Your views: Readers' letters

Anzac priorities

Really? Permits for selling poppies or removal by "security", licences to put rum in the morning coffee, and high-visibility clothing for Anzac marchers at the Dawn Parade (Wanganui Chronicle, March 25)?

Surely medals and respect are the priority, not hidden under a plastic sheet.

Who are these people who insult our culture at a time of national mourning? Where do they come from and who does their training?

To even hire the Memorial Hall you need a degree in origami!

"Health and safety" appear to be run by people without any common sense, or is this a forerunner to the "thought police" and overseen by pedantic politicians?

They would be better served explaining how the "squeegee dancers" operate on the roads at traffic lights, pushing the pedestrian buttons to stop the traffic?

Better still, apply your principles to the next war? Good luck with that!

KEN CRAFAR
Wanganui

Flood aid thanks

As a volunteer at one of the Whakatane distribution centres for flood-affected people in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, I would like to extend our thanks for clothing and linen which has been sent in clean, non-stained and often labelled, which has made our job of sorting so much easier.

Extra touches and items have given us joy, and we know the recipients will be so pleased as well.

For example knitted blankets from Westhaven resthome, quilts from Riverside quilters, a book of verses tucked into the folds of a duvet.

Many thanks to everyone who has reached out to our community

KAREN WINTERSON
Whakatane

Earth Day

Thank you for your Earth Day article and photo in Saturday's paper.

The plants pictured in your article were donated by the Wanganui Gardening Centre (Gonville), and Andrea did a good job helping get them to many homes in Whanganui.

We'd also like to thank everyone who participated in the day and spent time with us, including our mayor.

We hope to be back doing something similar next year.

Also, thanks to DoC, Friends of Gordon Park, Royal Forest and Bird, Chris (enviro-educator) and Deidra for joining us with activities.

We really appreciated having Kirsty, the fantastic face-painter, there too and Jasmine from Girls' College.

Jasmine helped with grace, understanding and willingness. She was a real asset.

Arohanui.

LYN PEARSON
Sustainable Whanganui Trust

Alternative facts

A breath of fresh air from Neil Buddle, Chronicle opinion, April 18.

Quite the contrary from John Robinson on the same day.

All this talk of Maori rebellion is colonial propaganda, not real history.

With such words the settler government reveals its true identity as land-hungry invaders.

And with the consequent confiscations of Maori occupied lands deemed to be unjust by several enquiries including the Waitangi Tribunal, they stole the food from the mouths of babes.

And with the imposition of individual title on what little lands were returned, the confiscations continued.

So-called treaty settlements are merely more of the same.

An everyday reminder of one of the contemptuous statements made by a kaumatua during a meeting some years back:

"E piripiri e te Maori ki te panakoti o te Pakeha." (We Maori are tied to, or clinging to, the petticoats of the Pakeha)

So true, and bloody sad. And to receive any of the settlement monies, tribal organisations must all become charitable trusts. This is progress?

No. So I must continue to pick the scab

POTONGA NEILSON
Castlecliff

Election spin

It is election year, and the politically motivated articles are beginning to appear.

It is interesting to note that many of them are written by people with long track records of blind following of ideologically aligned parties, both left-wing and right-wing. But I would suggest to you that democracy is wasted on them, and is more suited to the intelligent non-aligned voter.

Most recent articles are on tax cuts. The left wing argues that they shouldn't occur, while the right says they should. They both couch their arguments in pseudo-logic, in a manner to support their own position.

Brit Bunkley (Chronicle, April 24) used recent media articles that provide a distorted perspective. They do indeed identify New Zealand has having one of the lowest taxes on income in the world.

But what he does not mention is that none of the articles recognise that when considering secondary taxes, NZ sits towards the high end of tax rates. Worse is that the secondary taxes place their burden primarily on the lower income groups of society.

The housing crisis, which began under Helen Clark's Labour Government and continued to get worse under National's denials, is just one reason tax cuts for the bottom end are a good idea.

As no party seems to have any clue how to deal with it, more money in people's hands puts them into a better place to provide their own accommodation. But the housing crisis is a topic for another letter.

MURRAY SHAW
Bastia Hill