Letters: The spirit of Rotorua

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I don't write many letters these days, at 86 it takes a bit to get me to the computer.

Two incidents this week stirred me to write. Today [March 21] I was at the Te Ngae dump, the undercover one, struggling with a load of green matter when the guy with this massive front end loader drove over to see if I was alright and offered me a hand.

Earlier in the week my wife and I had ben picking tomatoes at Carl Dibley's gardens. As we were struggling up the path with two full buckets a school trip arrived and two young girls immediately offered to carry the buckets to the car.

This is the real Rotorua, feel the spirit.

[ABRIDGED]
ALF HOYLE
Rotorua.

Common sense needed

All the hysteria about water is just that. Hoo-ha.

A bit of common sense applied to the subject seems to be in order here. That fellow from the Beehive needs to wake up and change a couple of laws so that there is no foreign ownership of water bottling companies and that those companies pay a royalty for the "precious" resource they are now getting "free".$50/litre sounds pretty good.

As for tanker loads being taken to places in the Middle East, it's not so bad. Let's face it, if it (water) doesn't get contaminated by dirty dairying it only flows down the various waterways to the sea and brings no one any joy. Except for the greenies, bleeding hearts and do gooders.

So why not sell it? It's a commodity we have and they want it so let them pay for it.

Put the money into health and education and even some towards raising the living standards of the lower echelon.

We have to buy the only commodity they have. They don't give it to us free so some reciprocal trade could be arranged. Oil for water and vice versa. But in the end I think that common sense is not that common.

ROD PETTERSON
Rotorua