Struggling in a changing world
I feel sorry for Karl du Fresne; the world is changing and he can’t keep up (July 12).
His closing paragraph: ‘‘When age-old certainties are being constantly subverted . . . it can be hard to keep up’’ could have been written any time throughout history. ‘‘Age old certainties’’ such as the inferiority of people of colour, the evilness of homosexuality, have thankfully been subverted but only by brave people challenging them.
The refusal of a baker to provide a wedding cake to a couple because they are gay is a terrible example to use. Replace the word gay with black and it is clear this is not difficult, it is just plainly wrong.
He also equates the wedding cake issue with Sarah Huckabee Sanders being asked to leave a restaurant. I didn’t ‘‘deliriously applaud’’ the restaurant for this. Also, there is no equivalence. Huckabee Sanders comes from a position of power and privilege. The gay couple have only recently won the right to marry but still have to put up with discrimination.
It has never been easy to be part of a minority group in society and people who struggle to keep up just make it worse. David Wilson, Wellington
Fix the imbalance
I wonder whether Business Central’s opposition to the Employment Relations Amendment Bill is not because they want the right thing for New Zealand but the right thing for employers who want to maintain their power imbalance in bargaining for conditions of employment.
If large employers have competent recruitment practices they should not need the right to fire new employees without cause.
Employers don’t need to conclude a collective agreement if they have a genuine reason based on reasonable grounds not to.
Clearly there is an imbalance in the bargaining power, thus the dropoff in union membership and the drop in employees’ real wages in recent years. If real wages are to increase, unions need to be strengthened. That is to the advantage of New Zealand. The bill does not require employers to join a multi-employer collective agreement against their will. The parties still need to reach agreement on a mutually acceptable settlement.
It is time for employees to be given a fair go. This bill is a small step towards this.
Roger Dowling, Lower Hutt [abridged]
Cultural origins
Kiwis who get so tetchy about the word ‘‘Pa¯ keha¯ ’’ should look at Americans whose families emigrated to the United States generations ago.
Typically they refer to themselves as Americans – which nobody doubts they are – or Italians or Poles or whatever, depending on the context.
What’s more, these Americans don’t seem to feel a need to deny or apologise for their cultural origins the way so many New Zealanders of British extraction do.
Not that we need to look that far from home for examples. The tangata whenua manage to all be Ma¯ ori while still celebrating their own tribal affiliations and recognising everyone else’s. Chinese and Indian New Zealanders preserve their identities while still being Kiwi, and we encourage that.
These are signs of a maturity and a confidence in identity that many white New Zealanders – call them what you will – unfortunately lack. The sooner they get over themselves the sooner we can get on with truly being all New Zealanders. Owen Dance, Porirua
As a descendant of early Pa¯ keha¯ settlers, I think it is edifying that we tend to favour using Ma¯ ori words to describe who we are. We choose to be either Ma¯ ori or Pa¯ keha¯ , unlike peoples from other countries settled, or dare I say invaded, by Europeans.
Narena Olliver, Greytown
US itself meddles
Sir Don McKinnon (McKinnon signs fiery note to Trump, July 12) is concerned about Russian interference in the internal affairs of other countries, including but not limited to the United States.
The elephant in the room in this discourse is the supreme irony in any complaint regarding foreign interference in American affairs.
For well over a century the US has employed and continues to employ, as a matter of right, a wide range of ‘‘interference’’ in the affairs of other countries. These range from election meddling to lethal drones to coups to outright invasions. Peter Dyer, Mt Victoria