Whanganui letters: Three Waters bluster lacks substance

The former Collegiate Motor Inn could be the answer to Whanganui's search for a new hotel, suggests one reader. Photo / Bevan Conley

I read with interest the Chronicle’s front-page article (Thursday, December 22) titled “The Fight is Still On”, a reference to Mayor Andrew Tripe’s view on the Government’s Three Waters Reforms.

All good to be in opposition to the Government’s plan, but if it is a fight please show us your credentials: a better plan that one, will keep our rates down and two, have the expertise to accomplish the necessary work.

As yet I have seen no alternative plan from the National Party, or any council group. The Act Party has sort of a plan that seems to make modifications to the Government’s plan.

I watch Parliament regularly and I observed in four consecutive sessions of question time that a few middle-aged Pakeha male National Party MPs grill Nanaia Mahuta repeatedly on the entrenchment issue.

Each time the same explanation was given, parliamentary session after parliamentary session. Why the Speaker of the House didn’t intervene and say the question had already been answered baffles me. It would have been better using the time to question the Government’s plans and to offer alternative, better solutions.

My view at the moment is that the Government’s Three Waters reforms are still the best option. But I am open to review my opinion, if those opposing it come up with a better and more resourceful plan, while at the same time keeping our rates down.

At the moment all there is, is a lot of opposition political bleating, without any substance.

KEN CARVELL

Whanganui

Hotel solution

In “What’s standing in the way of a new hotel in Whanganui” (Friday, December 23) we are told a report to Whanganui & Partners concluded a 60-room full-service hotel was optimal.

What a coincidence then to read the once-vibrant Collegiate Motor Inn (which was bought by the Whanganui District Council Holdings Company in 2020) had 60 rooms!

The complex also had two restaurants and flexible meeting space ideal for small conferences.

C.S. TAYLOR

College Estate

Hyde Park Corner no more?

The Chronicle is New Zealand’s oldest newspaper (established September 18, 1856) and has always had a community feel. Not so much of late.

The letters, I have found, were for so many years, a popular part of the paper. This has largely gone. We now see the odd letter in a week, rather than a run on current topics or even reasonable variety.

In its place, we see the rise and rise of certain regular residents writing well but it’s like their one-page corner to wax lyrical. We get 250 words max and they get a page? Well, that sucks. Raw democracy silenced by budget cuts?

Whether we found local residents’ writings a pain in the proverbial, a page to turn, mad as a rabbit, deliciously worded surgery without anaesthetic, entertaining, factually false, or informative, it’s gone. I miss regulars like Citizen Kane Denise Lockett, to-the-point Garth Scown, and maybe at times ex-journo “crusher” Carol Webb; albeit she once bluntly summed me up in one letter as a “verbose wannabe”. Fact checked!

Where have all the letters gone? Bring them back for a Friday or Saturday read. So sad to see the demise of Whanganui’s own “Hyde Park Corner”. For grassroots democracy, print more of our letters please.

ROSS FALLEN

Whanganui