I recently contacted Martin Keene, NZ Treasury's senior analyst who provides tax figures to the OECD.
He said that the OECD figures do, in fact, include the "secondary taxes" of GST and local taxes. So on this count, at least, the Taxpayers' Union is clearly wrong.
NZ's tax burden remains the lowest in the developed world.
Statistics have real effects when voters make informed decisions.
Taxes and spending affect health, education, policing, roads, the arts, libraries and most everything we take for granted as public rights.
Calling into doubt our tax and spending figures with mistaken figures in order to push through spending cuts is unacceptable.
It is our relatively low wages, not taxes, that are causing the squeeze for most of us.
We need to look at the cause -- our draconian employment laws, which are among the most anti-labour statutes in the OECD.
BRIT BUNKLEY
Whanganui
Picky criticism
Reply to Stan Hood (letters, May 1):
Dog handlers in smaller areas are on duty 24/7.
I read what you put, and I understood it to mean: "A police dog handler was dressed in civilian clothing when he hopped out of his police vehicle. At the same time, his dog was in the back of the police vehicle".
Could you not see that, or were you just being a "little word picky" and needed to write about it?
The world is not perfect and you probably have a few flaws also.
WENDY GORDON
Wanganui East
Techno menace
Professor Robert McLachlan (Chronicle, April 6) would like all motorists to plant 40 trees to suck up CO2 and so stop global warming.
Sounds good, but when trees die or get used, most of the CO2 is set free again. Also, numbers of cars and planes are ever-increasing and out of control. "Public transport and private feet" point in the right direction, but only if population growth can be drastically reduced.
Mr McLachlan appears to be a typical specialist who fails to see the wider picture.
Technology is increasing in all directions, some of it is useful but much of it seems to me a menace and no use at all. We want many things but ultimately only planet Earth will decide what we can have or not have.
Right now we are polluting and acidifying the oceans, tearing up the web of life and behaving like a herd of mad bulls in a china shop.
Huge cities are sprouting all over the world and sustainable living is a thing of the past. Now we want rivers of electric cars, all with "unbelievable acceleration?"
Our technology has grown too fast, too penetrating and is becoming a prison for all of us.
Happiness and satisfaction in life grow from close contact with nature and with positive, sensitive and joyful people right from the start. When this is failing boredom sets in, drugs are called for and prisons are filling up.
I feel sorry for kids who are picked up from school with "unbelievable acceleration", leaving no time to visit friends and even if they do, go straight to the screens to get their social stimulus.
This, I believe, has now become the wider technocratic world for many people, young and old.
Sorry, Mr McLachlan, but "nought for your comfort, nor for your desire!"
NICK PYLE
Whanganui
Squeegee mob
I have no sympathy for the squeegee bandits. If I want my windscreen washed, I flick a switch and it happens all for free -- and I do not have people dancing around my car, distracting me.
About one year ago, as I was travelling Glasgow St and approaching Pak'n Save, I saw the bandits up ahead.
I pulled up 20 yards before the lights. Two bandits then marched up to me to stand over me. I then locked all the car doors. As the bandits came close, I said "Piss off", the lights turned green and I put my foot down. A gang car followed me home. A few days later, a gang car ran me off the road. Repairs cost me $3000.
I now travel with a Gold Card and by bus. If I need to travel by car, I use a bodyguard as a driver.
The local copper says all I need do with bandits is ignore them. Bandits don't stand over police.
Bring on the new law. It will soon put an end to squeegee extortion.
DON MCMILLAN
Whanganui
