Whanganui letters: Outstanding Bushy Park worth a tiny raise in rates

A male hihi singing at Bushy Park Tarapuruhi.

Opinion

I support, unreservedly, funding for Tarapuruhi from Whanganui District Council (News, September 5).

The sanctuary is outstanding and is a gem.

I’ve seen tieke (saddleback) and hihi (stitchbird). One gets followed about by the toutouwai (North Island robin) and hears - and occasionally sights - te korimako (bellbird). These and so many other species thrive in a predator-free zone.

There’s our region’s Tane of the forest, a great northern rātā, Ratanui.

It is truly a splendid sanctuary that clearly takes a huge amount of work and money.

I have no problem at all with the tiny raise in rates that funding this taonga would cost.

C.M. (HĀNS) KNUCKEY

Whanganui East

Nats’ porkies ignored

We keep hearing the media go on about so-called Labour “porkies” but we hear little about National’s major gaffes.

A Labour junior staffer said on Instagram: “A National/Act coalition will not only cut fees-free for first-year students, but they will also add interest back on all current student loans.” Labour took it down immediately. Although National said it is untrue, we don’t know what the coalition deal with Act would encompass. National reversed interest-free loans in their last administration. National also reversed other election policies such as one for “no new taxes”. Once elected, they raised the regressive GST tax, erasing their election pledge credibility. So, it is not unreasonable to assume that returning interest rates remains a possibility in their coalition deal.

We know that Willie Jackson, in a debate, said allegedly accurately that National and Act would scrap the minimum wage. Yes, National pledged otherwise. However, coalition partner Act, which, along with National, has until now voted against all minimum wage increases, has pledged there would be a “moratorium on any further increases” - with inflation a de facto decrease in minimum wages.

In the meantime, the really big “porkies” by the National Party are ignored.

For example, Christopher Luxon claimed the “Government has been the second-biggest spender of government money per capita in the world”. In reality, OECD figures easily retrievable from their site (with 2023 updates from Treasury) demonstrate the opposite - that we continue to be in the lower third of the OECD in spending per GDP, just above Turkey and Mexico, and for most years on par with spendthrift Japan. Similar OECD charts show that our tax-to-GDP ratio and debt-to-GDP are similar, well into the lower half. Yet Luxon expects us to miraculously resolve our health, education and housing problems by spending even less. Talk about “porkies”.

BRIT BUNKLEY

Whanganui