Your views: Readers' letters

COURT SHORT: Isn't it time jurors were paid fairly for their deliberations in courts, asks a letter writer.

Jurors' pay

Who advocates for the jurors?

It's a crime how little a jury member is paid for their time in this country.

At $31 for a half-day, the hourly rate works out well below minimum wage.

It is ironic that if any other organisation dared to pay this meagre amount to their staff, no matter how temporary they might be, they would be hauled in front of a judge.

So how can we expect to get a jury with a fair representation of the community when most people need to take a significant financial hit just to see justice done?

It needs to change. But who is going to advocate for the jurors?

GEORGE HARPER
Whanganui

Spring sights

Wanganui certainly has some lovely sights in spring.

Daily I drive along Peat Park and down Halswell St.

What glorious, subtle hues of green confront me, glistening in the early morning dew and sunlight. New growth. A salve that nourishes the psyche.

This is my local environment.

Citizens in other areas within our city will have similar neighbourhood experiences.

Let's all take advantage of spring conditions and plant something -- medicinal or otherwise.

PAUL EVANS
Parkdale

Clear majority

What a horrible letter by Terry O'Connor in the Chronicle (October 22) against our democratically elected mayor.

No matter what your allegiance, was there a need for that?

Mr O'Connor is wrong in stressing that Mr McDouall never got a majority vote. None of the candidates did (and this would be the same in many other provincial elections where there was a number of candidates standing for mayor).

What is significant is that he almost doubled the vote of his nearest rival.

Then to compare Mr McDouall's mayoral vote to the councillors' votes is equally ridiculous. They are two different elections with different formats.

Mr McDouall is the mayor by a very decisive majority. It is now up to ALL councillors to get behind him and work as a team, no matter who the deputy mayor is.

There will be differences of opinion, but these must be resolved by healthy debate, not through divisiveness.

For Mr O'Connor to suggest that Mr McDouall should not have stood for mayor, knowing what the consequences might be, is the same as saying that some councillors should not have stood for council, knowing that their choice of mayor or deputy may not be realised.

You can't have it both ways, Mr O'Connor.

KEN CARVELL
Durie Hill

Bridges too far

When Winston Peters put up his hand for the seat in the Far North, Simon Bridges of the National Party jumped on the bandwagon and promised to upgrade roads and build new bridges for the Far North.

To date, nothing has eventuated. I wasn't holding my breath.

Now Mother Nature has lost the plot and thrown the South Island in to turmoil, destroying roads, rail, and many bridges.

Well, it looks like the Far North won't be getting any bridges or upgrades.

Mr Bridges will be busy building 15 or more bridges down the South Island, so really Mother Nature has let Mr Bridges off the hook.

To bridge the gap in the Far North will never happen, not under this Government, anyway.

GYPSY WRIGHT
Marton

Climate hoax

In reply to "Climate change" letter, (Philip McConkey, November 16): I have been following the American election in great depth.

Trump got in, not because he is a great choice but because, compared to the Obama/Clinton show, he is America's knight in shining armour.

I say this because Clinton and Obama have been funding and protecting Isis. They have been trying to start a war with Russia. I do not want that, nor does Putin.

Yes, Trump is correct in saying "man-made" climate change is a hoax. As for the Chinese being the perpetrators, I do not know. They are certainly capitalising on it.

I believe they know the sun, not CO2 is responsible for climate change.

Anyway, if we get back to Senator Kerry's visit, he is part of the corrupt regime. He would say "evidence for climate change is overwhelming". He is correct.

Sadly, he does not tell us that the astrophysicists have clearly shown that the sun, not CO2, governs climate change.

So AGW is a hoax.

What is it's purpose? Money, yes, but power is the main goal -- political power.

I think Trump will certainly know what I do. Hillary Clinton and Obama think they are friends of George Soros. They are his puppets. Soros wants "A one-world government, The new world order."

To achieve this, America must be destroyed as a sovereign nation. To destroy a nation in conventional warfare, the aggressor first destroys the power and fuel supply lines.

Closing down coal-fired power stations puts up the price of power, and industry and jobs go offshore. That is the main purpose of this hoax.

Two great battles have been won: Brexit and the battle for the White House by a freedom fighter, who, if he can win the war on the corrupt MSM and the army of climate pseudo-scientists, will go down in history as the man who took on the staggeringly corrupt cabal of corporate, global elite and Soros. And, in my opinion, saved us from a nuclear war with Russia. (Abridged)

WILLIAM PARTRIDGE
Hunterville

Time to change

If we love our planet's fauna and flora, things have to change and fast.

The first scientific warnings about global warming were in 1957.

Andrew Day gets it. It may not sit comfortably with his farming peer group. Reality is a rough, rough road. Sometimes it takes to time to see change.

Ethics, not situational ethics, mean we care enough to set aside self-interest for our children, children's children and the descendants of all humankind.

Andrew, thank you for your stance.

You are on the tight side of history and on the right side of earth's timeline.

CUSHELA C ROBSON
Whanganui

Slander or libel?

Here's a fun subject for discussion over the coffee cups at the Chronicle's offices: Can a newspaper headline exist if it is not spoken? That heavily philosophical implication came to my mind after reading Eva Bradley's article on the Opinion pages, November 7, of "... slanderous headlines ..." (fourth paragraph from the end).

As a newspaper columnist and a member of the Chronicle literati, Eva well knows that newspaper headlines could only ever be "libellous", so long as the words remained unspoken as they lay on the page.

Dictionaries affirm that "slander" describes only the spoken insult.

Hmm, perhaps complimentary newspaper headlines can exist whether read out loud or not, but insulting ones exist only after being "created" by being spoken?

Pardon my twisted brain, Chronicle guys. Enjoy your discussion. When you're done with it, you can start on the one about when a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

STAN HOOD
Aramoho