Viva democracy: We don’t know how lucky we are

I’m feeling really proud to be a Kiwi right now. Democracy, an endangered species in so many parts of the world these days, was definitely the winner here, on the night. Also, honesty, consideration for others, and pragmatic progressivism, were strong winners as well.

Congratulations to Jacinda Ardern and her Labour team, Marama Davidson, James Shaw and their Green Party team, the Ma¯ori Party’s Rawiri Waititi, David Seymour and his ACT team and all the other parliamentary newbies as well. I’m sure the leader of the National Party honestly gave it her best shot, but the people have spoken, loud and clear.

Fred Dagg was right: ‘‘We don’ t know how lucky we are.’’

Now the hard work, the mahi, begins in earnest, and we should all be willing to pitch in, offer constructive criticism when needed, and contribute to making this country the envy of the world in these dangerous, Covid times.

John Watkins, Auckland

I was disgusted to see Ardern’s vehement defence of the very rich: no capital gains or wealth tax. While beneficiaries and low wage workers pay tax on every dollar, the very rich pay nothing while they earn hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

This draws a straight neoliberal line from Ardern through her mentor Helen Clark back to Roger Douglas and the Lange Government.

This belies her ‘‘empathy performance’’: any genuine sympathy for the poor would have resulted in a hugely significant amelioration of poverty. Her repeated claim of improvement on seven out of nine measures of poverty is contradicted by Statistics New Zealand.

She has one more chance to prove herself by the next election.

John Woolf, New Brighton

The winner is JA as she won very, very well over JC with almost twice the percentage party vote. So now “Let’s Keep Moving”.

Murray Hunter, Auckland

US in chaos under Trump

The US under Donald Trump is experiencing social and political chaos, described consistently as ‘‘unprecedented’’. Is that because the US is currently ‘‘unPresidented’’?

Clyde Scott, Auckland

Trump was voted in by mostly blue-collar workers on the false promise he would bring their jobs back.

Since about 1990 hundreds of American factories have closed and moved to China to take advantage of low-paid labour as did factories from many other Western countries, including New Zealand. Technology was also exported which in a little over 30 years has transformed China into a major world power soon to surpass even America itself.

The past flawed policies instituted by our politicians plus uncontrolled capitalism and immigration are the cause of New Zealand now having a massively divided have/have not society. Wages for a large section of the populace are no longer a livable income. The Baby Boomer generation have been greedy – we had everything for free. We need a capital gains tax and a more equitable distribution of wealth. We have followed the American form of capitalism instead of the more inclusive and fairer Scandinavian model.

We only have to look at the present self-destructing America to see our future if we don’t change. We already have their gated communities and drug problems. What next?

David F Little, Whangarei

Y2k was a huge success story

Like many, Polly Gillespie (‘‘How Y2K ushered in era of idiotic conspiracy theories’’, October 18) thinks that the Y2K risk was overhyped. She goes further than most in calling it a conspiracy theory.

In fact, Y2K was the success story of a generation. An estimated US$300 billion was spent globally in the late 1990s, remedying software so that it would correctly handle the transition from 1999 to 2000. The result was that there were no significant disruptions in the new year.

Ironically, because of how the fix was implemented in a lot of software, the problem popped up again on January 1 this year, affecting parking meters in New York, and a cash register brand, amongst others.

I suggest that one of the hallmarks of success is that, looking back, people think that it was no big deal. I imagine that in 20 years’ time, people will think that Covid-19 was a minor event for New Zealand because there were fewer than 2000 cases and only 1 per cent of those died. I have lower expectations that in