Campus claims are poppycock
In Campus talks continuing (Feb 25), it was reported that the Wellington City Council had ‘‘previously confirmed that it effectively had no power to stop the demolition of buildings on the [Karori] campus’’. This is poppycock.
Like Heritage NZ (HNZ), the council can lodge a notice of requirement (NoR) for a heritage order at any time to protect the buildings on the site as a heritage protection authority. This is their right under section 187(b) of the Resource Management Act. The immediate effect of doing this is that ‘‘no person may do anything that would wholly or partly nullify the effect of the heritage order unless the person has the prior written consent of the heritage protection authority’’ (s194(2)).
This would mean that the owners would need permission from the council to demolish the campus buildings. HNZ and the council have known this since before the start of this debacle.
The issue here is not a lack of power to protect the Category 1 heritage-listed site, but rather a lack of willingness to do so. Christine McCarthy President, Architecture Centre
Wonky policy
Peter Griffin’s opinion piece (Genetic research on predators necessary, Feb 25) was on the money. He advocates for research into how gene editing may help achieve Predator-Free NZ aims by 2050.
Like, I suspect, many Green voters over the years, I have been loyal but despairing of their wonky policy stands on various issues. Now Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage is forbidding even investigating how technologies like CRISPR could help eradicate introduced killer pests. In the absence of spending many billions, belief that traps, lures and toxins can do it alone is fanciful and frankly loopy.
Sage is apparently holding on to past loathing of GMOs at any price. Please, at least check it out, minister.
Her decision wastes an opportunity to demonstrate how the Greens can learn, mature, move on and have the broader appeal to the electorate we so desperately need.
If this stands, we will again be forced to hold our noses when ticking Green in 2020. Blind adherence to past convictions or ideology, and refusal to explore all options, will more broadly ensure environmentalists continue to battle vested interests with one hand tied.
Jim Coyle, Avalon
Rules ignore usage
Your report on the new standards for rental properties (Tenants: Make changes faster, Feb 26) said that all rentals will be required to have a heater that can warm the main living area up to 18 degrees Celsius.
That’s sensible, but the new rules will also require it to be a fixed heater. This repeats something in existing rules that doesn’t really work. At present there must be a fixed heater, but it’s not required to heat the room to any particular temperature. In 20 years of observing tenants with fixed heaters, I have yet to see one regularly used.
It may be different in the large dwellings the rule-makers live in, but in a small room a fixed heater can easily be in the wrong place. The landlord and builders don’t necessarily know a tenant’s preferred furniture arrangement. So the fixed heater is turned off and a portable heater is used in preference.
Why are these rules not based on what people actually do? There’s been plenty of opportunity over the years to find out. It would make better sense to allow and encourage the use of portable heaters, placed where the tenants wish. David Wright, Hataitai
Brittle dogmatism
Helen Wilson writes that midwifery has become ‘‘a semireligious belief system which brooks no criticism’’ (Letters, Feb 28). If so, they have joined other groups that cannot bear to hear a differing point of view and who will punish the speaker if they hear it.
It is sad that this is now so familiar. Brittle, vengeful dogmatism is unfortunately the new norm, and it’s secular. Secularists claim to represent reason and higher morals: the evidence suggests otherwise. Gavan O’Farrell, Waterloo [abridged]