Whanganui letters: All Blacks need Robertson’s magic

Should Crusaders head coach Scott Robertson be the next All Blacks coach? Photo / Photosport

The New Zealand Rugby Union has already shot itself in both feet, so has nothing to stand on if it doesn’t appoint Scott Robertson to be the next All Blacks coach after the World Cup.

A large percentage of New Zealand’s rugby supporters are desperate to see Robertson be given a crack. To deny them that would be foolhardy in the extreme.

Ian Foster needs to step up immediately, declare he will not be standing for the All Blacks coaching job again, do what our Prime Minister did and get out before being turfed out.

This would allow us all to concentrate on the job at hand, winning the World Cup; then we will look forward with great expectations to see if Robertson can work his magic with the All Blacks.

Mentioning any other coaching alternatives is just a red herring and would cost the NZRU all credibility.

GARTH SCOWN

Whanganui

Time for climate change action

Matthew Hooton, a key strategist for Act and the National Party, wrote an amusing but highly misleading op-ed on climate change (Opinion, February 25).

He lauded the National Party for signing the Kyoto Protocol while failing to mention that they withdrew from it as soon as John Key came to power.

He proudly mentions National’s support for the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). In reality, the ETS was enacted by the Labour government in 2002, while later a National/Act government knee-capped it by refusing to add to it one of our highest polluters, the agriculture industry. Meanwhile, a 2016 report from the Morgan Foundation showed that the National-led government had allowed businesses to buy fraudulent carbon credits from Russia and Ukraine with the ETS along with other similar schemes.

By 2017, the OECD reported that “New Zealand has the second-highest level of [greenhouse] emissions per GDP unit in the OECD and the fifth-highest emissions per capita”.

Hooton and his Act/National clients now have changed their strategy from “pragmatic” climate change action (inaction) to climate defence. We should engage in remedial care instead of prevention. Of course, he only mentions in vague terms that we need to increase costly climate protection infrastructure. None of which they ever have put into action or probably will; National and Act’s main goal in life is cutting taxing from upper incomes and slowing spending.

Hooton ends his essay by suggesting the National/Act mantra - that our small population excuses us from fighting climate change. It’s like explaining to the judge that you should be excluded from a speeding ticket for driving a small car. As we are witnessing the horror prequel to climate change, we need to act quickly with both mitigation and defences, not lame excuses.

BRIT BUNKLEY

Whanganui

Tide’s out for new service

What a pity the new bus service (The Tide) stops short of both Waves and Graves. It fails to provide the end-to-end Aramoho-Castlecliff service we were expecting.

M DONNE-LEE

Aramoho

Review spending priorities

Should the Whanganui District Council be spending $2.5 million on the velodrome at this time, when so many in our country are bleeding and needing relief? It would make a fine addition to the Mayoral Relief Fund. A wee bit like fiddling while Rome burns.

J HANNAY

Whanganui