JamiLee Ross saga opens a can of worms

AS is common in the press these days, what we are told is not as important as what is concealed.

Last Saturday, in a byelection in the ‘‘safe’’ Liberal seat of

Wentworth, Australia, it appears that an independent has won, with a 20% swing.

The loss was attributed to voter anger against the sacking of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull by his colleagues. What is not mentioned is the part played by a publicly funded lobby group (getup.org.au).

During the campaign, 7465 members donated enough funds to make over 50 large corflute posters, 60,000 ‘‘how to vote’’ cards, and meet all its costs; and 613 volunteers made over 90,000 political phone calls. Its influence must have been enormous.

To my mind this is real democracy, yet the media had nothing to say about it.

About the same time in New Zealand, JamiLee Ross was apparently being bundled into an ‘‘Auckland mental health faculty ’’ without his consent.

We don’t know who authorised this, except that it was ‘‘the police’’, which is just a wing of the National Party. He was effectively a political prisoner.

I thought only places like Saudi Arabia did such things.

Dennis Dorney

Calton Hill

THE collective media has written and spoken literally thousands of words commenting on JamiLee

Ross’ motives, speculating on the behaviour of him and National leader Simon Bridges, the likely political outcomes and the consequences facing both of them for their unprecedented behaviour.

The media reaction was predictable. However, I think all that was trumped by the press photograph published soon after Mr Ross’ explosive accusations.

It showed the opposition leader backed by Amy Adams, Judith Collins, Paula Bennett and Mark Mitchell.

It could be the photograph of the year. The facial expressions and their focal direction coupled with the physical attitudes of all five subjects told it all. End of! Harry Kerr

Brighton

IS the National Party using our police to protect its interests?

Police were used to stop usual action following the catastrophic blast at Pike River. And the police were used to shut down Mr Ross. Where is this leading?

R. J. N. Kennedy

Dunedin

Energy conundrums

ONE could be forgiven, after reading the ODT (22.10.18), for thinking that Dunedin had hosted the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party over the weekend.

On opening up page 4, the headline read ‘‘Second EV rapid charger opened’’.

Now let’s turn to the Business and Money section on page 16. The subheading reads. ‘‘Genesis importing coal to meet demand’’.

Genesis Energy has ordered

120,000 tonnes of Indonesian coal, without which we wouldn’t be able to keep the lights on and keep running industry in New Zealand, according to the chief executive, Marc England.

No new drilling, stop all mining, but it’s all right to import coal that will assist the new EV vehicle rapid charger to meet EV demands. Sustainability? Yeah right.

Brian Miller

East Taieri

[Abridged]

The rite of being bated

ENCOURAGED by the ODT opening its correspondence columns to discussion about an appropriate word (‘‘bated’’, 17.10.18), might I be permitted to point out that ‘‘right of passage’’ in the same issue (page 5) should read ‘‘rite of passage’’.

Clarke Isaacs

Sunshine