Spill the beans on all council candidates

IN response to your (ODT, 17.8.22) frontpage article linking prospective local council candidates to protest movements, I ask, ‘‘Is this fair or appropriate?’’

In addition: ‘‘Are provable facts being replaced by emotive opinion here?’’

These candidates are now victims of attempted character assassination by having their association with an online group reported with little or no context.

Irrespective of candidates’ qualification or suitability for local government, I hope that now a precedent has been set where the ODT

will also bring equality into this election by informing readers of all other candidates’ private lives, associations and beliefs.

I had assumed the ODT provided us with unbiased and balanced news, but increasingly your content feels that information is being filtered for us, so we are given only what has been chosen for us to know.

A. McLaughlin

Kakapuaka

Public transport

MALCOLM Budd (ODT, 27.8.22) identifies that he is a candidate for the Otago Regional Council when he comments on the problems with local public transport, and dismisses the idea of the Dunedin City Council taking back responsibility.

Would he also share with voters his involvement in a private firm which holds contracts for our public transport?

Gio Angelo Belleknowes

Malcolm Budd replies:

‘‘My involvement in a private firm which holds contracts for our public transport was with Ritchies Coachlines, firstly as Otago regional manager and more recently as national business development manager.

‘‘I was with Ritchies for 17 years before my recent retirement.’’

YOUR editorial (ODT, 30.8.22) expresses outrage at the raffish attitude of Rob Campbell, chairman of Te Whatu Ora — Health NZ.

Mr Campbell takes the view that the agency’s workinprogress is not newsworthy. There is some truth to this; the most useful question may be ‘‘How’s it going?’’

Regrettably, Mr Campbell also said they’re not in the business ‘‘of providing occupational therapy to journalists’’ at this busy time. It’s not great to use a clinical rehab metaphor.

The chairman would have done better to refer to ‘‘diversional therapy’’, an inclusive practice for those needing to know stuff.

Alan Beck South Dunedin

Essential training

I FAIL to understand the ‘‘crime’’ by Dunedin Hospital in asking two nursing students in their second or third year of training to observe a person with suicidal thinking (ODT, 29.8.22).

It was most unlikely that they would have been left alone without direct supervision of a registered nurse or immediate accesses to additional help if they wanted.

What kind of nurse training is going on in our polytechnics if a future healthcare worker is scared or unwilling to chip in to help their senior nursing colleagues and the patients in an unforeseen and urgent situation?

Reunion

Mathew Zacharias Mosgiel

St James Anglican Church, Roxburgh: 150th anniversary, 10.30am, November 6, 2022. Church service followed by lunch. To register contact Stef Sommers: (022) 3940730 or stef.lev2613@gmail.com