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Time to raise the penalty for using phone while driving
I recently read that 50,000 mobile phone users were caught while driving, with zero penalty. That oversight is almost criminal with the lives it should save if our paltry $150 fine was imposed. It would be $7.5 million. If the sensible, life-saving Queensland fine of $1078 was imposed they would collect close to $54m. Why not do it?
Last week I received a speeding fine coming home from a tiring business trip doing 58km/h in a 50km/h zone on Hillsborough Drive where most cars drive at 60km/h. My speed would not kill anyone — unlike the risk to life from most of those 50,000 drivers.
Why do drivers not get a hands-free mobile? It stays in your pocket while driving and when it rings you just press a button on the dashboard and speak, unless on a very busy road or motorway in which case you can ring back later.
I wish the Honourable Michael Wood would fine those 50,000 just as I was for dangerous speeding and lift the paltry fine he raised from a peanuts $80 to still only $150 and make it $1000 from in order to save many many New Zealand lives. Just do it please!
- Murray Hunter, Titirangi
On the subject of Three Waters, commentators seem afraid to acknowledge the elephant
in the room.
The real cause of objections to the proposal is not the idea that the Government take over and provide the funds for three waters infrastructure, the real cause is the imposition of co-governance.
If the proposals had not included the Government's ideological commitment to co-governance and the unequal, undemocratic powers of veto and control that most observers believe this will allocate to an unelected "Māori elite", the legislation would have skated through with little opposition.
- John Denton, Eskdale
Why is it that New Zealand and Australia are the only countries that are making positive attempts at reducing carbon emissions and pollution?
The large countries don't seem to be making any great effort. For example, China currently has over 40 coal-burning plants under construction and India still uses a lot of coal to drive its power grid. Russia is up to all sorts of pollution behind the iron curtain and US just rolls along doing what US does.
Then we have the combined total of the African countries just doing their own thing without a great deal of concern for the environment.
What is the point of New Zealand and Australia getting so serious about carbon emissions and pollution when the majority of the world is just paying lip service?
- Jock MacVicar, Hauraki
Alice Soper (Herald on Sunday, August 21) is absolutely right when she says that sportswomen are not damsels in distress in need of "saving".
However, their participation and success in sport is only possible because of the female category.
Save Women's Sport Australasia has heard from women across New Zealand who have been impacted by the inclusion of male transgender people in their sports such as roller derby players, netballers, hockey players, cyclists, weight lifters, and mountain bikers, among others.
As one woman shared, "During one training, I was elbowed sharply in the stomach, knocking the wind from me, and on another occasion was held and shoved with such excessive force that I had a panic attack. All aspects of my physical and mental safety were ignored ... I never felt comfortable again and subsequently felt that I had little choice but to leave the sport which I had loved for the previous eight years."
This is what "kindness and inclusion" now looks like. Female athletes being forced out of sports they love because inclusion is considered to be a higher priority.
Sportswomen don't need saving but their category certainly does.
- Ro Edge, Save Women's Sport Australasia
The sentence for the "cowardly aggravated robbery" by two 24-year-olds on a 95-year-old man resulted in one getting 13 months and the other seven months of watching TV in the comfort of their own homes. The pair celebrated with their families with handshakes and hugs. "We got home D," one of the convicted criminals said to his mate, shaking his hand. What a proud nation we have become.
Larry Tompkins, Waiuku
Surely after such a heinous assault where a potential five-year jail term for two young thugs was heavily discounted, the reverse should apply whereby five years is the basic starting point and it ramps up steeply from there, not down.
Paul Beck, West Harbour
Might I suggest you do an interview with Chris Liddell about his time working for Donald Trump? It would be interesting reading.
And congratulations on the new HoS — a great Sunday read.
- Fenton Cooper, Northern Bays
Voting for candidates in the local elections will soon start and there is a lot of hand-wringing going on about some of the people who have put their name forward as a candidate. These people are regarded as being on the fringe of society, and in some cases, they have extreme views.
If people don't vote for a candidate they want, and voting apathy is generally a given, then their's no point moaning about the people who are elected.
- Lorraine Kidd, Warkworth
If Grant Robertson hadn't so emphatically and enthusiastically persuaded Christopher Luxon to scrap any ideas about embracing any of Brian Tamaki's inane political ideology would he have done so on his own account? I seriously wonder.
The fact that Luxon hadn't dismissed the idea outright in the first place should send shivers down the spines of the general electorate. The fact that Robertson talked him out of it gives much credit to him. Not often will an opposing politician give the other side sound advice. Robertson obviously believes the good of our country and it's citizens outweighs the flights of fancy of the politically naive and gullible.
- Jeremy Coleman, Hillpark
If National thinks the annual $135 million hit to KiwiSaver from GST on fees is a "day of shame" for the Labour party, what do they think of that day back in 2011 when they halved the annual government contribution of $1042?
According to their own PR spin at the time, the change would take $720m a year out of KiwiSaver back in 2015.
And that does not include the tax grab from introducing a tax on employer contributions, and cancelling the $1000 kickstart.
- Eric Skilling, Milford
Once again the media have seized on the most obvious headline grabbing "sound-bites" over the proposed tax on KiwiSaver without delving very far into the reasons for it.
Labour has been accused by its critics of not listening to the people. Surely, we should give them credit for taking notice and conceding it was a bad idea. That's what democracy is all about. The gloating and "gotcha" media commentaries are unseemly, shallow and quite frankly boring.
- Sue Rawson, Tauranga
The very small number of farmers who protested by driving their tractors across the Auckland Harbour Bridge know full well that they have so far escaped doing very much at all to protect the environment. They need to have a conversation with Pakistani farmers whose farms have been destroyed by the recent floods about the harsh realities of climate change.
- Bob van Ruyssevelt, Glendene
The 19-year-old disappeared without her wallet or mobile phone.