Toxic Corrections culture
I commend the Sunday StarTimes on the article ‘‘Prison staff bullies are ‘worse than inmates’’’ (Focus, March 17). Helena Chase is very brave. It saddens me she is another woman to go through this, as I did, five years ago.
It’s deplorable that significant improvements have not occurred. Those at the top don’t seem to have had the intestinal fortitude to address the problems throughout Corrections. It is particularly bad in the Waikato area.
Investigations fail because staff being complained about get together and organise a plausible story, evidence is withheld, brave people who tell the truth pay the price, the complainant’s mental health issues (the result of bullying) are targeted.
Corrections does not address bullying because it is minimising its financial risk. If one complainant is successful it would open the floodgates.
Chase is correct; bullying of women in this way is abuse. Until the perpetrators are held accountable, nothing will change.
Liz Heenan, Oamaru
Sri Lanka tragedy
My heartfelt sympathies are with the relatives of the 51 Muslims killed in the mosque attack in Christchurch in March 2019 by a lone gunman. Although that was tragic and deplorable, the carnage by Muslim extremists in Sri Lanka one month later on Easter Sunday was far worse, horrific and unthinkable.
In a precisely planned attack they blasted bombs in three packed churches and three tourist hotels killing 295 men, women and children including a few foreigners and injuring 550. YouTube still shows heartrending images. The atrocities committed by Isis, al Qaeda and the Taliban, all followers of Islam, are well known. I cannot comprehend why these extremists cannot follow their religion in peace to make the world a safer place for everyone. W Y Rambukwelle, Invercargill
Rethinking tax
While the fiscal package to minimise the immediate economic impact of Covid-19 is largely debt-financed, over the longer term, the economic burden will need to be shared by all New Zealanders as taxpayers, consumers and investors.
A fresh look at the revenue side of the government’s ledger, once the national and the global economies have recovered, would be appropriate. The existing tax structure could then be recalibrated to redistribute the tax burden more fairly, especially in the light of the growing wealth gap, child poverty and homelessness.
A few relatively straightforward methods would seem to be to make the personal income tax more progressive; introduce a low-rate wealth tax; broaden the asset tax regime, possibly including taxing the net equity of owner-occupied dwellings. The NZ Tax Review 2001 examined this last proposal at length, but refrained from recommending it in the face of strong public resistance.
Could the public be more understanding now, in the environment of the unprecedented crisis?
Srikanta Chatterjee, Emeritus Professor of Economics, Massey University
Working together
As grateful as I am to the government for an extra $9 a week on my pension it is in the realisation that $1.69 will remain if the proposed Wellington City Council rates hike is approved.
Our new mayor, Andy Foster, recently went off to a resort and spent $30,000 of ratepayers’ money on a self-improvement course.
Then there’s National leader Simon Bridges singing from the traditional National Party song sheet: Let’s bash the beneficiaries and elderly. He’s on $288,000 a year (plus many tax-free perks) yet begrudges pensioners like me an extra $9 a week. I work 30+ hours a week as a volunteer, as many elderly people do. Volunteers contribute 6 million working hours a year to other New Zealanders.
News flash, Simon: You create a decent society by being anchored in the principle of looking after the most vulnerable.
Now is an opportune time for all New Zealanders to foster that principle by working together for our common good, as our forebears did in uncertain times. Steve Plowman, Wellington
Investment flaw
Kylie Klein-Nixon (‘‘A magic wand won’t fix housing crisis’’, Escape, March 17) demonstrated insight and empathy in a rational argument on the social need for affordable housing.
I like the way Klein-Nixon called out the hocus-pocus designed to obfuscate the fact that instead of providing shelter for members of our society, housing stock is used as the most lucrative investment for Boomers. This behaviour represents best practice in our current economic model.
As a society we accept an economic theory that no longer defines reality. It highlights flawed risk modelling where poorly-defined variables are disregarded. Alternative investments such as organic crops are not considered because the infrastructure (and not the science) is undeveloped. But now social and environmental collapse looms as the outcome of investment tactics.
If the outcome of investment