Reasoned arguments missing in port debate

Wayne Brown (Opinion, Business, December 8) had a great opportunity, as chair of the Upper North Island Supply Chain Strategy working group, to provide a convincing argument for the relocation of the port.

Instead we got an emotive dialogue of the type you might hear when sharing a few drinks with your mates. Subjective feelings rather than facts abound. Why didn’t he present more reasoned arguments for the relocation? For example, how does ‘‘the profit of only $8 million for the occupying land worth $600m, a pathetic return .... ’’ compare with the costs and benefits to Auckland ratepayers after a relocation? In fact, it appears that instead of a pathetic return, Auckland will subsidising the port relocation through increased transport charges.

I am not biased in any way as to where the port should go and I can see there are benefits for both Auckland and Northland in a relocation but the costs and disadvantages need to be understood. They might even outweigh the benefits. Brown, however, asks those in power to hold their ‘‘nerve’’ and leap in on the basis of an alarming lack of analysis.

It worries me that a report based on this emotive approach is being used to influence the Government.

Graeme Hadfield, Coromandel

White Island

The litany of adventure tourism disasters in this remotest of shaky places looks anything but awesome, from Erebus to White Island via Cave Creek and embracing en route smaller events involving jet boats, bungy jumps and precariously loaded skydiving aircraft. The look is not just not good, it is bad, and it seems to be driven solely by an over-weaning greed to make money buttressed by deregulation, with lip service being paid to safety.

When the nation gets the balance right the tourists will flock here, but don’t be surprised to see the numbers reduce somewhat for a time at least. All of the questions that will be asked are easy, it is the answers that will be hard for many to swallow.

Life here is starting to look cheap, don’t let’s end up giving it away. Let those brave souls foolhardy enough to court the adventures read the small print on their travel insurances. If cover does not extend, exercise caution, don’t go there.

John D Mahony, Christchurch

Once again police are running the show. Just like Erebus and Pike River. As if they don’t have enough on their plates dealing with crime.

No disrespect to the police, but surely in such tragedies the army, with its specialised equipment and personnel, neither exactly overworked, is the better option.

John Leith, Oakura

There is no doubt that the Air New Zealand crash into Mt Erebus was an unmitigated disaster and was and still is an ongoing emotional trauma to the families involved. However, the obsession for public remembrance and the need for a permanent memorial to be built needs to be put into perspective when compared to the loss of life on our roads in car crashes etc, which annually equates to nearly 50 per cent more than the Erebus disaster.

Each and every one of those killed on our roads leaves behind family members grieving just as much as the Erebus families. However, society leaves them to grieve alone, with no public sympathy or help, and with none of the financial compensation handed out to family of those killed in the crash of an airliner. If they install a cross at the accident site to help them grieve, Land Transport will quickly remove it.

Memorials will not prevent the next disaster and do not help one grieve. Loved ones are never forgotten and are remembered in one’s own memory.

Life is for the living; grieve, remember, but one must get on with it. The past cannot be altered.

David F Little, Whangarei

Assisted deaths

Ann David (letters, December 8) claims that ‘‘it doesn’t take Einstein to conclude that the number of assisted deaths in New Zealand is like to be fewer than 200’’ should the David Seymour bill pass into law.

I suggest that she leaves Einstein out of it. The logic of her comparison with Oregon’s legislation would not even challenge a primary school child.

This is because in Oregon only assisted suicide is permitted, not euthanasia, while the Seymour bill would permit both. In jurisdictions which allow both forms of ending a person’s life, such as Canada and the Netherlands, it is physicianassisted euthanasia which is overwhelmingly the more popular option, leading to much higher take-up rates. People are understandably squeamish about doing it themselves.

David’s comparison is pure spin.

Mary Appleby, Auckland