Watercare told us they do not rely on funds from the Auckland Council and from the meeting we could see they do not report to the council. Watercare are presently trying to sell land around Exhibition Drive to Auckland Council when it already belongs to the people of Auckland, maybe to pay for this new treatment plant.
Barry Birchall, Oratia.
Automatic age adjustments
It is remarkable that a timid proposal to raise the age of eligibility for superannuation to 67 over 20 years is attacked politically from all sides. This shows how unrealistic and poorly informed are our policy debates on funding national pension rights.
National Super is a political football because it suffers from such evident design flaws that it needs constant "tweaking" to make it sustainable. The most robust public pension schemes internationally are those that are contributory and that use actuarial principles to estimate age of eligibility (funding years of life left, rather than an arbitrary cut off at 65).
Other countries have made the transition to a financially sustainable and socially equitable contributory scheme over time and without much fuss. The Cullen or Super Fund provides us with the vehicle. Adjusting age of eligibility on actuarial principles would be a logical adjunct to the contributory principle. We just need a consensual mechanism that allows us to make this transition.
Peter Davis, Compass research centre, University of Auckland.
Park on berms
I think all Aucklanders should start parking on our ridiculously wide berms so suburbia could have two-lane streets again. We all have to tentatively creep out of our streets, looking left, right, left, right to make sure we don't get mowed down.
Everyone in every house on every street seems to have that third car that has to park on the road. Even in a new housing area like Stonefields, the parking on the streets is pathetic. Little bays that can fit in two cars so they can fit in the Pohutukawa trees. Anyone who has lived in the Eastern Bays knows Pohutukawa roots ruin drains and their leaves never break down.
Susan Lawrence, Kohimarama.
Flipping houses
Your Wednesday front page story about a young couple upset over the reselling of their property on settlement date gives the impression the activity is illegal. The buyer didn't commit any crime by finding another party willing to buy the property at a higher price on settlement day.
The couple was happy with the price they got. There is no justification for their complaint. The second customer didn't come from their agent but from the original buyer. Reselling property on the same day is no different to reselling shares in the stock market. It is not illegal and should not be on the front page.
George Lim, Remuera.
Vultures
Done and dusted indeed. Would you please stop referring to these vultures as investors? If I buy a Lotto ticket and win, that was not an investment. Just because it makes me a profit does not mean it was an investment. The vulture caused and profited from causing inflation. The burden of that inflation is borne right across society, thinly spread out and eventually measured and announced as inflation. This Government could stop this madness now. Why oh why does it not?
John McConnell, RD Silverdale.
Cruise terminal
We were fortunate recently to join an Australasian cruise on the Ovation Of The Seas but we both felt humiliated and ashamed when we visited our home port of Auckland where the ship was unable to berth at our wharves and was forced to stay mid harbour and use its own life boats to ferry people ashore.
Compare that to minor ports in New Zealand and other lesser-rated international ports we visited that do have wharfing facilities.
While the Nimbys of this world have the right to their own selfish point of view, I ask the "thinking" people of Auckland what right have this selfish minority to hold the rest of Auckland to ransom and deny us the pride we could have in what our city offers international visitors as the gateway to New Zealand?
Not to mention the millions of additional tourist dollars that could be generated by better and more modern wharfing facilities.
Paul Gillespie, Windsor Park.
Foreign-owned hotels
Brian Rudman let himself down with his xenophobic rant in Tuesday's column. He implied it was okay for the Auckland Council to impose huge rate increases - of up to 300 per cent - on owners of commercial accommodation across the city because they were mostly foreigners.
Auckland, and New Zealand, needs foreign investment. This investment creates economic activity and jobs. It is extremely distasteful to talk about those who choose to invest their capital in our country in this way.
And Rudman's assumption is incorrect. The majority of Auckland's 300 or so commercial accommodation properties are owned by New Zealanders. Local or from overseas, they are providing a vital part of Auckland's infrastructure and deserve to be treated fairly. This proposed rate is not fair.
Chris Roberts, chief executive, Tourism Industry Aotearoa.
Like bull fighting
In the Herald on Wednesday there were a number of photos of Moss Burmester smiling having killed a 163.4kg black marlin. He described the killing as "epic". How sick. That beautiful creature of the deep was killed by spears like a Spanish bull. We condemn whaling, we should condemn this senseless sport. Please do not publish any more photos or articles on this sick practice.
Judith Browne, Little Huia.
Dying community
It would appear that one of the scams operating in one or two retirement villages to watch out for is 65 year olds lured into them for the good life only to find a year later they are surrounded by large numbers of 80-plus-year-olds.
The reason being greater profit is made by the quick turn over of clientele (the older the better). So the good life turns pear shaped and those with good intentions in their 60s are suddenly surrounded by 80-plus clientele either close to or in the process of dying.
Gary Hollis, Mellons Bay.
West Papua even worse
We are all shocked to learn of terrible state of rural health care in Papua New Guinea and good on the Herald for supporting the campaign to improve the situation. However, I cannot help pointing out that just across the colonial-era border in Indonesian-controlled West Papua, the rural health situation is even worse.
Four years ago a Dutch scholar (Stella Roos Peters) recorded the infant mortality rate of rural Papuans was 18.4 per cent, some six times higher than the rate for non-Papuans and far higher than the rate for the Melanesian people living in Papua New Guinea.
Last year the United Nations Population Fund confirmed maternal health in West Papua lags far behind that of the rest of Indonesia.
The UN body warned of a generalised HIV epidemic. This month seven Pacific nations led by Vanuatu called for the UN Human Rights Commissioner to prepare a comprehensive report, based on full access to West Papua and to all necessary data. It can't come soon enough.
Maire Leadbeater, Mt Albert.
Compassionate visitors' visas
While the Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse being less than charitable with the China visas - you get that with Nats - the children's plea you reported is full of teacher-speak. The letter writing seems to be a mass classroom exercise in terms of the syntax used by the children concerned, and to be an exercise in teacher-propaganda with the absence of the children's dissenting views.
Stuart Prossor, Parnell.
