OVER TO YOU

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Diversion tactic

The Nelson mayor is using the incident with councillor Tim Skinner as a clever distraction (Nelson Mail, April 1). But maybe this April Fool’s joke is on the mayor. I have just looked up my rates for next year on the council rates website. It shows a 9 per cent increase, on top of the over 300 per cent increase I have had since she became a councillor.

Tim is one of the few councillors who has consistently stood up for the ratepayers when council notifies its budget. The mayor is making a big mistake, giving Tim the publicity. Her attempted distraction from the huge rate rises when many are still struggling with the economic impact of Covid will backfire on her badly.

Dan McGuire

Nelson, April 1

Face climate reality

Scientists discovered plant material under almost a mile of ice in Greenland.

$3.8 trillion US was invested in the fossil fuel industry since the Paris agreement by the world’s 60 largest banks.

Continuing these investments it is not a matter if but when this ice has melted. The price Nelsonians paid so far? Disappearance of the scallop industry. I am open to a different reason why scallops still don’t grow after years of nonharvest but climate change is the most likely reason.

In hindsight council made the wrong choice by ignoring climate change and choosing the large pond system for our wastewater treatment 40 years ago.

How much was spent raising the banks of the sewerage ponds over the years? Real estate near the coast is too expensive to write down for sea level rise, therefore we build a library there. No building in the Maitai, we deal with flooding when that happens. The large fire and the extreme hailstorm cost lots to the community. Time to change the idea that climate change will not happen in Nelson?

Titus Steenhuisen

Upper Moutere, April 1

Home grants useless

Nelson’s MP Rachel Boyack is out of touch with young people and the reality of Nelsons’s housing market with Labour’s changes this week to the First Home Scheme.

First Home buyers can only access the support if the house they are buying is under $525,000 for an existing home and $600,000 for a new home. The average existing home price in Nelson is now $730,000 and new houses are a lot more than this. The grants are useless as the houses under this price do not exist. The Cap of $500,000 was set by National when the average house price was $400,000. Average prices have gone up by over $325,000 since then and Labour increases the cap by $25,000! It is a sick joke.

Rachael Boyack previously promised 1000 Kiwibuild houses for our region and we have got none. She is failing Nelson first-home buyers again by offering grants for houses below a price that does not exist.

Alana Stilborn

Richmond, March 25

Rachel Boyack replies:

The Government’s recent housing announcement contains a series of measures that are designed to work together to take the heat out of the property market, while also increasing the supply of new builds. Lifting price caps by a large amount has the potential to increase demand and push prices up even further.

I have spoken to Nelson developers who believe they can build homes for first-home buyers within the $600,000 price cap for new builds. In my first six months on the job I have supported the establishment of a $12 million Housing Fund overseen by Nelson City Council, which will help support the provision of affordable housing for first home buyers and renters.

The Government’s $3.8 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund will support councils and developers to invest in the infrastructure necessary for new housing.

To ensure we have the skilled workforce we need to build more houses, we’ve also rolled out free targeted trades training and apprenticeships, which has seen around 30,000 people take up training in the construction sector.

I am committed to working hard for the people of Nelson to increase the supply of housing for first home buyers during my time in Parliament.

Faith and science

Paul Bielski described faith as ‘‘wishful thinking’’, and ‘‘wanting to believe in something as a substitute for actual evidence.’’

Anyone who has true religious faith, knows that this is not the case.

Paul has faith that science will discover evidence for what caused the beginning of the universe, yet leading scientists state that before the big bang, nothing physical existed. If this is true, it means that science can never have the evidence to explain the origin of the universe.

The difference between those who believe in the existence of an intelligent and all powerful creator, and Bielski, is that he puts his faith in science, believing that science will still discover the origin of the universe even in the absence of evidence (wishful thinking?).

On the other hand, God is a nonphysical, infinitely powerful, intelligent being who is able to bring physical things (like the universe), into existence out of nothing!

Lastly, it is not possible for science to prove that God does not exist.

Patrick Cronin

Nelson, April 7