Letters: Anyone for mud wrestling?

Festival-goers enjoy the mud during the annual Boryeong Mud Festival. Photo/Getty Images

The world laughed at council's decision to buy mud. While affirming its support for the Mudtopia Festival, council's refusal to cancel delivery means that in my view it remains guilty of extreme waste and not avoiding a possible risk to New Zealand's economy.

An official's report conceded that negative publicity about buying mud had altered the business case. They vilified the Taxpayers' Union, the Rotorua Districts Residents and Ratepayers (RDRR) and the media for peddling misinformation, rather than admit that the "PR nightmare" was largely of their own making.

Rural Community Board chairwoman Shirley Trumper and member Bob Martin were swamped by inexpert assurances that the biosecurity risks were minimal, even though South Korea has foot and mouth disease, and the Ministry of Primary Industries can't give absolute guarantees in the light of recent border failures.

The official admitted that Mudtopia could go ahead without the Korean mud, but then claimed, unconvincingly in my view, that it would put the relationship with Boryeong in serious jeopardy. Councillors Bentley, Gould, Kent and Kumar wisely wanted the mud delivery cancelled.

Hence, the power bloc voted to affirm Mudtopia, which no one opposed, rather than admit the ridiculous optics of buying mud and that it was not actually essential to the justifiable purchase of intellectual property and co-operation.

Council now needs suggestions about how to use its 5 tonnes of mud. Since embarrassed and angry numbers swamped rationality, it's probably time for some more mud-lark therapy. No jokes about foot-in-mouth disease, please.

REYNOLD MACPHERSON
Rotorua

Never before did the mayor create such an upheaval than when she bought $90,000 worth of mud in Korea, and that while most councillors were unaware of it.

We read that even the Rotorua Daily Post had to get the news from a South Korean news media, how awful.

At present motel owners, etc, are looking forward to increased business, but I think their smiles will disappear when their guests return from their mud crawling and beds smell for days.

Then there is the issue of diseases. When tourists enter New Zealand with a grain of soil on their boots there is an uproar. But here the mayor imports truckloads of it. Foot and mouth disease is quite common in Korea. What other diseases could this bring in? If so, I guess it will become known as the Chadwick disease.

HARRY BRASSER
Rotorua

With the recent media publicity of the $90,000 being spent on the importation of Korean mud for a Rotorua festival, this clearly indicates this "festival" has to be commercially successful.

Could an exhibition mud wrestling match be just what is needed to ensure this?

Mayor Steve v Reynold MacPherson as the first item on a Mudtopia card? Just imagine the mayor in a teensy weenie polka dot bikini and MacPherson in yellow Speedos ... Suitable promotion might well produce $90,000 worth of ringside spectator seat sales!

If this spectacle does not prove suitably compelling to raise the $90,000, an undercard of "Council Nodding Heads" v "the Rot Prodders" will do the trick.

And while the organisers are at it what about tweeting an invite to President Donald Trump to come to the festival to do a couple of muddy rounds with the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un, and then wallowing in South Korean high quality mud.

Just this suggestion alone on internet will guarantee this Mudtopia a fantastic commercial success. Imagine all the hordes of press people coming down to tiny Rotorua.

After all it was not such a bad idea to have this festival. The high ticket sales and its consequent profits may cause the rates to come down in 2018.

HENK BUISSINK
Rotorua

There are many issues currently troubling Rotorua residents. The increasing scarcity of affordable rental properties, increasing homelessness, noise abatement and unacceptable public nuisance to name a few.

What is the mayor and her council doing to show leadership and initiative? Oh yes! They have been off on what was in my view a junket to buy mud in Korea. The suggestion that it is okay to squander taxpayers' money by councillor Trevor Maxwell is breathtaking in its naivety.

Does he not realise we are all taxpayers? The words Burn, Fiddle, Rome and Nero spring to mind.

DAVID PHILLIPS
Rotorua