Column gets it right

In your sports column (KMN, Aug 12), I am glad that you came out and knocked those so-called journalists and interviewers on radio and TV, they are just a pain in the ar**. I hope more is done about it, there has been a lot of talk not only at the Commonwealth Games but in all the sports we are getting. Don’t they know we can see the games as well as they? catch cry of the Key-led National Government. And I thought our mayor claimed to be a Labour Party mayor?

For the last decade or so I have been calling for our city council to make social policy our priority for our city’s planning and to form our economic policy on the basis of specific social needs beginning with the most vulnerable. In recent years this would have the eradication of child poverty as probably the highest priority.

I have been critical of the mayor and council for their refusal to address the social needs of our city on the grounds that it is a national responsibility of central government. We need to be in partnership with central government.

Our mayor and council have forgotten that the city includes the people of Titahi Bay, Elsdon, Ranui, Cannons Creek, Waitangirua and Ascot Park, where the majority of bread-line beneficiaries live. Porirua is not confined to the wealthy northern suburbs.

I am calling on the mayor to put a halt to his campaign to sacrifice the city of Porirua in favour of a Wellington-centred super-city with him being the top dog.

Mr Leggett, you may be an expert in real estate. It is time you understood and fought for the basic human rights of the people.