Not impressed by how National is behaving

IT was Theresa May who reminded her fellow Tories that the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom was seen as the ‘‘Nasty Party’’, because of years of austerity policies, and it was Paul Keating who railed against John Howard’s Liberals as ‘‘Punishers and Straighteners’’ for similar reasons.

After listening to Michael Woodhouse, one could be excused for thinking that he is hellbent on achieving a similar label for National.

The gleeful pursuit of ‘‘gotcha moments’’ referring to the border problems, including doubling down on the claim of a homeless man entering the Auckland hotel, in spite of having no evidence to back this up, and claiming that he expects that cases of community transmission will emerge — by his tone of voice, one felt that he wouldn’t be unhappy if that were to prove to be the case.

Yes, there were problems at the border, but no acknowledgement of the speed at which successful remedial action was taken.

Perhaps it’s time to reexamine National’s record in health over its nine years in power which could basically be summed up as benign neglect and kicking the can down the road.

B. Rivers

Wanaka

I AGREE with comments made by Selwyn Yeoman (letters, 2.6.20) when he called out Michael Woodhouse’s prank regarding an alleged homeless man.

Times are difficult at the moment due to Covid19 and we all need to be working together to beat this thing.

By sending the Government off on a wild goose chase and not providing any evidence to support his claims, followed by criticism that they went looking for somebody that apparently didn’t even exist, is nothing short of schoolboy tactics.

Taxpayers pay our MPs well, but when you get this sort of behaviour it is not helpful.

In the real world he would have been sacked for wasting company money.

Thankfully, we have a way to fix this in September.

John Tempest Balclutha [Abridged]

Cod quota

WE see (ODT, 29.6.20) that recreational greed is alive and well in Port Chalmers.

With Warren Lewis unable to take 30 blue cod per person per day, he must now adjust to 10 per person. With blue cod costing about $35/kg at retail, Mr Lewis should consider himself very lucky to be able to get it for nothing from the sea and be satisfied with 10.

Because this fish is such an ‘‘iconic’’ fish, the Ministry for Primary Industries should be stricter in its setting of limits and enforcement thus ensuring sustainability from local greed for this species.

M. Barra

Cromwell

Dunedin Railways

I CAN’T believe that the railway is closing that we frequently travel on, and have since first coming here on the Sapphire Princess in 2004 when we cruised to New Zealand.

We and other Australian visitors mainly choose Dunedin as one of the ports of call, as we can go riding on the train up your wonderful gorge railway.

I can’t believe that the people of Dunedin would let this happen.

It seems to me that there’s little else to do in Dunedin — we regularly get a bus into the city, do some shopping and catch the local train rather than a cruise ship special. It makes a lovely day out but in future we’ll be choosing cruises that bypass Dunedin.

Steve and Judy Watts

Brisbane ...................................

BIBLE READING: The Lord will guide you always. Isaiah 58.11.