Give everyone a fair go in NZ politics
Your front-page article on Tuesday exposed a reprehensible act by MP Sam Uffindell during his school days.
Before he was MP, he was deeply sorry for what he had done as a schoolboy and apologised to the boy he had attacked.
Uffindell’s courage to put things right should be applauded.
How odd, then, that a very small font is used for another article headline, stating Labour is at its lowest rating in the poll since 2017 and that National and Act could now form a government between them.
Whatever happened to giving all the political parties a fair go?
Judy Hayden
Tauranga
Speculation is no good
I think it’s great that Ka¯ inga Ora beat private developers to purchase Ferncliffe Farm for $70m to build public housing on.
In my view, it seems like a great deal for a better cause than lining the pockets of developers.
The Crown should buy all property and set up a national land trust in partnership with Ma¯ ori to let the land own itself again.
Land is a ridiculous asset to put funds into when we could be investing in real businesses and innovation that creates foreign exchange earnings for the country through the export of high-value goods and services.
Getting rid of property speculation would be the best thing any government can do to stimulate real value creation and make quality housing an affordable option for every citizen.
Manu Caddie Tauranga
Negative port plans
Iwi are correct.
Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. The planned expansion of the port is, in my view, not good for Tauranga.
More trucks, more traffic congestion, more demand on the roads, more air pollution, more dredging, and more demand being placed on our limited local resources.
Sometimes you have reached the limit and further port growth will not positively contribute to the local quality of life.
Recognise this, share the ports, build resilience and develop Whanga¯ rei as an additional container port.
P B Brown Pāpāmoa
Righteousness from God
I wonder how many of us could honestly say that we’re not ashamed of some action or actions we’ve taken in our youth.
Youth is a time of experimentation, pushing the boundaries our parents gave us — and let’s face it, very often, foolishness. While most of us are not held to the type of scrutiny that public figures are, very few of us, boys or girls, could come up smelling of roses.
National’s newest MP, Sam Uffindell, has become the current target of the media and the Labour Party, whose latest polling figures may have caused some alarm.
His explanations seem plausible yet we won’t leave it there, will we?
We have to put someone down, the bigger they are the better, and so often that’s about how we feel about ourselves.
In each of us there’s a bit missing, it’s called righteousness, and it only comes from God.
He has made a way to rid ourselves of that need to be better than Joe or Pete — or even Sam.
John Williams Rotorua