Nuclear-free nightmare

The Royal New Zealand

Navy ship Te Kaha returned to Devonport in July after sailing with the US Seventh Fleet through the Western Pacific ( Bulletin from Abroad, September 2). Consider the ramifications for our antinuclear stance if any ship of our navy was part of a US fleet when an attack was launched over the Korean crisis.

The inflammatory rhetoric from the US and North Korea implicates any navy involved in the stand-off. Anti-nuclear advocates worldwide would see New Zealand as compromising its nuclear-free policy.

If nuclear weapons were used by either side, our reputation would be in tatters in international diplomatic circles. All we would be left with is the illusion that the nuclear-free legislation was ever going to be enough to be truly “anti-nuclear” in a world full of nuclear weapons. Richard Keller (Wellington)

MPS WITH BENEFITS

Winston Peters is entitled to the pension but entitled is an interesting word ( Politics, September 9).

There are people who don’t sign on for the pension because they are still working, and for a more paltry sum than Peters. That’s the choice they make.

Choice is another interesting word that parties on the political right love to utter. You don’t automatically end up on the pension just because you turn 65. You choose to sign on. For some, this choice is based on need. For others, it is entitlement.

How Peters can play victim at the same time as choosing to sign on while earning a big salary is beyond me. Jane McKinlay (Wellington)

Winston doth protest too much, methinks. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that overclaiming one’s entitlement for any benefit, unwittingly or not, breaks the rules. Or is it the case that ignorance of possession is nine-tenths of the excuse? It’s a confusing old time.

Peter Clarke (Queenstown)

INVESTMENT ELEPHANTS

As most articles about investment do, the Listener’s cover story missed two elephants in the room (“The smart money”, September 2).

The first is the vast sum – trillions of dollars – sitting in tax havens. If, say, President Donald Trump offered tax concessions to repatriate some of that money, there would be a flood of currency entering the system.

The second is world debt, much generated by quantitative easing. What happens if there is a global recession and debt repayments cannot be met? What happens if such debts are recalled? If, through gross dishonesty, those debts were wiped, what’s to stop your investments also being wiped? If we were to be honest, why aren’t interest rates hiked to encourage savers, which could wipe out some of the sillier house mortgages?

The problem with all such actions is that we have no idea what will happen next, and the current situation is probably only delicately poised. My feeling is it is all a bit of a guess, and nobody really knows what to do. Ian Miller (Belmont, Lower Hutt)

HORROR OF LAKE HOROWHENUA

The “Lake of shame” (August 26) article exposed a painful truth that needed to be told as an election looms.

It’s made me think seriously about which parties are committed to the health of our land and waters.

Phil Taueki, you are not alone. There are many who agree with you. Thank you for standing up for Lake Horowhenua.

Renee Alleyne (Motueka)

WATER POLICY OFF COURSE

As farmers, we, too, want clean rivers and have invested heavily to fence streams, plant riparian margins and improve irrigation efficiency. We have accepted closer scrutiny of our farms through farm

environment plans and nutrient budgets.

So, we ask, why does the Labour Party think a tax on irrigation will help achieve cleaner rivers? Are the regions with poor swimming-quality rivers those with the most irrigation?

Some answers to this question lie in a survey on swimmability by the Ministry for the Environment. When river quality is compared to areas irrigated in the regions, it emerges there is no apparent relationship, and in fact the regions of high irrigation have the fewest rivers graded “poor”.

In truth, the causes of poor river quality are more complex than Labour assumes.

Labour’s proposal is to tax the dry regions for which water is the lifeblood. An estimated 80% of tax revenue would come from Canterbury, Otago and Marlborough. Yet a group of regions with the most “poor” rivers would pay 5% of the tax.

There is a serious disconnect between the problem and the solution.

Farming industry groups are already committed to using the best available science to improve water quality. We face a significant climate change threat, and irrigation remains an essential tool for futureproofing our food supply and

our rural communities.

SOMETHING IN THE WATER

The article on a new book on Katherine Mansfield’s Wellington gives the impression that there was ignorance about cholera in the early

20th century (“The making of Mansfield”, August 12).

In fact, the cause for this and other waterborne diseases was determined by groundbreaking London physician Dr John Snow in 1849. This was almost 50 years before the cholera panic in Wellington that apparently sent the Beauchamps scurrying off to Karori.

Snow’s research led to the building of a comprehensive sewerage system in London, brilliantly designed by John Bazalgette, chief engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works. These huge sewers, built from 1859-65, saved thousands of lives.

I doubt that nearly half a century later the medical profession and the educated such as the Beauchamps, even in colonial Wellington, were not aware that cholera was caused by faeces-polluted water and inadequate sewerage systems.

The main reasons for cholera in Wellington were slackness and penny-pinching by councils and the Government.

Havelock North’s campylobacter outbreak and other similar incidents are part of our history of dangerous drinking water.

Ainslie Talbot (Christchurch)

HELLUVA YEAR WITH HELEN

I hope Listener readers will not be deterred from seeing Gaylene Preston’s My Year with Helen after its lukewarm review ( Film, September 9).

My reaction after attending the premiere was that it was storytelling at its fly-on-thewall best – exciting, dramatic, edge-of-the-seat stuff that will make your Kiwi blood boil when you are not convulsed with laughter at the naked chauvinism of the selection process. Unmissable.

Brian Edwards (Herne Bay, Auckland)

CAN’T SEE FORESTS FOR THE TREES

The article about forest products (“Raw deal”, August 12) was a useful but incomplete account of successive governments’ attitudes to forestry.

The observation that an industry that languishes as a low-value commodity producer “won’t be welcome

news for the Government” was ironic given that governments have been well aware of this for the past 50-60 years.

Yet they have steadfastly ignored forestry as a valuable land use, an important producer and employer, and more recently a major opportunity to sequester carbon.

This ineptitude culminated in the Labour Government led by David Lange deciding to sell state plantations and in doing so divert much income to new overseas owners.

Before then and since, governments have favoured farming as the primary land

use. Even today, farming is allowed to remain outside the emissions trading scheme.

As a retired forester and now a small-scale farmer, I read weekly the narrow accounts of primary production in the many farming newspapers.

The Institute of Forestry is about to launch a comprehensive forest policy, which the country has never had before. It will be interesting to see how the public reacts to this positive initiative, but I am doubtful that politicians will change their spots.

Nevertheless, I hope, for the sake of our land stability, ecology, freshwater, tourism, recreation and economy that the public and politicians finally get the point about forestry’s value. David Field (Ngongotaha)

LETTER OF THE WEEK