Letters: People getting fat and expensive rates

Action needs to be taken now to stop people becoming overweight, writers a reader. Photo / File

So now we can no longer bury all our dead - they are just too fat (News, January 6).

I am not surprised, I walk around supermarkets pushing the trolley for the good lady and I see just what obese people buy to keep their weight up.

Cost has a lot to do with it, ignorance about how to select and prepare the food is a big problem too - do they not teach domestic science in schools anymore?

If the Government is serious about health - which I doubt it is - then take the GST off healthy foods, force supermarkets to cut prices on vegetables, stop supermarkets (and anyone else) selling sugary drinks (I do not believe the ''No Sugar'' labels).

Stop the sale of enormous quantities of beer at the numerous outlets in town, teach cooking at schools, and stop encouraging people to be fat.

From the type of food (fast foods) they buy they appear to actively enjoy it.

If the Government means it, then stop it.

Jim Adams
Rotorua

Why are our rates so high?

My wife and I attended a family get together for a birthday in Tauranga recently with four couples who were family.

The topic of rates came up during a discussion and we were appalled to learn that our council rates in Ngongotaha where we live were more than $200 more in Rotorua than the other couples' rates in Tauranga.

These couples I mention live in good areas such as Maungatapu, Otumoetai and Greerton in large brick homes.

Their rates average about $600 per quarter while ours is more than $800 a quarter.

I thought Tauranga rates would have been more expensive. Then the Rotorua councillors receive pay rises.

It isn't any wonder Rotorua's CBD has so many shops empty as the rates are milking off their profits.

Perhaps someone on the council can explain why our rates are so much more expensive?

Also as a pensioner, our pensions don't go up by the same proportion each year as our rates do.

Is the council trying to drive us from our homes, even though we do get a small rebate at the beginning of the financial year. (Abridged)

Colin L Deans
Ngongotaha

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