Letters: On the campaign promise lolly scramble, climate change, the All Blacks
I know election campaigns are traditionally a lolly scramble of promises but it’s now getting silly. Parties falling over each other to offer freebies, funded by various snake oil assessments of possible revenues accruing sometimein the future, maybe. What next? Vote for me and I promise everything you want, plus a free trip for two to Trinidad?
Personally, I’d endorse any politician who said, “vote for me and I just promise to tell you the truth”. The truth about what we have and what you want, versus what we can afford given that NZ isn’t rich, just a small agrarian nation, at the edge of the world, living almost solely off returns from agriculture, viticulture, livestock farming and tourism.
But I don’t expect I’ll be hearing that from any party anytime soon.
John Denton, Napier.
Make buildings watertight
Jamie Morton draws on discussion with Niwa scientists for developing an interesting story. It was about lifting rather than removing houses after being flood-damaged or ahead of future threats by rains from a warming climate and sea-level rise (August 31).
Councils already encourage elevation of homes above the planning flood, typically the 100-year flood, i.e., a 1 per cent flood, which has almost 10 per cent chance of happening in a 10-year period.
While some raised or elevated homes escaped damage inside in Auckland’s January floods, many homes did not. And that is the weakness of house-lifting.
It’s not just a matter of how high to lift the house. Whether 20cm or 200cm of flood water enters inside the home, the resulting damage is not too different.
A much better option is to make at-risk buildings water-tight or flood-resilient. In the US this is called “dry flood-proofing” as opposed to “wet flood-proofing” or house-lifting.
For either option (dry or wet), any floodplain development in the US must not increase overall flood levels by more than 20cm. What’s more, the insurance premium concession is more for dry flood-proofing (i.e., water-tight buildings).
As noted in my Herald Comment some weeks ago, making buildings water-tight (dry flood-proofing), is unknown in flood-prone New Zealand. Perhaps Auckland Council could partner with engineering schools in local universities to examine making it an adoptable option. That was one of 10 recommendations I made in my recent submission to council on Making Space for Water.
Neil J. Ericksen, Forrest Hill.
What about the time-wasting?
As a fan of the All Blacks since trams were in Queen St too, I greatly admire the inciteful analysis by Phil Gifford “The World Cup opponents who really present the biggest challenge to the All Blacks” (NZ Herald, September 3). So successful have the Springboks been with seven forward replacements and time-wasting tactics, I will not be surprised to see eight forward replacements for the Springboks in the final of the Rugby World Cup. Eight forwards for each half and they will maul their way to victory.
I was one who disagreed with the AB selectors taking an extra wing (Caleb Clarke) and leaving form loose forward Samipeni Finau behind especially while Shannon Frizell was injured. I guess the selectors can see that mistake now.
World Cup Rugby referees will undoubtedly have a major influence on match outcomes having learnt how to speak French but forgetting the time-wasting rules.
Gary Carter, Gulf Harbour.
Time to step up
Instead of compounding the misery of the immigrants trapped by unscrupulous work visa scammers, we should step up as a country and class these victims as an employment asset.
Some of the identified surplus of New Zealand public servants (see Act’s election policies) could be drafted into a central body to quickly form a database of the affected visa migrants. This to be made available to legitimate employers wanting workers, and who are willing to pay the travel and accommodation expenses to get them to the areas where work is immediately available, with the government subsidising those expenses.
Then, go after the scammers to recoup the costs of this exercise.
Larry Tompkins, Tūrangi.
The NZCTU advertisement
Christopher Luxon must be laughing all the way to the voting bank after the NZCTU front-page advertisement. That political assault must surely have cost Labour many thousands of moderate swing votes.
Sure the union movement historically supports Labour, but some are more enlightened nowadays and can think for themselves. If I were a member of NZCTU and did not support Labour, I would be wondering where my money is being spent.
David Hill, Tauranga.
If we didn’t already know an election was looming, the startling cover photo of Chris Luxon, (Herald, 4/9), signalled a more pugilistic style of campaigning. The somewhat ominous photo was a clumsy attempt to sway voters away from the National leader to the more supposed “angelic” countenance of the Prime Minister. I’m not a huge fan of Luxon, but I also have real concerns about Labour’s performance in health and education. However, one thing I do know indisputably. If we start demonising politicians in the hope of discrediting them, we’re in danger of creating “American” style politics as injurious as eating too many hamburgers. A sinister rebound effect could be the outcome, where the demon becomes the martyr and glib sound bites matter more than sound policy.
Mary Hearn, Glendowie.
Fruit and GST
Campaigning for the October election is in full swing and one would hope that the level of debate would be at a high level. I was flabbergasted that nowhere in the debate about taking GST off fruit and vegetables has there been mention of the health benefits of doing this.
Fruits and vegetables are some of the best foods for your heart providing vitamins and minerals as well as fibre and antioxidants. Each extra cup of fruit and vegetables may reduce your risk of heart disease by 4 per cent.
It’s recommended to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables per day. If an increase of fruit and vegetables can be achieved by lowering the GST on fruits and vegetables this would be a wonderful outcome of a campaign policy, notwithstanding the small effect on equity for our lowest-income populations.
Harvey D. White, Epsom.
Hares and hounds
It’s not often I agree with Wendy Tighe-Umbers as we are different sides of the political fence. Linking the story of the teenager on blackmailing charges being discharged without conviction and the political movement to give 16-year-olds the vote is something I thought of too when I read the judge’s decision. Too many politicians running with hares and hunting with the hounds when it comes to teenage brain development.
Mike Crosby, Papakura.
Training dentists
Why are we being promised free dental treatment when there aren’t enough places/funds at our only dental school to train the dentist we already need (see article in Herald on Sunday) and why is the number of local students limited to 60 when we have the facility to train a further 25 students from overseas?
Our first responsibility is to give our students the opportunity to get into quality, high-paying jobs and not to drive them off-shore. Further, tinkering with an ethnic allocation to correct past “institutional racism”, ironically only creates a new form of “institutional racism”, causing those who miss out on merit to be bitter and leave.
Those 25 places could be used for scholarships for underprivileged students, leaving the 60 places to be awarded purely on merit.
We would struggle to accept local students, who could afford to pay the overseas fees, “buying their way in” but that is exactly what the overseas students are doing. We do however, offer scholarships to underprivileged students and we should continue to support that, but it should not come at the expense of capable students who we need and would otherwise get ahead.
Overseas dentists come at a premium and that money could be used to give our students a rewarding future here in New Zealand.
Kevin Allen, Auckland.
Remembering Queen Elizabeth
I was feeling quite sad already about this week being the first anniversary of the death of Queen Elizabeth.
It was bad timing to also hear that the name of the Christchurch park, now being re-built, named after Her Majesty was going to be changed.
It was such a massive event when she opened the park for the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch.
Queen Elizabeth II Park was what the park was called and later people reduced it sometimes to the more informal QE2 Park.
I remember in the mid-70s seeing Neil Diamond perform there.
This week we hear about people in England remembering the wonderful monarch. Here in New Zealand we hear of this disrespectful name change.
Colleen Wright, Botany Downs.
Exploitation of migrants
I wish to congratulate you on your editorial “Our shameful exploitation of migrants”. I also wish to congratulate and thank you for the subsequent articles that have appeared in the Herald, highlighting the plight of so many migrants being exploited by unscrupulous people in our country. I used to be very proud to be a New Zealander but am fast feeling let down by so many of my own people.
I trust you will keep highlighting the plight of these duped people and encourage many more people to insist that Immigration employees do thorough follow-up checks on migrants with work visas. I belong to a worldwide organisation against the trafficking of humans and am sad to see such abuse of people of good faith within my own country.
Margaret O’Neill, Mission Bay.
SHORT AND SWEET
On climate
Nearly one million people evacuated due to Typhoon Saola and now nearly 100,000 are stranded at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada Desert due to heavy rains. How much disruption will the human race endure before we accept our carbon addiction might be to blame? Allison Kelly, Mt Eden.
On teeth
There has been a lot of concern recently regarding the state of our children’s teeth, and lack of treatment. But a few years ago we had a very efficient dental nurses force working in primary schools, checking and treating every child’s teeth regularly. Is it still operating? And if not, why not? R. Edgar, Mt. Albert
On advertisement
The full-page advertisements by the NZCTU on Monday demonstrate how desperate and worried the unions really are. Janet Boyle, Orewa.
Wow, the election campaign has just hit a new low with the Labour-aligned Council of Trade Unions advertisement attacking Christopher Luxon. It reeks of desperation. Lorraine Kidd, Warkworth.
On policy
Some of National’s pledges seem to be at odds with the talk and with their commitment to a balanced budget. “Help is on its way” farmers doesn’t jive with net zero emissions by 2050. Their plan is based on techno-optimism, not the immediate reductions required. When the promises are broken all these people will be in the grave. Let youth lead. It’s their world, not ours. Ian Swney, Morrinsville.
On flats
Shame on the Rotorua Council for providing such poor-quality housing for its elderly tenants, and for leaving flats empty when elderly are homeless. The Whangārei District Council are not much better as they have empty flats as well. The days of empathy and welfare of our elders seems to have all but disappeared. Marie Kaire, Whangārei.
