Cogovernance claims dishonest, populist

CHRISTOPHER Luxon’s claim that he will stop cogovernance in public services (ODT, 25.1.23) is dishonest and populist.

He is pretending ignorance of the fact that no matter who is voted into power they will still be accountable to Treaty of Waitangi principles and United Nations standards.

Quibbles about Treaty articles and the governance of public services are intentionally misinformative; they won’t hold up if he wins power and actually tries to undo already existing or prepared cogovernance initiatives.

Both National and Labour have been furthering cogovernance for decades.

National’s previous coalition government with the Maori Party advanced cogovernance further than any government before it: Mr Luxon has refused to rule out another NationalMaori Party coalition.

Kiwis should ask themselves if policies attempting to stall or retard the inevitable, based on populist divisiveness, are what they genuinely want.

How would these effectively resolve concerns about ‘‘Maorification’’?

More likely, they would only pull focus and funds from actual, critical problems.

Hayden Williams

Sentencing and votingOpoho

I SEE in your Saturday edition that the Court of Appeal has reduced the life sentences of three teen age murderers (ODT, 28.1.23).

Part of the reason given for the decision was because of issues relating to the level of responsibility these young people should bear when at the time of the offences, their brains were not fully developed. The ages of the persons concerned appeared to range from 16 to 19 at the time of the offences.

At present I understand we are considering lowering the voting age because we consider the younger generation to be more responsible and mature.

In view of the learned court’s comments perhaps we should be considering changing the voting age back to 21 years?

Allan Baxter Invercargill

Business and regulation

THE concerns by Michelle Pringle of Agreeable Nature about the costs of new regulations on small and organic egg producers (ODT, 28.1.23) — costs easily met by large concerns, but not by small — remind me of almost identical concerns voiced a few years ago by the late Biddy FraserDavies, a North Island artisan cheesemaker, about the regulations imposed in similar circumstances on the cheese industry.

It is difficult not to see this as a pushback by large industrial producers, when faced with very necessary regulation, to extend the compliance requirements to an absurd level that only the large can comply with, in a conscious effort to eliminate competition and thus recover costs.

When it comes to regulation of, and compliance by industry, one size does not fit all.

The enemy of small business is not government, but big business — Government regulation is merely their weapon of choice.

Civis

A. Williams

St Leonards

PASSING notes by Civis in today’s edition (ODT, 28.1.23) demonstrates two things: Civis is unashamedly in support of Labour, and antiNational and Act New Zealand.

If editorials continue to be written with such obvious bias, surely the cloak of anonymity should be stripped away?

Yes, Labour was good to mainstream media with its financial support packages, but was that good for democracy in New Zealand?

Let’s go back to fair reporting, and perhaps even some real investigative reporting.

K.J. Lawson Oamaru