Welcoming the wealthy
Matthew Hooton's article (NZ Herald, July 22) on inviting rich people to invest in New Zealand in return for citizenship, is much more accurate than he probably realises.
I recently watched a BBC programme on the sale of EU passports to rich investors by the Cyprus Government and the
many ways people could make this happen, even if you have a criminal past and are generally undesirable. Money buys connections, who in turn get you what you want. Of course, it could never happen here.
Now New Zealand politicians from both Labour and National are arguing over whether being able to speak English is a necessity to enable people to do the same here. It appears that our lessons with citizen Yan, Karel Sroubek, et al, have been forgotten.
For me, the last straw in this silly debate was the claim that it would provide jobs. New Zealand actually has an employment crisis and needs to import workers.
Providing more jobs would only worsen the situation.
Neville Cameron, Coromandel.
Mishandled tenancy
It is spineless and utterly unacceptable for Kāinga Ora to not disclose the period over which their Napier tenant accrued $40,000 in rent arrears (NZ Herald, July 22).
The tenant is not identified and could not be identified from the period covered by the arrears.
In any event, it's almost certain that the hearing of the Tenancy Tribunal, at which the order as to those arrears was made, was a public hearing. Information disclosed' is now probably in the public domain.
Kāinga Ora is simply and mendaciously hiding behind the Privacy Act.
So, we are left to make our own assessment. The rent was most unlikely to have exceeded $250 per week. At that rate, it would have taken 160 weeks (about three years and two months) for the arrears to accrue. That means the tenantry was significantly in arrears well before Covid-19 became a management issue – indeed the tenant would have been at least seven months in arrears before the first lockdown.
To allow that to exist and escalate was probably unfair to the tenant and was most certainly unfair to the New Zealand taxpayer.
The minister in charge should demand honest answers.
Peter Newfield, Takapuna.
Mad dash
We, the public, apparently have become so annoying and expensive to deal with that most bank branches are now closed, and nearly all insurance offices likewise. Even government departments like Winz, IRD, and Immigration have shut most of their public counters; you must do everything online in the new age. Good luck, oldies.
But now, in perhaps the most dystopian measure imaginable, NZ Police have announced (NZ Herald, July 18) a new 40-person "outpost" opening in Auckland's downtown, with no public access. What?
So, if you're running away from a downtown knife-wielding mugger, just keep right on running past the new police "outpost" because "it won't be open to the public".
Charming.
Jim Carlyle, Te Atatū Peninsula
Water pressure
We now have the Government pouring more millions into the pot to persuade councils to agree to the Three Waters reforms. The extra funding would seem to me to be a direct result of pressure the Government faces from widespread opposition and also from within, as a powerful Māori caucus presses home its advantage.
There is no question that many (not all) councils have struggled to maintain water infrastructure to a satisfactory standard. The key reason for this is the local body election cycle where rates become the inevitable political football. Council expenditure is always constrained by the demands of the voting ratepayers to keep rates rises in check.
If the Government was genuinely focused on upgrading water assets, it could do so by simply setting up a fund from which councils could apply for capital grants for approved projects. Such a scheme would enable necessary upgrades to occur within existing local authorities and so remove the enormous cost of setting up a contrived and unnecessary governance structure tainted by accusations of asset theft, nepotism and power of veto.
George Williams, Whangamatā.
Chapter and verse
In the Bible, the book of Romans, chapter 13, verses 1-2 state, "obey the government for God is the one who put it there. Those who refuse to obey the law of the land are refusing to obey God and punishment will follow".
How then does Brian Tamaki (NZ Herald, July 25) reconcile his alleged belief in and service to God with the disruption and blatant disobedience of the laws of New Zealand, standing proud in his organising and leading rallies against them?
Jeremy Coleman, Hillpark.
