Letters: Referee abuse, Chloe Swarbrick and job seekers

Sam Cane of the Chiefs. Photo / Photosport

Letter of the week: Boo a bad match call — not the ref

Credit to Sam Cane for calling out the online abuse of referee Ben O’Keefe. He called on the New Zealand rugby public to improve their attitudes towards officials. He should also have specified his own (Chiefs) fans. Disappointed and all as they might have been with the result, their booing of the post-match presentations was disgraceful. And it wasn’t just a few unruly individuals, the level of booing we heard on the TV came from a much larger gathering of people. Boo decisions or moments during a game by all means, but after match presentations, no way.

Phil Chitty, Albany

Swarbrick doesn’t understand work ethic

Shayne Currie’s talk with Chloe Swarbrick (HoS June 25) is insightful, idealistic and intriguing. It seems that Chloe joined the Green Party because of less control over her opinions like human rights, social contracts and a wealth tax. Green Party policies don’t feature much in the discussion, so the background of olive coloured pages does help the article. Not understanding Sir Ian Taylor’s point that hard work equals wealth is naive. Chloe has just turned 29, however some young persons do understand work ethic and hard work from an earlier age, and they are generally the successful ones who end up with better financial resources. Chloe is a bright and intelligent contributor to politics who understands that without an IQ test for parliamentarians we are currently suffering some very low standards of vision, performance and achievement in New Zealand. I wish that Chloe and the Greens would concentrate more on remedies for forestry slash and stopping bottom trawling in the Hauraki Gulf, both of which would improve New Zealand’s environment immediately. The current social engineering policies of Chloe and the “Greens” make them the “Greys” of New Zealand politics.

Gary Carter, Gulf Harbour

Farmers more aware

Heather du Plessis-Allan claims that it is good for the entire planet that our farmers held the line against starting to deal with their greenhouse gas emissions from 2025. She asserts that no other farmers in the world are paying what she calls a climate tax. A little research would have enabled her to discover that Dutch farmers have reduced their carbon footprint from raw milk by 35 per cent from 1990 to 2019 and that the EU has just approved a Dutch plan to cut emissions of pollutants by 50 per cent nationwide by 2030. The Irish government is looking at ways to reduce emissions from farming by a quarter by 2030 which could include a 10 per cent cut in its 7.3 million cow herd. The Danone multinational company which represents 58,000 farmers around the world has this year announced a target to cut its methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030. If National’s plan for farm emissions applies it won’t start before 2030. Heather du Plessis-Allen states that under the present plan here New Zealand would have to get rid of five per cent of dairying and 20 per cent of sheep and beef, which would be an outrage. Since the 1980s our national sheep herd has fallen from over 70 million to 26 million but sheepmeat export earnings have been stable. I believe that the growing number of farmers aware of the increasing potential for damage to their properties from climate change will be rather more willing to reduce their emissions than she thinks.

David Holm, Mt Roskill

Misplaced ideologies

For me and many others, this Government has done what many feel two world wars and the great depression couldn’t — break the spirit of the nation. Their misplaced ideologies, total lack of fiscal responsibility is beyond belief. Pandering to the wishes of the minorities instead of respecting the wishes of the majority as a democracy should be they’ve created divisions this nation’s never seen before. On the understanding they’ll be ousted in October, I suggest they go and hang their head in shame for the shambolic mess they created, then reconvene and put the Labour Party back to its core principles.

RL Bicker, Gulf Harbour

Rebate not important

Why are we bothered about a few dollars spent on Chris Luxon’s quite legal car rebate on his Tesla? This Labour government has had over five years to fix the failures in important areas such as education, health, crime, housing and infrastructure. To name but a few. Don’t worry about Chris Luxon’s car, it’s not as important as Labour thinks it is.

Michael Walker, Blockhouse Bay

Climate change hypocrisy

Just a thought, wander how many of the people who were lucky enough or who were hysterical about missing out on flying all the way to Australia for a three-hour concert are the same ones who were marching in the Climate Crisis protests or participated in the strikes for climate.

Adrian Shaw New Plymouth

Disaster looming

I would have thought road cones were the least of the ever eccentric Mayor Wayne Brown’s problems. Devonport, Belmont and Takapuna residents would love him to give the same attention to sorting out the traffic problems of Lake Road. The Council approved proliferation of three-storey townhouses/apartments on former one-storey single house sections means Lake Road and the adjoining feeder roads were never designed for this loading and are now gridlocked. This situation will be exacerbated when the 500 or so townhouses/apartment are built at the former Bayswater marina. This situation is “an accident waiting to happen”. It is only a matter of time before a climate change-induced, cataclysmic disaster event occurs on the Devonport/Bayswater/Takapuna Peninsulars with emergency vehicles including fire engines and ambulances having no way of getting through. If Mayor Brown has a mild headache trying to sort out the problems caused by our current climate change, induced disastrous weather events and overloaded infrastructure which is outdated and can’t cope any new disaster outlined above may give him a very bad, migraine which hopefully won’t be terminal for his knighthood ambitions.

Bruce Tubb Devonport

Incompetence staggering

A leading measurement and key performance indicator of the stability of any government is the hands-on experience of its cabinet members. The almost-weekly reports of ministers’ staff mismanagement, the steady stream of ministers’ resignations and consequent portfolio reassignment merely display, for all to see, the staggering levels of incompetence of the Labour cabinet. The instability of cabinet appointments means that the shortened times in the job, essential for competent ministerial performance results in further failures and kneejerk replacement appointments. Hardly a formula that voters can have any faith in.

Larry Mitchell, Rothesay Bay

Jobs aplenty

What’s the purpose of a job seekers benefit? Go seek while there are jobs aplenty. Start at the bottom. Show you can do a job. Job done. No admin, no taxpayer funds wasted. Just honest hard mahi will do the job.

Nishi Fahmy, Avondale