Time for transtasman compassion

As both an Australian and New Zealand citizen, I have found myself (like many other Aussies) wishing Jacinda Ardern was our own authentic leader. She listens to people, which is why I hope she will listen to me today regarding what I believe is a huge oversight in need of reviewing.

Why does New Zealand not have a means of allowing NZ citizens to enter on compassionate grounds? The current application offered to NZ citizens to reenter the country on emergency grounds offers the following options: “You are applying to return to NZ because you are seriously ill” or “you are applying to return to NZ because you are unsafe”.

How is a leader valuing kindness, connectedness, compassion and empathy, not believing that entering the country to say goodbyes to terminally ill family members is a worthy reason?

Grandmothers, mothers and sisters are dying without their loved ones by their side while applications are unanswered.

My sister is only 72-years-old and is at the end of her life. She needs an army of support to facilitate her to be discharged home to pass peacefully in the comfort of her family home. Please, let us come home and hold our loved ones close in their final days. Yvonne Millett, Melbourne.

Boom times

Glad to see Simon Wilson sticking up for boomers ( NZ Herald, November 27).

It was boomers who challenged our country’s cosying up to racist South Africa and the mythology that New Zealand was a paradise of racial harmony. We fought for women’s reproductive rights, founded refuges for beaten women, challenged the police attitudes to rape, got the Human Rights Act. We redefined gay as normal and changed the law. We opposed the Vietnam War, opposed nuclear tests in the Pacific, and marched on Anzac Day on behalf of women raped and murdered in all wars.

We fought to save Lake Manapouri, exposed barbaric fishing methods and saved the Warawara kauri forest and Westland beech forests.

I have to confess I miss out on being a boomer, apparently, being one year older. But when I go to any activist or environmental event, I see loads of boomers, still doing the mahi.

It’s great to see younger people sticking up for the public good but, as an old feminist, it’s maddening to have our platforms redefined by young ones as deficient in race and class analysis.

Yes, get on with finishing what we started, but don’t try and teach your grandmother to suck eggs.

Sandra Coney, Titirangi.

Change agent

Simon Wilson has noted the absence of politicians at the Climate Change and Business Conference ( NZ Herald, November 27). I am a first-term City Vision local board member attending both days. I used a chunk of professional development budget, well worth

it to reinforce determination and optimism on climate action.

I had questions picked for panellists, including on ethics in business decisionmaking and on different attitudes between family and corporate farmers. I got ideas on how to promote sustainable business practices more widely in our area too.

I wish more Auckland Council politicians had been there too.

Julia Maskill, elected member, Albert Eden Local Board.

Erebus inquiries

Richard Waugh ( NZ Herald, November 27) identifies the gap between the easier corporate-blame and the more brutal crew-blame. On one side, the airline’s tweaking of the flight path’s southern waypoint (always understood to be the tip of 12,000ft Mt Erebus, and computer-guided a safe 4000ft higher than that) along with other “management failures”; and on the other side, the crew’s disastrous, unapproved disconnection of the autopilot and determination to fly visually, as had previous pioneering flights, to the delight of passengers.

New Zealand’s then Chief Inspector of Air Accidents, Ron Chippindale, working with a team of experts at the crash site and in laboratories, blamed pilot error as the principal cause. Royal Commission leader Judge Peter Mahon later rejected this opinion, opting instead to blame the airline for organisational and communication failures.

Mahon’s opinion still stands only because royal commissions cannot, constitutionally, be challenged in this country. However, it was effectively overturned and Chippindale’s conclusion reinstated by the highest courts in London, Washington and Wellington.

Chris Lonsdale, New Plymouth.

Carbon unchecked

Climate alarmists have been waiting with bated breath for the post-Covid atmospheric carbon dioxide measurement. Their argument was that the shutdowns would show a reduction, thus proving that humans are the main cause of increases.

Regrettably, the World Meteorological Organisation, on November 23, 2020, stated that there was no discernable change in the trajectory of carbon dioxide increase for 2020.

Back to the drawing board for those in authority who were planning to use similar lockdowns as a measure against climate change.

G.N. Kendall, Rothesay Bay.

House wins

Listening to the current hype around house prices, one could be forgiven for thinking that only a handful of people own houses in New Zealand and most of them are speculators, preying on the poor and disadvantaged. But the reality is different.

House price rises benefit house owners. Sixty-four per cent of Kiwis are house owner-occupiers and 64 per cent is a majority in any democracy I’m aware of.

Ergo, house price rises represent the greatest good for the greatest number and should therefore be applauded.

John Denton, Eskdale.

Banal and ugly

I wonder what images J. Drake ( NZ Herald, November 20) was looking at to be able to describe the proposed Erebus memorial as “attractive and welldesigned” and conclude that “it will look brilliant”.

I rarely publicly play the “former art museum director” card but, after a halfcentury career of art scrutiny, I find that the architect-designed object, at least as depicted in the Ministry for Culture and Heritage documentation, appears to have negligible artistic merit, is banal, ugly and mechanistic and totally out of scale with its setting. Its only “brilliance” will be the reflection from the stainless steel from which it is in part constructed.

In addition, the ministry has already spent a huge amount on this project and we have yet to see a maquette of the thing, let alone a model. How is this possible?

Christopher Johnstone, Grey Lynn.

That’s reform

A Labour Government spokesperson says they’re proud of their work resolving child poverty. In the last three years they’ve introduced the families’ package, winter energy payment and marginally increased benefits.

With nearly 400,000 workers across 32 departments and more than 2700 agencies, that effort over three years is lazy and nothing to crow about.

In 1938, [Arnold] Nordmeyer and [Gervan] McMillan introduced the world’s first entire social welfare system, designed it and passed the legislation in less than one year. Now that’s transformational. And they did this when there were only 16,000 Government workers for a population of 1.6 million.

Bernard Jennings, Wellington.

Off the shelf

Being reliant on a supermarket delivery service, I am becoming really irritated and annoyed with the lack of care given to packing the food, ensuring best-before and sell-by dates are taken notice of and the actual quality of fresh produce supplied.

While grateful for having groceries delivered, especially during Covid lockdown, food is becoming more expensive and being wasted because of the poor quality supplied or out-of-date is very grating.

We are told to heed best-before dates and sell-by dates. Just because a delivery service is used, it does not mean it is okay for packers to chuck in any old piece of broccoli or continue to keep supplying very short or expired dated items.

With only two “big” supermarkets and one with a ridiculously high delivery fee, options are limiting.

Sharon Jameson, Cambridge.