Too many public excluded meetings

RATEPAYERS of Invercargill, vote wisely. Too many meetings behind closed doors are public excluded.

Three years of expensive consultants, ratepayers are not told what transpired at meetings, our present councillors have done nothing for three years and get over $80,000 per year, and have brought in babysitters to sort it out, paying them $730,000.

Clare Hadley has to go, and appoint someone from Invercargill to do this.

Graeme Lewis moved to close the museum in 2017, the rest of the sheep seconded it, costing our children six years of Southland culture, and it’s ongoing.

As a pensioner we can not afford this waste of ratepayers’ money.

Vote new people on. They cannot be as bad as the ones that are there now. Michael Hopkins

Invercargill

Living Allowance

I WAS shocked at the repeated claims by Nicola Willis that Labour has paid out the living allowance to dead people. What a storm in a teacup.

Most people will be aware that the first thing you do when someone dies is close their bank accounts and if they're on a benefit (including the pension) tell Winz they have died. There are other steps you do too.

I think it shows a degree of ignorance of how the real world works when Nicola Willis keeps making these untrue comments.

All she needed to do was check with a bank and they would have told her that there are no bank accounts kept open for dead people for that money to go to.

S. Libeau Invercargill

Bullying

GIVEN their massive outrage over Sam Uffindell’s teenage bullying incident, I hope that, to be fair, the media will research the history of all our other 119 MPs to make sure that, before party selection, all of them declared everything illegal, stupid and regrettable they did as as teenagers.

John Day Wanaka

Britain's water

THE article ‘‘plugging the leaks urgent’’ (World Focus, 8.8.22) outlining Britain's water infrastructure woes, is a timely reminder of the urgency of our own Three Waters reform and exposes the folly of allowing private ownership and control of what is a public health necessity.

In 1989 after decades of underfunding and underinvestment in infrastructure, and with sustained water pollution by industry contributing to declining water quality, the Thatcher government privatised the potable, sewerage and wastewater services of England and Wales.

Fast forward to 2018 and, with infrastructure again requiring considerable investment, over 70% of shares in England's water companies are overseasowned, with shareholders having made more than £6.5 billion from dividends and interest, and bosses of the nine companies £58 million in salary, bonuses, pensions and other benefits in the preceding five years.

Fortunately our reforms are modelled on Scottish Water, a publiclyowned company regulated through a number of bodies including The Water Industry Commission for Scotland which sets the prices for water and sewerage services included in council taxes. Should those funding and orchestrating opposition to our reforms have the fruits of any future privatisations as their primary motivation, safeguards protecting public ownership will be written into legislation and a public referendum required with a 75% vote in favour of privatisation to carry it.

Susan Hall

Oamaru