Human success
Thank you for publishing the story of Damien Colgan in yesterday's Herald. It's a great human success story, much more so given the difficult background Damien had to overcome to reach the place he is in now. And we are so lucky to have people like Maureen Little in our society to see the good in people like Damien and mentor them.
Alcoholic, drug-taking rough sleeper to having a degree, a family and five houses - astounding.
Alan Kemp, Herne Bay.
Street railway
The idea of trams on Auckland's narrow streets is the recipe for congestion of nightmare proportions. What happens to the businesses along Dominion Rd? How will a motor vehicle turn right into a sidestreet of Dominion Rd? How will the elderly and infirm get out to the middle of the road with their luggage to get on the tram? How will they get off and safely back to the footpath?
Where Dominion Rd meets the motorway where will the tramlines go? How will this colossal project be paid for? Will the fuel tax planned for Auckland, which now stretches from Wellsford to Pukekohe, have to be paid by those living in the outlying areas?
This idea has to be open for public consultation, but then, which parties became the Government wasnt.
Jim Radich, Hillsborough.
Not to the airport
I have used light rail for inner-city transport in cities around the world and have found it cheap, convenient and the trams having only a minimal effect on pedestrians and cars. However light rail to Auckland Airport doesn't make sense.
The heavy rail connections in Sydney and Brisbane work reasonably well with carriages large and numerous enough to handle a travellers suitcases and bags. Nevertheless, they are only lightly used.
I have yet to see a sensible business case for the planned light rail link down Dominion Rd, but believe that use by commuters for short distances and use by those travelling laden down with luggage would be incompatible.
If an alternative transport link to the airport is justified, then heavy rail via Manukau makes both economic and practical sense.
Don Bunting, Freemans Bay.
Westbound trains
The new Government will be wasting our taxpayers money on light rail serving no more than about 20,000 passengers (mostly tourists who have not paid their share) from the city to the airport and discriminating against east Auckland, forcing us to subsidise the poor souls in the west.
What kind of democracy is this when the Government takes from Peter to pay Paul and to further the pain gives us nothing in return. The east can continue to pay exorbitant fares to a listed company while the west can travel in the comfort and at the congestion-free speed of either trains or light rail. Punishment for the east for not voting Labour is obvious.
James Andrew, Bucklands Beach.
Long grass
The council has made a bad decision in adopting a policy of mowing when the grass gets to milk-bottle height. I live on the verge of the Tamaki feeder stream, upstream towards Howick from the Elim College on Botany Rd. I am 1.87 metres tall and the grass is currently 500mm tall with the seed heads turning over. Puha in the reserve is waist high.
Along with many other reserves I have seen, it looks appalling and is not an image Auckland should be proud of. If our mayor cannot afford to keep Auckland as a place of pride, he needs to increase the rates. The councils current provider of services needs to step up and do a good job.
Allan Bridge, Howick.
Economic wreckage
As an Australian who lived in New Zealand for five years in the late 90s and a very regular visitor since, I am in shock at the slender credentials of your new Government. Parallels with Australia are worrying.
In 2007 the Australian economy was in sound condition with all government debt repaid and yearly budget surpluses. Things were so good that the electorate decided it was time for a change and gave the reins to a self-declared fiscal conservative who turned the economy into a train wreck from which it is yet to recover.
Unfortunately, I fear the same will happen to New Zealand, which now has an economy that is the envy of the Western World.
At least Kevin Rudd said he believed in capitalism, whereas Jacinda Ardern has declared capitalism has failed. Socialism is wonderful until you run out of other peoples money to spend. Good luck, New Zealand, I feel for you.
John Mather, Mosman.
Child poverty
Child poverty does not exist in New Zealand. We are not Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia or South Sudan. Yes, New Zealand does have a problem with child neglect, violence and poor nutrition as a result of poor parenting and welfare-dependent families producing large numbers of offspring when they cannot afford the basics.
National has probably done the best possible job of reducing so called child poverty by reducing welfare dependency during the past nine years. It will be interesting to see if Labour can do any better. Jacinda Arderns new portfolio should be renamed Minister to Reduce Irresponsible Parenting.
David Pemberton, Rotorua.
Count all costs
Your editorials reference to the new Governments forestry planting programme as likely to add uneconomic costs to the country does not fairly reflect forestrys advantages.
The Crown Research Institute Scion has shown by repeated studies that once plantation forestrys benign externalities are properly priced and included - chiefly carbon sequestration, avoided erosion, and peak water flow reduction - and once dairyings negative externalities are properly priced and included - chiefly greenhouse gas emissions and the degrading of waterways by nitrates and phosphorus - commercial forests can be the equal of dairying as a foreign-exchange earner.
Not to mention plantation forests openness to recreation. Since the fair pricing of environmental effects, both positive and negative, is likely to get traction with the new Government, its time to revise easy conclusions on whats economic and what is not.
Geoff Chapple, Devonport.
Is this democracy?
I read Brian Goulds comments about New Zealand having the best democracy in the world with amazement. Can he please explain to me why a member of Parliament who has been resoundingly voted out of his electorate seat can then have a second bite of the cherry and determine who will govern us for three years? Apart from an absence of moral (or some would say, any) authority to do so, where is democracy in what has just happened?
Phil Sheat, Meadowbank.
Sporting analogy
The tongue-in-cheek analogy of the Rugby Championship by your correspondent Chris Olsen in trying to depict New Zealands winning coalition with Labour is quite nonsensical. A more accurate sporting analogy would be two cricket teams.
The centre-left team batted first with L. Abour scoring 37 runs, N.Z. First added another seven runs and G. Reen scored six runs. In total, the centre-left team scored 50 runs.
The centre-right team came out to chase this meagre score and got off to a rollicking start with N. Ational scoring an impressive 44 runs. Unfortunately N. Ationals teammates failed to add to his score and what should have been an easy win turned into a six-run loss.
Kent Millar, Blockhouse Bay.
