Time to change date of Queen’s Birthday holiday
THE choosing of September 26th as a holiday to mourn for the death but also to celebrate the life of Queen Elizabeth II seems very appropriate to me. It was on September 26, 1907 that New Zealand became a dominion as opposed to a colony of Great Britain. The day was celebrated as a holiday initially but that ceased many years ago. Maybe now is the time to reinstate it in place of what has been the Queen’s Birthday holiday for so long. With Matariki now in place and being observed somewhere between mid
June and mid July, having another holiday in June just does not make sense. A new holiday to honour the monarchy and New Zealand’s history with it would be very well placed in September without any increase in holiday time, just better distribution. Some may wish to remember the Queen on this day, others to celebrate whatever monarch is on the throne. Many would simply enjoy a day off during the long haul from Matariki to Labour Day. Whatever way you want to use it there is food for thought there. Richard O’Mahony
North East Valley
ANOTHER public holiday — was it a wise decision ?
The Queen’s death is a sad time for all people in remembering a wonderful monarch who dedicated her life to all, and served us beyond the call of duty. However, given the circumstances of the past 2 years with the Covid pandemic, it was not a wise decision by our Government to designate yet another public holiday to honour her. We have been and are still going through hard times — businesses struggling, school pupils endeavouring to catch up on learning, hospitals cancelling urgent surgery when patients have been waiting an endless time to be attended to, many people struggling financially and under stress.
We don’t have to follow the plans other countries have made and it would have been a much better decision to just ask our nation to remember and honour the Queen in their own way, in their own time.
Margaret Hall Wanaka
WITH the commencement of the reign of King Charles III, a new era has begun and appropriately all the nations of the Commonwealth confirmed the sovereignty and governance of the one true King. The GovernorGeneral and Prime Minister confirmed NZ’s acceptance of the sovereignty and governance of King Charles on behalf of every man, woman and child in NZ. So any previous talk about who had and hadn’t ceded sovereignty has come to an end. Every person in New Zealand has accepted King Charles as the sole true King. We are all one people again, there is no them and us. We are, and should be one people, proud to be New Zealanders.
Draining debates
K. O’Hara Dunedin
SHAME on you for the onesided ‘‘Draining Debates’’ feature on Three Waters in Saturday’s Mix (10.9.22). All three of the anonymous sources quoted by Bruce Munro think it’s a dandy idea. But 32 councils have banded together in the Communities 4 Local Democracy because they think it’s a terrible idea. Don’t you think they have some serious reasons for their opposition that deserve mention?
Mike Sweeney Oamaru
THANK you Bruce Munro for the most lucid, most helpful, article (ODT,
10.9.22) I have read on the Three
Waters proposals. I hope everyone everywhere reads it, including those councils and councillors who have misunderstood the problem, shut their eyes to the need for radical change, or misrepresented it in order to boost their reelection chances.
Gio Angelo
Belleknowes
I HAVE noticed that many people, including candidates themselves, are still confused about STV voting.
Possibly the most serious confusion is the idea that people should only rank one candidate for the mayoralty.
On this, I would like to make a few points:
1. If you have given your most favoured mayoral candidate a “1” ranking, the strength of your vote for that candidate is not diminished in any way by whether you choose to also rank additional candidates, or to only rank one candidate.
Later preferences only come into play when your more favoured candidates have been eliminated.
2. It is highly likely that whoever is elected to be mayor will require second and later preference votes to reach the quota.
In 2019 for example, of the approximately 42,000 voting papers that were received, the highest number of first preference votes received was only 9500 votes (by Vandervis), while the quota needed was about 21,001.
3. In practical terms, the corollary of the preceding points is that if, for example, a voter would like to see someone other than Hawkins elected as mayor, they should be at least ranking two or three alternative candidates who stand a good chance to be elected mayor.
The only real justification for only ranking one candidate is when the voter dislikes all the remaining candidates equally.
Malcolm MoncriefSpittle
Dunedin