Taxpayers don’t need bitter pill

I have just seen the TV newsclip stating there were traces of pesticide and other assorted garbage in pills tested at the Rhythm & Vines festival. This was after another person at a Sydney music festival took something in a pill, and died.

The most obvious question is why are people attending these events so devoid of intelligence and commonsense to take this rat poison?

And now the Police Minister, Stuart Nash, wants to spend hard-earned taxpayers’ money to test these pills so these little snowflakes can take their illicit tablets knowing they don’t contain poison.

Instead of the taxpayer footing the bill for this outrageous behaviour, how about billing the event organisers for police and testing services, and if they want to increase admission costs, then so be it.

Why should the taxpayer be forever paying for stupidity?

Gary Kenny, Tauranga.

Life before plastic

For the first part of my life, I lived quite happily without plastic. I went to the corner grocery armed with a wicker basket, or the friendly grocer would deliver my wares in boxes, and would have a chat at the same time. The loose food had been carefully weighed and placed in paper bags or tied in bundles.

My babies’ bottoms were sheathed in cloth nappies, and that was not all that time-consuming. My radio and other furniture were made of wood, which was more easily disposed of when no longer needed. So why is plastic so necessary?

Ailsa Martin-Buss, Glen Innes.

Composting riddle

I am confused. The Government is banning compostable plastic rubbish bags along with single-use plastic bags because there are no recycling facilities for the compostable ones. But if they are compostable why do they need to be recycled? I think I may know the answer, but don’t you think this should be part of the education programme?

Colin Nicholls, Mt Eden.

Rare bird

Your journalist Steve Braunias’ wish-list number 4 for 2019 is the arrival of a rare bird. Can I suggest a trip to the Seabird Coast on the Firth of Thames highway. A very large “oyster catcher” languishes there for all to see. Anybody interested to know how it arrived can visit Penguin Studios’ website or better still, visit the bird presiding over the beautiful coastline.

Enyth Good, Epsom.

Driving on drugs

The debate about drivers being tested for drugs as well as alcohol beggars belief. The evidence shows drug-impaired drivers are responsible for more fatalities than those attributable to alcohol. Clearly the regime of testing should be extended and those caught driving under the influence of illicit drugs should be suitably punished — for driving while under their influence and for being in possession.

Axel Hansen, Auckland Central.

Crash barriers

Research over a period of 30 years has proved beyond doubt that it’s a waste of time to try to make people drive better. The only thing that is guaranteed to stop cars crashing is median barriers and wider shoulders.

The Auckland Council spent large sums of money a year or two ago inviting a Swedish specialist here to consult on road safety. He said people will always behave idiotically. That will never change no matter how much money we spend on driver education. The key is making roads safer.

Perhaps with policies announced recently we have some chance of at last seeing something effective being done to reduce the road toll. We should all be grateful that funds are about to be put into medians and shoulders.

Susan Grimsdell, Auckland Central.

Quest for truth

Okay, I am big enough to admit it when I am confused. In the Herald last Saturday, one economist was sure house prices would increase by 10 per cent while in yesterday’s paper another economist said house prices could have a correction.

Then I come across a full-page Herald self-promotion advert to “believe it when I read it” and being “committed to the truth”. So who do I to believe? Which is the “truth”? Maybe the Herald ,asanew year’s resolution, can stop referencing economists until they can agree on what is true. Paul Murray, Hamilton.

Nuclear waste

Further to Donna Awatere Huata’s excellent piece on the ostrich mentality of corporations re pollution, the nuclearwaste dilemma languishes in corporations’ and Governments’ too-hard baskets. Like the discovery of oil and coal and their applications, nuclear power was touted as the next great thing. It was hailed as an alternative clean energy source. But now this wonder solution has created a problem. What to do with the waste? Nuclear contamination has already fouled the planet and global conversations on the consequences have gone quiet.

Elly Inta, Henderson.

Poland conference

Donna Awatere Huata is dead right on COP24. It was not a breakthrough at all and I applaud her call for leadership to avert catastrophe. She is wrong to say the show was sponsored by the coal industry. The annual COP Climate Change event was organised by the United Nations. The promotion of the fossil fuel sideshow flop organised by the Trump Administration, the solitary non-participant in the UN Paris accord, does not make it otherwise.

Donna mentions leadership and courage. I add at this extremely delayed stage, whether we can slow or reverse our path toward catastrophe or not, we must get ready for an entirely new way of living.

Bob Hughes, Gisborne.

Climate change

Terry Dunleavy may scoff at Donna Awatere Huata, but her article shows it is possible to write intelligently about climate change if one studies the science on the websites of scientific institutions and societies. Not one disputes anthropogenic global warming and its serious consequences. Not one. Not in any branch of science, anywhere. Leaving climate deniers to do no better than puff their chests out and wave their hands around. Stephanie Hawking, Howick.

Religious comfort

Correspondent Julia du Fresne reminded us religious belief has been shown to be positively associated with mental health. In an attempted rebuttal yesterday, correspondent Andrew Tichbon pointed out there are some unhappy refugees from religious locations like Syria and central America. As I understand it, du Fresne’s information is that, other things being equal, faith in God is a source of contentment, even joy. Other things being equal.

True, there are circumstances in parts of the world that can crush the happiness out of anyone, but that is hardly relevant. For all their professed devotion to reason and evidence (oh bliss!) a lot of religion baiters do tend to play fast and loose with both. Gavan O’Farrell, Lower Hutt.

Wellbeing measure

Bryan Gould’s recent call for more comprehensive indicators of our economic and social performance was highly apposite. About 20 years ago this writer advocated an Economic Transparency Act requiring dissemination of all relevant data on New Zealand’s economic and social performance. That initiative was firmly rejected. And derided.

The plain, incontrovertible fact is that practically all our indicators, the GDP, balanced budgets, productivity and so on are flawed and meaningless. Conversely, revelatory metrics such as real per capita income growth, the median wage, household disposable income and inequality are firmly suppressed (for obvious reason).

We simply cannot progress unless the public can readily access an accurate, comprehensive set of economic and social performance indicators from an entirely objective, non-partisan source.

John Gascoigne, Cambridge.

Minority rule

David Mairs states the first past the post system is not as democratic as MMP as it allowed Trump, who received 3 million fewer votes than Clinton, to become, as he states, a minority President. We must therefore have a minority Prime Minister.

Labour received far fewer votes than National and yet the party which received most electors’ votes doesn’t get to govern. Instead we have a system whereby the leader of a party which received 7 per cent of the vote and who steadfastly refused to advise the electors before the election who his party might side with, gets to decide who becomes Prime Minister. That doesn’t sound too democratic.

John Rudd, RD Tauranga.

Not a “license”

The licentious use of “license” as a noun in yesterday’s article on Lime licences reveals either the shortcomings of spellcheck or the inadequacies of today’s teaching methods. But does it even matter, I hear you ask? Surely, if the practice of spelling correctly is no longer practised even by journalists, what chance has the general public in conquering the eccentricities of the language?

Mary Tallon, Morningside.