A patient has his patience tested during repeated appointments with specialists while still having no approximate date for his surgery. Photo / 123rf
A patient has his patience tested during repeated appointments with specialists while still having no approximate date for his surgery. Photo / 123rf
Candid admissions needed
It was no doubt interesting for readers to see your front page report on the intensive actions being implemented to improve our health system delivery. It would be more interesting to see a report on the efficacy of the “wait list attack” team Andrew Little activated abouta year ago. As one of the patients on this wait list for hip surgery, I have seen three surgeons in the last 18 months and finally attended a pre-op interview about a month ago. At no point have I had any indication of even an approximate admission date. Surgeons are very highly qualified and dedicated people and it would seem to me a waste of their time interviewing patients with no knowledge of admission times. The most informative and professional interviews I experienced were with triage physicians. To a mere patient, it appears these people would be better judges of priorities. I am not complaining because I know hospital staff are doing their level best but it would be great for patients to have better communication during a very stressful life experience. Let’s hope Dr Ayesha Verrall has it sussed. John Riley, Edgecumbe.
Shortchanged
Once again, nurses are compelled to take action, the latest pay offer from Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand manages to disappoint and anger the senior nursing workforce. Senior nurses; those with the experience, qualifications and skills Health NZ really needs, have again been betrayed. Te Whatu Ora offers nothing to address the short change we received in the last pay run. In simple terms, the highly qualified, experienced senior nurse in charge of the ward, emergency department or ICU looking after your family is taking home less annually than the registered nurses they are responsible for. These are the nurses Australia so actively recruits but Te Whatu Ora ignores and takes for granted. As senior nurses (charge nurses, clinical nurse specialists, nurse educators and nurse practitioners), our pay fades away with inflation and the cost of living; but our responsibility, staff shortages, and pressures increase. We love New Zealand and would prefer to stay but perhaps it’s time to travel to a country where post-graduate qualifications, experience, skills, and knowledge are valued. We won’t be lonely as we’ll be joining the other 5000 New Zealand nurses leaving for Oz to seek an employer who values our commitment and skills. Peter Groom, nurse unit manager & Helen Kinchley, clinical nurse specialist.
It is laudable the Greens want to assist low-income families, (Herald, 12/06). National’s derision is sanctimonious given it cut the top personal tax rates from 38 per cent to 33 per cent and to compensate, raised GST from 12.5 per cent to 15 per cent. Inevitably living costs for the poor became twice as much than the rich for everyday items. I am alarmed at the Greens targeting individuals earning $75,000. Do they understand a net income of under $49,000 has to cover increased costs in rent, food rises of 12.5 per cent and higher annual power bills? Also, if that income band is eligible for Working for Families, any benefit has been effectively eroded by inflation. Further concern is a proposed increase in the corporate tax rate from 28 per cent to 33 per cent. There are approximately 546,000 small businesses in Aotearoa representing 97 per cent of all firms. Why are the Greens trying to impede these companies who, historically, are the long-term drivers of growth in this country? I’m dubious about tax reforms proposed by two people who earn a base salary of $179,713, not including entitlements and allowances. Glass houses and stones come to mind. Mary Hearn, Glendowie.
Trump‘s record
If Donald Trump has “cortex disconnect”, as Emma Mackintosh (Herald, June 14) suggests, then let’s have more of it. Trump told Nato to start paying its fair share of European defence - and it did. He re-negotiated Nafta (US, Canada and Mexico) and the jobs returned, even though Obama said they had gone forever. The messianic Obama also told Trump that North Korea was his biggest foreign policy threat, yet within months the two were face-to-face in Singapore. Finally, could Emma tell us which Covid vaccine she received? Surely not one developed under Trump’s Operation Warpspeed? Rob Harris, Dannevirke.
Former President Donald Trump waves to media as he leaves his Trump National Doral resort on his way to appear in the Miami Federal Court. Photo / Jim Rassol, AP
Ill-fitting genes
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins could take National Party leader Christopher Luxon with him to China so that both leaders can talk to customers who have been buying our products. They can ask people what they really want from New Zealand. It won’t be gene-edited food. Jon Carapiet, Sandringham.
Make it click
The recent deadly bus accident in the Hunter Valley, NSW, north of Sydney, resulting in 10 deaths must be a wake-up call for Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency. If it is serious about its flagship safety strategy “road to zero”, surely the time has come to introduce the mandatory requirement for buses, including rural school buses, to adopt the use of seatbelts. On a recent express bus trip from central Tokyo to Narita Airport, the driver checked that every passenger was wearing a seatbelt before leaving the terminal. Exactly why New Zealand bus drivers and passengers are less vulnerable to road accidents and injury than other road users is highly questionable and should not be presented as a justification to support lower safety standards for buses. Bruce Eliott, St Heliers.
More work
Dan M of your Premium Debate (Herald, June 13) may like to know that going beyond does not pay extra. I had a job with a very reputable Auckland car dealership and in a six-year period, my hours - from 8am-5pm Monday to Friday with one Saturday morning 9am to noon every six weeks - went to 7.30am-5.30pm on Monday to Thursday, Friday from 7.30am-6pm and every fourth Saturday from 8am to 4pm. For this, I received absolutely no extra pay and was informed times were tough and if I did not like it, it could resign. So, I did. I left for less hours and slightly less money but did not have to manage eight other workers . If your employer can pay you the least amount possible so as to maximise their profits, they will. Jim McCormick, Gisborne.
Waste lines
Friday’s report (Herald, June 9) about New Zealand exporting thousands of tonnes of plastic waste to developing countries was most depressing. This obviously decreases the pollution in our country and makes us look good internationally but it increases the pollution in other countries. Surely this exposes the Government’s hypocrisy and double standards? Why are the Greens not pressing urgently for plastic recycling facilities here in New Zealand, instead of being obsessed with punitive taxes? There is a very real threat to New Zealand’s pollution posed by an everyday product that goes straight to our landfill in vast numbers: disposable nappies. Apparently, on a global scale, 300,000 nappies per minutego to landfills and take hundreds of years to decompose. In 2019, disposable plastic shopping bags were banned in New Zealand and from July 2023, other plastic products such as plates, bowls and cutlery are banned. Why not disposable nappies as well, especially as the normal towel nappies are not only cheaper but are easily machine-washed? Johan Slabbert, Warkworth.
As most of your readers will know, St Augustine shacked up with a woman in Carthage and had a son with her when he was a lad of 16. This was long before he was a saint, of course. In later life, St Augustine wrote a memoir called Confessions, in which he said that as a youth he prayed to God to relieve him of lust. His prayer was: “Lord, make me chaste”; then he added, “but Lord, not yet.”. I think that Christopher Luxon - if he prays, which is quite likely - says, “Lord, help me do something about climate change but, Lord, not yet.” When it comes to the threat of climate change, we must abandon the feeble qualification of “not yet” and bravely adopt “now” as our motto. John Howes, New Plymouth.
Policy hole
The new National Party agricultural emissions-reduction plan, involving tech solutions such as GMO research, rather than reducing stock numbers, has a logical hole that you could drive a dairy herd through. Forever, they have told us that if we reduce livestock numbers in order to reduce agriculture emissions, then production will move overseas to countries whose emissions efficiency is worse than ours; this would make global emissions worse overall. What puzzles me is how these other countries, where genetic modification is allowed, have higher per-animal emissions than in New Zealand where GMO research is not permitted. Surely, this suggests that their proposed tech solution doesn’t work but, of course, we won’t know that until some time way in the future. Once again, National is kicking the dairy can down the road, but this time their delaying tactic is sprung by their own illogic. Leslie Jones, Māngere Bridge.
Whine o’clock
Once again, Christopher Luxon is paraphrased and attacked. His full quote was: “We have become a very negative, wet, whiny, inward-looking country and we have lost the plot. We’ve got to get our mojo back... a lot more ambition and aspiration.” Luxon is correct. New Zealand has become a country full of people who think the world owes them a living and have an undue sense of entitlement. We need to get back to doing and achieving rather than whining and complaining. Mark Young, Ōrewa.
Youth voice
We are told we should trust the young to be the ones to know more and to know better on important topics because “they are idealistic and are unencumbered with the weight of the other considerations”. What of other considerations, such as facts and evidence? When “idealistic” young people glue themselves to roads, throw soup on famous artworks, or march for the end of capitalism and oil usage, filming it all on their cellphones, should we ignore the irony and the idiocy? Or should we embrace their claims that the world is going to end soon if we don’t stop driving our cars to work or the supermarket, and ignore all the scientific evidence and logic? Perhaps, a better approach would be to make sure our “idealistic” young people get a decent education. One that involves teaching them how to think, rather than the current penchant for telling them what to think. And perhaps we should look at raising the voting age. K A Benfell, Whanganui.
Predictable outcome
I see the police have apprehended someone after the attack on the Filipina girl. This will no doubt be a disappointment to all those critics out there peddling the line that crime is rampant and the police are not doing anything about it. A word of advice to those critics: give the police a call and tell them where and when the next crime is going to be committed. There you go, problem solved. John Capener, Kawerau.
Short & sweet
On Kāinga Ora
So, 10,000 complaints in 18 months and only three evictions. Megan Woods is happy with how Kāinga Ora is operating by working closely with tenants. Which tenants? Ian MacGregor, Greenhithe.
Kāinga Ora means “wellbeing through places and communities”. What about “wellbeing” of neighbours of unruly tenants? Ian Doube, Rotorua.
On hate
It is unreasonable to describe any assault as a hate crime, simply because the victim does not appear to be a New Zealand citizen. A crime is a crime, is a crime, regardless of the ethnic origin of the victim. Pauline Blithe, Karaka.
On TV
One advertisement on the box which really annoys me is the one with two parents racing to get their children to bed so they can sit down to a meal delivered by a major fast food company - a shocking display of parenting. Mike Jarman, One Tree Hill.
On Luxon
If Christopher Luxon thinks we are wet and whiny now, imagine if he ever got to be leader. The letters to the editor would be overwhelmed by the poor, the peasants and half the bleeding middle class. He needs policies that help all Kiwis, not just the very well-off. Rex Head, Papatoetoe.
On consultants
With the Auckland Council spending tens of millions of dollars each year on consultants and lawyers, it begs the question, what qualifications do the numerous staff on over $200,000 per year have? L Mallon, Te Atatū.
I’ve done okay in life, starting with nothing and working my butt off, mainly running my own businesses. I would love to sit back and enjoy my achievement without Chlöe making me feel like I am a criminal. I really dislike the tall poppy thing we have in New Zealand. Great article and can’t wait for chapter two after she responds. Sue D.
Back in the 50s - remember them? - I well recall one evening when my Dad was doing the family business (private hotel) tax return. I was about 16 years old and asked him how he felt about the tax that he would have to pay. It wasn’t a big business and it didn’t generate a huge profit but, with the hard work of my parents and their loyal staff, it gave us a living. I have never forgotten my father’s reply: “I am happy to pay my tax, it proves I made an income.” Michael B.
I’m okay with paying taxes. I’m not okay with the Government squandering a portion of it and then asking me for more. Jim L.
Paying tax on income, of course. Paying tax on unrealised assets, no. Clare F.
Family trusts overwhelmingly have nothing to do with “stashing money away”, “circumventing tax obligations”, or anything along those lines. They exist to protect assets from unreasonable claims that generally arise from circumstances outside the asset owner’s control. The wealth tax concept seems to be an idea that emerges from the “have nots” wanting a slice of the “haves”; those that have taken risks and worked hard to achieve. Confounding the latter with the former distorts the narrative, creating yet more division in society. Steve F.
