For example, the amount of money given to players in the LIV golf circuit is obscene. Call me old-fashioned but part of me pines for the amateur days.
Sport is now a business and needs to be managed as other businesses do.
If a roof is required at Stanley St (for two weeks a year!) then the ATP and the professional tennis players (and their ‘team’) need to manage that. It isn’t a taxpayer or ratepayer problem.
In reality, often we are being the lapdogs of professional sport.
Our focus as citizens should be to optimise the opportunities for us to participate and enjoy the benefits that sport brings to our lives.
Let’s adopt Sir Russell’s mantra, “At the end of the day kids want to have fun” and leave sport to manage its business.
Kevin O’Carroll, Windsor Park.
Empowering police
The recent and tragic death of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming brought into stark view the lack of respect parts of our community has developed for the police and other authorities. There has since been an outpouring of excellent ideas to rekindle this respect which I think warrants summarising.
As I see it, there are three pillars to rebuilding the respect largely lost through the Jacinda Ardern/Police Commissioner Andrew Coster years.
Firstly: Arm the police. Providing them with side arms will give them a huge step-up in mana and respect that will flow through to gangs and the general public.
Second: Re-empower the police. The Independent Police Conduct Authority needs to be pulled back from being such a rabid critic of police actions. Controls should still be in place of course, but for goodness sake make some allowance for the situations police find themselves in with abusive, spitting, physically difficult offenders. Not every situation can be reasonably dealt with “by the book”.
Finally, and echoing Paul Chitty’s letter (HoS, Jan 12 Jan) the judiciary must step up and apply more severe sentences - fines or incarceration - to guilty offenders.
How often do we read about repeat offenders of basic gun crimes or of those associated with already apprehended criminals? Clearly the sentences of the court are not even close to being a deterrent.
For those who believe we will simply fill more jails, look again at countries where deterrents are more severe. The deterrent effect is real - It will help reduce crime and let folk know that society does not tolerate bad behaviour.
So there are the three recommendations which I believe will work together to bring a badly-needed attitude change to our society. We have a country with spectacular opportunities and sadly, I see too many of our people refusing to toe the line.
Nick Rowe, Greenlane.
Respecting neighbours
That a single property in Hokianga St Māngere East had nearly 60 noise complaints lodged against it last year, making it the city’s noisiest property, is another example of the complete lack of respect a growing number of people have towards others (HoS, Jan 12).
One woman who was spoken to by the reporter admitted “she was no angel, often playing loud music until 3am”.
I wonder if she’s ever considered the impact her selfish behaviour has on other residents in the street. I’d suggest not, and quite likely, should she be approached about it, the result would be louder music for a longer time.
Unfortunately we can’t choose our neighbours - it’s just the luck of the draw.
Lorraine Kidd, Warkworth.
Burying woke
Correspondent Chris Parker seems to imply that (Canadian PM) Justin Trudeau, Auckland Transport bureaucrats and others are stupid by calling them “woke” (HoS, Jan 12).
Too many people, probably those on the political right, use the term ‘woke’ as an insult without actually knowing what it means. A quick search will find that woke is now defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)” and identified as US slang.
Chris is right. The political right is busy trying to bury anything that adversely affects its profits, and it seems to be winning. One only needs to look at the US, where the richest three people have the same wealth as the bottom 50%.
Our own Government is borrowing to give tax cuts that disproportionately benefit those earning the most, while at the same time effectively cutting the wages of those on the minimum wage (page 23, same HoS).
If ‘woke’ is finally buried for most of us it will be a sad day indeed.
Roger Alchin, Whangārei.
AI scams
The case of a woman losing $1.5 million in an AI-generated fake Brad Pitt scam is possibly unbelievable to most of us as to how someone could be so gullible.
However, this only goes to show how sophisticated those are, who are unscrupulous enough to use AI to prey on those who can only be described as being emotionally vulnerable.
The victim was aged 53, had a good job and so one would assume that she was mature enough not to fall for such a scam. Money continued to be wired even when it would seem obvious that all this was a rather doubtful enterprise as time progressed.
Unfortunately, AI-driven scams will only become more sophisticated, so there is a need for people to become more educated in becoming aware of the dangers of this growing problem.
Perhaps a good place to start would be to include it in the curriculum of subjects studied by students in our schools.
Bernard Walker, Mt Maunganui.
Tennis vision
Now is the time to bite the bullet and relocate the National Tennis Centre to a purpose-built tennis venue on the Auckland Waterfront with a retractable roof (HoS, Jan 12).
This venue would have easy access by ferry, rail, bike and plenty of car parking. It would be funded by a combination of public, private, business and wealthy benefactors. A series of national lotteries could be another source of additional funding.
Not one more dollar should be wasted reinventing the Stanley St facility. It is long overdue for Aotearoa to have a positive bold vision.
Bruce Tubb, Devonport.
