Letters to the Editor: Take a stand against 'rip-offs'

EXORBITANT: Why are we being charged so much? PHOTO/FILE

I am appalled at the 'rip-off' prices being shoved down our throats here in New Zealand - food, electrical goods, clothes, medicines - everything we are paying prices twice that of the United States and Europe - why? A lot of the stuff we produce ourselves.

Australia imports many items, just as we do, yet they manage to sell these imports at a fraction of the price we are charged. Maybe what we should do is select various overpriced items and boycott them for a given period - say a year or even stay out of the shops that persist in high prices - they would soon learn. It would take a concerted effort from many people, but it is the only way to prevent over-pricing.

Perhaps we should also have a 'monopolies commission' to prevent every shop selling items (cough and cold cures for a start) at the exact same price. Competition should set the price - not greed.

JIM ADAMS
Rotorua

It's a shame that all those "Anti Eastern Arterial" people can't get their blinkers off.

Everybody is harping on about "it's only to get logs to the Port of Tauranga". That's a load of [rubbish].

Why don't some of them go and sit on Te Ngae Rd and see what travels along it?

Admittedly, there are a large number of logging trucks, but there are other road users too; tour coaches, grocery delivery units, road maintenance trucks, fuel tankers, local body vehicles going about their business, tourists in people movers, tourists in cars heaven forbid, it goes on and on. Not just log trucks.

Do the local residents on Te Ngae Rd want it upgraded so they have to tolerate traffic noise that is bound to increase as traffic volume is predicted to? Yeah right! It's a shame these blinkered people don't want to get up close and friendly with the New Zealand Transport Agency and the Rotorua District Council to actually have some input into the outcome of something crucial to the city's ongoing success as a tourist destination.

Tourist coaches? What are those things? The tourists don't want to play in the domestic traffic, neither do the logging truck drivers. Go out and ask a few of them, see what they say about it.

If they can't see the forest for the trees they'd better watch out for the Public Works Act.

R PETTERSON
Rotorua

Congratulations and well done to all at the Rotorua Daily Post who achieved prestigiously in the various categories entered in the recent PANPA international awards. For little minnows in a vast pond you did jolly well so hold your heads up high and please keep up the good work.

ELEANOR ASHCROFT
Rotorua

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