Letters: On police accountability, GST, and failed road upgrades

Letters to the editor. Photo / Unsplash

Say nothing and don’t look stupid

You have to question the collective wisdom of Beehive Diaries (HoS, August 20) with Adam Pearse awarding Chris of the Week to Chris Hipkins, where nothing he did hit the sweet spot — heavily criticised by all (including the silent Labour Ministers) for the announcement of the removal of GST on some food and vegetables, followed two days later by taking back the savings with increased fuel taxes. Surely Chris Luxon won by saying nothing and leaving it to Nicola Willis? Could this be the game pattern for the next seven weeks for National? Looks a winner.

Gary Carter, Gulf Harbour

Can GST on all food

Correspondents are complaining that removing GST from fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables is not enough to make a real difference to the poorer sections of the community. Therefore what should be done is copy Australia, where there is no GST on foodstuffs and no income tax on incomes under $18,000, which is all paid for by a capital gains tax.

In New Zealand’s case, the first $20,000 should be free of income tax, but there is no way this will be implemented by National/Act, whose sole aim is to reduce taxation for the wealthy, and not worry about the financial stresses faced by the poorer sections of the community.

David Mairs, Glendowie

Share election donations

How can our elections be considered fair when some parties receive millions more in donations than others?

Wouldn’t it be fairer for parties to share all donations equally with the other parties? Or at least for some sort of cap to be applied.

Otherwise it’s just another case of those with the most money having unfair advantages — a bit like the proposed congestion charges — the wealthy won’t be affected, just the poorer folk.

R Howell, Onehunga

Prices fuelling inflation

Increasing the price of fuel by 12 cents per litre will really help to bring down inflation. Yeah, right.

Chris Elias, Mission Bay

Tax missing from low-emitters

If the Government spent all the money already taken under the guise of road tax there would be no need to increase the road tax to build future roads .

The other road tax income they are missing is all the tens of thousands of EVs and hybrids running around paying no road tax .

Jock MacVicar, Hauraki

Cops must be held to account

There is something fundamentally wrong with our justice system when the detectives involved get away with planting cartridge cases in the Arthur Allan Thomas case and now changing witness statements in the Alan Hall case.

In this day and age it is simply not good enough for various ministers of police to serve up meaningless platitudes pleading forgiveness for those involved in this despicable behaviour wrecking the lives of these individuals and their families.

There seems to be a pattern of police behaviour in this and other well known cases. Only a Royal Commission will ensure the police officers involved in these cases are held accountable for their actions. If not, the general public will quickly lose faith in our justice system and will wonder if there are other similar cases that have been “swept under the carpet” and will I be next.

Bruce Tubb, Devonport

Time to change priorities

Having read the latest Verian Poll conducted by TVNZ News on the next government’s priorities, I feel rather discouraged about the future of our country. A total of 62 per cent of those polled consider cost of living and crime as the most pressing issues to be addressed (48 per cent and 14 per cent respectively), while climate change and education (7 per cent and 3 per cent respectively), are way down the list of priorities needing attention.

Cost-of-living crises are driven by trying to distribute rapidly diminishing resources to a growing population, caused by various agencies including wars, climate change and the greed of those who want to exploit the situation to their own benefit. It’s a global issue, not the fault of the incumbent NZ Government.

I suggest educating those who choose to ignore, deny or show complete disinterest in the most important and immediate threat to humankind in the history of the world should be at the very top of the list.

The evidence is already showing itself profoundly in the northern hemisphere. It can’t be too long before we in the south feel the worst of it as well. Let’s get our priorities right before it’s too late.

Jeremy Coleman, Hillpark

Roading upgrade falls short

So, after many years, and many, many millions of dollars, they’ve finally declared the roadworks on SH1, north of Taupō, finished.

Apart from reducing the passing lanes, and installing their beloved cheese-cutter barriers, what have they achieved?

Absolutely nothing! The road is in a worse condition than it was before they started. It’s uneven, bumpy, and has clusters of potholes spreading across it faster than a case of pox.

Whoever signed this off as acceptable, needs to be fired, because they’ve failed in their job.

But this is representative of the crap attitude towards roading, which is endemic across New Zealand, from the head of NZTA down to the person on the stop/go sign.

Brad Kelly, Morrinsville

Give kids chance to run show

The undue haste in which Kieran McAnulty’s Bill was ushered in recently reducing the voting age in local body elections from 18 to 16 with minimal debate shows again this Government’s total hypocrisy at its original claim of being the most open and transparent ever.

However, upon closer inspection there is a genius at work behind this apparent sleight of hand.

If 16-year-olds are able to vote at local body level then the natural progression would be to get them to vote at national level which doesn’t show McAnulty as being much of a genius as most 16-year-olds would probably vote Labour given their current lack of education.

The genius lies in its inclusiveness, a quality which politicians on all sides of the House are desperately trying to show in this day and age where it’s not the quality of candidate that counts but the diversity of the party’s line up.

If 16-year-olds can vote then they should be able to run for office.

We currently have a geriatric running our biggest city and also running the most powerful country in the world. So why shouldn’t 16-year-olds at the other end of the age spectrum be given the same opportunities?

Bernard Walker, Pāpāmoa