Pipe organ essential to cathedral Limited crime

I am absolutely delighted to read that Holy Trinity Cathedral has had a new organ installed. Having sung on Auckland’s Town Hall stage with choirs from the age of nine to adulthood, for me nothing can match the majesty, beauty and power of a magnificent pipe organ as it reverberates around an auditorium. This new organ will be a wonderful asset to the cathedral’s music for generations to come.

Ann Clarkson-Palmer, Pyes Pa.

Public broadcasting

I read where comrade Jacinda (a term I believe she uses herself) wants to fund free-to-air television. This gives her a great opportunity to ensure the reporters have a bias towards the interventionist and tax policies she will not tell us about. In particular the water tax opens up a can of worms over ownership and puts at risk an industry that has supported the rest of New Zealand and will continue to do so, no matter how much we diversify.

These interventionist policies go against all the good that has been built up since the 1980s when a more liberal and free market was established.

If you doubt my view on free to air radio and television, look no further than the Australian Broadcasting Corporation which is funded to the tune of $1 billion of public money each year. They are so biased to the left the Government has got a bill in the Senate forcing the ABC to adopt an unbiased and balanced view.

Max Brown, Half Moon Bay.

Overseas buyers

What an interesting programme on TV3 by Bryan Bruce on housing. His detailed analysis of the causes of unaffordability of housing worldwide pointed the finger squarely at wealthy foreign speculators flooding certain markets and pricing the locals out. Our trustworthy National government has told us this is not true, but actually they don’t really keep data on such matters so there are very few facts either way. Didn’t John Key just sell his Parnell mansion to an overseas buyer? Maybe we were right all along. This Government has sold our land from underneath us and our people are living in cars and garages. Do we want to vote for more of the same? I think not. Let’s deal with these matters and sort things out. R. Howell, Onehunga

Not racial

Duncan Greive claims that Bryan Bruce’s documentary on New Zealand house prices is merely race-baiting. If industrial scale immigration and hot money from China is not driving house prices in Auckland, Vancouver and Sydney through the stratosphere then perhaps Mr Greive can give us a plausible alternative explanation. I am not holding my breath.

C. C. McDowall, Rotorua.

Good night

Hats off to the Taranaki Rugby Union for a thoroughly great night at the All Blacks vs Argentina match on Saturday night. Pre match entertainment was first class with the band Mai Moa, food was good, a really enjoyable experience. We travelled down from Auckland for the game and there was no comparison with the games here and the hopeless entertainment we get at rugby matches at Eden Park. Auckland Rugby Union, you could learn from the regions. Jeanne Bell, Epsom.

Hair test

H. Robertson got a bit upset with the woman who chose to vote for Jacinda because of her lovely hair. With the immense volume of drivel flowing from all parties, the candidates’ hair-do could be as good an indicator as any. Bill and Winston are quite well set up but Te Ureroa and Gareth may struggle. Don’t even mention Steven.

Graham Steenson, Whakatane.

Expired bus cards

My elderly husband and I travelled to Wellington last weekend. In Wellington all the buses and trains use a Snapper card. However they still took cash. We also have a prepaid travel card that we use about once a year in Sydney on the trains, boats and buses. It works each time and the unused balance remains. I can only conclude the AT card was designed purposely as a money spinner for the council. Such a shame and a major inconvenience for users and staff alike.

Lis Hodges, Mairangi Bay.

Small print

Juha Saarinen is being too generous to AT. They have not done their best. I ran into this almost two years ago and was first told my card had been blacklisted. Not a great piece of news for someone who always kept their card in credit. How many Hop users have read the 64 terms and conditions together with the note at the end that suggests they have been made more customer friendly. Customer is king and AT should have got this sorted a long time ago. This is the same mentality as NZTA who have a two year expiry on road toll payments.

David Penman, Avondale.

Hate speech

Congratulations to the Australian Government for proposing a bill making it an offence to vilify, intimidate or threaten to cause personal harm on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status or religious conviction. What interesting bedfellows.

Auckland Westcity Bible Baptist Church pastor Logan Robertson preached recently on the shooting of gay people. Human Rights Commission representative Christine Ammunson called it “hateful, homophobic rhetoric” yet there was no enforcement. Hatespeech appears to be limited legally to colour, race, or ethnic or national origins.

Human Rights Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy recently suggested a review of hate-speech legislation. Police Commissioner Mike Bush called for a discussion on establishing hate-speech as a specific crime managed by specific legislation. The Human Rights Commission continues to resist any change to our hate-speech laws.

Russell Hoban, Ponsonby.

Housing consequences

It is said that on average the landlord of a rental property in New Zealand makes a return of only 3 per cent on his investment and that is before necessary expenditure on insurance, rates, maintenance and also assuming 100 per cent occupancy. Requiring termination notice to a tenant of 90 days, imposing costs of a warrant of fitness of the building and upgrading such as insulation, taxing capital gains or land, will cause many landlords to sell.

If landlords sell in large numbers, prices for cheap homes will crash with several results. Possibly 50 per cent of renters may be able to purchase a house but developers may find it no longer viable to build cheap affordable houses. House values may even drop to such a degree that many landlords will find themselves in financial strife and as a result banks will incur many bad loans.

Because many renters will never be able to raise a deposit to buy anything the Government will have to buy up a number of these ex-private rentals from the banks to house the needy.

Les Jones, Half Moon Bay.

Double standard

The Northland Regional Council announced they would appeal against a decision of the High Court that found they had not set valid rates. In 2013 the person who caused all this, John Robertson, said, when the ratepayers appealed an earlier High Court decision, litigants should always accept the judgments of the courts and move on. Not so, it seems when the judgment is in favour of the community.

Bruce Rogan, Mangawhai. Jacinda Ardern keeps harping on about decriminalisation of abortion. Maybe it is not so well-known that under current law a woman is not a criminal if she has an abortion. The current law simply prevents her from performing her own one, which is obviously dangerous to both parties, the mother-to-be and the unborn child. So unless Ardern has another health agenda which she is not telling us about, there is no need to promote this issue.

Laurie Sanders, Pyes Pa.

Peters going down

Political pundits and the media are once again throwing around the topic of “who will NZ First go with” as if it were the main question to be answered in the election. Have they missed that incorrectly filled out superannuation declaration from its leader now sees NZ First polling at a level barely enough to make it back into Parliament?

Much debate surrounds whether the Greens will make it to 5 per cent, but for now the trend in the polls suggests the New Zealand public quite rightly see Mr Peters’ declarations for what they are, and the question of the threshold should perhaps be one focused exclusively on the Greens. Ed Porter, Herne Bay.