Letters: Renting voters don't care about rates, council debt

Henry Ford With His Model T. Photo / Getty Images

I admire Paul Carpenter's refreshing naivety with regards to Rotorua Lakes Council's indebtedness (Letters, February 15).

How can we continue to spend, ever borrowing, never repaying, he asks?

The fact that nearly half, I believe, of local voters work in hospitality or fruit picking or other low-paid work, and therefore live in rented accommodation, answers Paul's question.

The voters largely don't pay rates and they use council services more than they contribute to the funding, so they don't care about rates levels or future indebtedness.

Their own lives are a circle of perpetual indebtedness, so they expect Local Government to be the same.

An economy based on low-paid, low-skilled work will always need substantial subsidies to help the needy populace.

Henry Ford (Ford cars) understood this when he paid his workers more, enabling them to buy his products.

GJ Philip
Taupo

Traffic not all from Tauranga

I was initially a little bit puzzled by Ryan Gray's (Letters, February 20) assertion that "the fact that 99 per cent of the traffic into and out of Rotorua is forced to squeeze through two roundabouts, Ngongotaha, and Tarawera".

I presume he means 99 per cent to or from Tauranga.

Maybe I didn't read his comments fully and am at fault, but when you refer to "facts" make sure you relate these to what you are talking about.

I am sure that more than 1 per cent of traffic heads to or from Taupo and Hawke's Bay.

Garry Owen
Ngongotahā

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