Letters: Ruthless minister sackings create ripple of uncertainty; political twaddle on landlord tax breaks

Ministers Melissa Lee and Penny Simmonds were stripped of portfolios by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Illustration / Rod Emmerson

PM’s ripple of uncertainty

One has to feel some sympathy for the two women ministers in Government who were demoted because of perceived poor outcomes.

One wonders just how much direction and assistance they received in their roles, especially Melissa Lee as the media received the torpedo from their owners, not the Government.

The media is not a public service so it does not readily attract financial assistance from a government and if it did, it would be called a bribe. Many of the ministers will be new to the role and, taking the Christmas break into account, will only be settling into their roles with few outcomes achieved.

Being ruthless in business is said to be a good trait but when building a team, it can send a ripple of uncertainty into the mix. No doubt there will be several ministers that will require guidance and one would hope it is given.

It would seem that Christopher Luxon not only has an in-tray but a large bin for unwanted public servants and ministers.

Reg Dempster, Albany.

Political twaddle

Christopher Luxon’s claims about tenants receiving the benefits of his generous handouts to his already advantaged landlord mates, presumably by having their rents lowered a little, is just so much political twaddle.

With rates expected to jump by 25 per cent and house insurance similarly jumping 8 per cent in 2024, where does he think landlords will get the extra money required from?

This is just another example of ivory-tower thinking from the Prime Minister, believing the increasing numbers of his so-called bottom feeders, of whom tenants now make up an increasing and alarming proportion (40 per cent) of New Zealand’s population, were born yesterday.

Gary Hollis, Mellons Bay.

Economic growth

Minister Chris Bishop’s column on what’s needed to make a faster-growing economy (NZ Herald, April 26) reminded me of that hoary favourite, “if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got”.

In our case, an economy in decline. Bishop says “there are very few problems in New Zealand that wouldn’t be solved by a fast-growing economy”.

If he, Shane Jones and Simeon Brown were to do a world search for the fastest-growing economies, they would find the industries they rely on for growth are technology and IT-related, which require using our brains, not digging up the earth, scouring the seabed or any of those extractive, exploitative, climate-negative things the so-called fast-track bill addresses. That bill will surely accelerate our decline.

Over the past two or three decades, by far most of the world’s economic growth has come from working smarter and innovative thinking, not from doing what we’ve always done, whether it’s mining, fishing, farming or forestry.

Thankfully, Judith Collins is on the right track with this. It would be a huge relief if Bishop, Jones and Brown were to learn from her - and while they’re at it, stop talking to us as if we’re all stupid.

Gilbert Peterson, Whangaparāoa.

Wasting food

Food Rescue Kitchen is now showing on TV1. This is a programme about making meals from perfectly good food that is literally thrown out by supermarkets, probably just because they’re getting a new supply very soon.

Some of the food items saved in this programme are carrots, onions, potatoes, capsicums, leeks, spring onion, mushrooms, bread, celery, bacon and mince. All this food was going to go to waste. What an indictment on our society.

Thank goodness for this programme, which shows the huge waste going on in this country. Why can’t these leftovers be distributed to the likes of the City Mission and food kitchens, which will create healthy tasty meals for those who are hungry?

Please don’t tell me it’s because of some health and safety law.

Janet Boyle, Ōrewa.

Staggering increase

I read my Watercare magazine Tapped In recently. It contained news of scientists ensuring water safety, dams in Auckland guaranteeing water supply and efforts to protect native fish etc.

These are all worthy endeavours. However, it was only on the back page lower left that I learned that as of July 1 Watercare “may need to increase prices by up to 25.8 per cent”. This is a staggering price increase that is little more than price-gouging on the part of a council organisation that has a monopoly on water supply.

The good citizens of our fair city have, in my view, due cause to be outraged.

Stephen Alpe, Birkenhead.

T2 overkill

Recently on Te Atatū Road on the peninsula, Auckland Transport changed two lanes either way into T2 lanes. It’s a stretch of about 300 metres.

So no one was left in any doubt that they were indeed T2 lanes, they painted 15 T2 signs on the road, some only 5m apart, and erected another 15 signs on the grass verges. And to think our rates pay for this idiocy.

Laurence Mallon, Te Atatū.