At this stage, the general consensus is that the major beneficiary will be the new hotel spa complex with its guests staying in "A Room With a View", and a small number of related upmarket tourist activities. Not what those who are paying for it will directly benefit from.
Can she also describe the said consultation process? As far as I'm aware there was no well publicised public consultation which should have been a 'given', considering the money involved. To spend $40m it needed to be more extensive than something tucked into a council meeting.
Paddi Hodgkiss
Rotorua
Concerns ignored
I believe John Roughan's column, "Fearful whites need some of the love" (Opinion, March 26), disingenuously links several issues to peddle liberal propaganda.
Written in the context of the Christchurch massacre, Mr Roughan begins by quoting a letter writer. This writer says previous comments about immigration by Mr Roughan are lightweight and calls the media "part of the problem".
Mr Roughan acknowledges, "A whole section of public opinion has been disenfranchised for a long time". However, instead of then genuinely unpacking why, he verbalises and trivialises, basically arguing that "the dominant culture" should put aside its "insecurities" to "make room for others".
I think we need to separate the issues.
Arguably, our media is disproportionately liberal and unbearably superficial. Content appears to be largely articulated by the product of a liberal education system geared to support neo-liberalism. As a result, many people no longer believe the media adequately presents truth or explains differing viewpoints. This undermines our political system.
Regarding Christchurch events I, like most Kiwis, fully agreed with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's statement that the murdered Muslims were "us" and the accused murderer was not.
All this, however, doesn't mean that many New Zealanders are also not deeply concerned over the sheer numbers of new immigrants and tourists that are currently impacting our nation's housing, conservation, roading, health, and other infrastructure.
Bob Boardman
Ngongotaha