War on bunnies …

Greg Dixon’s rabbit-shooting dilemma ( The Good Life, December 22) reminded me of my first, and only, shot at a rabbit – or any animal. It was in the mid-1950s, in sandhills near Hokio Beach, south of Levin. The rabbit had its back to us, so I took aim and pulled the trigger. The rabbit took off in a small cloud of sandy dust.

But what really took my attention in Dixon’s musing on life in the country was the sentence that referred to spotting rabbits “from various windows when … ironing in the spare room”, as if ironing was a normal male occupation.

Has he considered providing this service to neighbouring farming women? I’m sure he’d be an instant hit.

I always enjoy reading about the couple’s adapting to rural life, but, in this simple comment, he must surely have won the respect of the vast majority of female readers. Daphne Tobin (Porirua)

… AND ON PLASTIC

When The Warehouse stopped giving out plastic bags to take its goods away, I started boycotting the company, being appalled at the hypocrisy of not using plastic bags yet having shops stocked with products wrapped in unnecessary plastic.

Now the plastic bag has become a state-sponsored enemy and supermarkets have or are on the cusp of banishing it to the scrap heap of history in the name of “global warming”. Yet a casual check of supermarket fruit and vegetable departments reveals unnecessary plastic wrapping on such items as cucumbers, lettuces and bananas. Of all the fruit we eat, the banana has one of the most impervious skins, so to wrap it in plastic borders on insanity.

I support attempts to reduce our use of plastic in all its forms when it can be replaced by a more environmentally friendly alternative, but logic tells me the sensible way of solving a problem is to start at the beginning. Banning plastic bags at supermarket checkouts is not going to save the planet, or even one whale, but it will bolster supermarkets’ bottom line and confuse and annoy customers.

Faced with this type of muddled bureaucratic thinking, the French would take to the streets and riot, but we will just go baa. TMP Stevens (Pukekohe)

MIGRATION COMPACT

That the Government should even contemplate committing our country to the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is horrific to consider. The compact is in line with the left-wing Marxist agenda that controls the UN, with the intention of gaining full international control and removing national sovereignty and governance. The proposed migrant movement is from east to west, never the other way.

Most former colonial countries, with voting rights equal to all other nations, see this as pay-back time for historical injustices blamed on the major colonial powers.

An apathetic public are unaware of this threat to national identity and are kept uninformed by a less-than-objective media. Wake up, New Zealand! Bryan Johnson (Omokoroa)

BOTANICAL MENACES

A full-page advertisement in the December 15 Listener urged readers to give a native tree for Christmas, and showed a cute pōhutukawa in a pot. But these Trojan gifts are unsuitable for suburban or city properties. I discovered this many years ago when I found seven of these coastal giants planted on four properties abutting my 250m² Mt Victoria section, although most neighbours were helpful when they realised the trees’ damaging potential.

On my current property I have planted native shrubs and small trees, carefully taking account of the neighbours’ as well as my own sun and light, but one neighbour is naively growing a rewarewa, a kānuka, three nīkau palms and a rampant griselinia on the south and west fence-lines of a tiny section. In addition, the rewarewa, a forest giant, is less than 2m to the north of a

neighbour’s house and a metre from a sewer line that serves three properties.

Anyone buying botanical gifts for city or suburban gardens should be aware of the growth habits of these trees. Lee Pomeroy (Kilbirnie, Wellington)

TEACHER SHORTAGE

The current teacher shortage is nothing new. There was a severe shortage 60 years ago when I first entered teachers’ college. The solution then was to employ “pressure cookers” – mature students who were given a shorter training course. Many of them went on to become outstanding teachers.

Twenty years later, I decided to return to teaching. The pay was low and the work was hard, but within a short time teachers won equal pay, and I was helped by colleagues to learn the new skills required.

I don’t know what the solution will be this time, but I do know that the deep satisfaction of doing a job you love outweighs the difficulties and hardships. Pauline Steele (Eastbourne, Lower Hutt)

WAR’S LONG AFTERMATH

Stevan Eldred-Grigg’s letter (December 15) on the wrongs of war is a keeper, for all to

read, especially our younger generation who get the glorification stance that exudes from Anzac parades and other memorials. Thousands of our citizens were affected by the diversion of resources to

boost the military and the conscription of our men, but the “imperialism and narrow nationalism” also had an ongoing devastating effect that’s still being felt today.

My father-in-law was

decorated for bravery. He no doubt had post-traumatic stress disorder. It affected his life, marriage and children’s upbringing, which subsequently affected his children’s lives. The trauma has become an epigenetic inheritance.

Clare Dudley (Coromandel)