and that’s why they are on strike now.

The decision is not easy, but we need to look long term rather than just tomorrow.

Reg Dempster, Albany.

SHORT AND SWEET

On maturity

Perhaps it is a good idea to give 16-year-olds the vote. The behaviour of some election candidates is certainly identifiable and symptomatic in so many ways. Ian Doube, Rotorua

On pledges

Of the National Party’s eight pledges, about half do not have a measurable outcome and most do not have a time by when they will be achieved. Christopher Luxon as leader is lauded for his astute business skills. Sadly, these pledges are woefully lacking in key performance indicators, thus rendering them meaningless. Alan Johnson, Papatoetoe.

On strikes

My heart goes out to the striking doctors reportedly on a base salary of around $300,000 when the increase offered doesn’t keep up with inflation. It goes out even more for bus drivers and people on similar wages when 25 years ago, an hour of work bought four beers and now the same work buys two beers. Jon Eriksen, Newmarket.

On All Blacks

David Kirk (September 5) correctly observes that the All Blacks at the moment are missing the resolve and consistency that are essential if they are to succeed at the Rugby World Cup. Their challenge is to somehow discover the discipline and determination that the Boks displayed recently. Without this, they will flounder and fail. Larry Mitchell, Rothesay Bay.

On insurance

Compulsory third-party car Insurance seems to have disappeared from the agenda of every parliamentary party. I believe that each party should make clear its policy on this very important topic. Patrick Robertson, Hobsonville.

On care

September 5 was the anniversary of the death of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. In the midst of our political turmoil there is a line she spoke that I hope will be taken to heart by any party or politician with a heart and a conscience: “You can measure the worth of any government by the care it takes of its poorest citizens.” Kieran Fenn, Onehunga.