This f lier says thanks to crew Media Council

As a passenger on the Qantas flight diverted from Wellington to Ohakea, in my opinion subsequent media statements have been, in the main, negative, inaccurate and undeserved.

The aircraft had a full complement of passengers. On the approach to Wellington, the flaps failed to extend to the necessary angle required for a safe touchdown on our very short runway. The captain immediately aborted the landing and decided to divert to Ohakea, where the aircraft could safely alight with restricted flap activation. After a safe arrival, the cabin crew informed passengers that, due to NZ regulations, the aircraft had to remain sealed. As the interior heated up, the captain eventually negotiated permission to open one forrard door.

As lunch had been served in flight, there was little leftover food. The cabin crew performed in an exemplary manner at all times, providing water, the remaining resources available and even baby-sitting assistance. Some passengers appeared to be unable to comprehend that the diversion was for safety reasons, but the vast majority realised that sitting on the tarmac at Ohakea was vastly preferable to possibly swimming in Evans Bay!

All the crew deserve praise and thanks for their decisions and resultant actions. NZ Customs and Immigration procedures were totally out of their control and, I believe, that they too, dealt with this emergency, to the best of their ability. Thank you all.

Ritchie Stephen, Brooklyn

Counting the cost

John Brown (Letters, Nov 15) casts a light on what a majority of good citizens are doing – observing.

Observing vast sums of tax and ratepayer funds expended on cycle lane job creation schemes for council or contractor planners, engineers and road workers. Money better spent working on vital repairs and practical improvements to suburban streets.

This correspondent employs a robust method assessing the value of cycle lanes – it’s called counting. Transiting Kilbirnie, Newtown and Island Bay cycle lane areas, numbers observed are between zero and three. Commuting times and Oriental to Evans Bay a few more. Worse still, cyclists choose when they use road, or footpath, rather than cycle lane.

Attention needs to be given to the fitness of cycles and competency of cyclists. Examples are the safety of zealots carrying vulnerable children in a box mounted over front wheels, pregnant woman peddling to hospital and those pushing through stop signals. The results of an accident shocking and justly unacceptable.

The reality is, Wellington is not a practical place for mass cycling. The time and millions spent on cycle lanes disproportionate to the benefit so few cyclists may enjoy.

Stop politicians’ fantasist utopian social engineering. They cannot make us take up cycling.

Giles Crisp, Karaka Bays

Listen, don’t label us

Isn’t free speech a wonderful thing and thank you to all those people who have fought and died for us to retain it.

However, when a politician, Shane Jones, publicly bullies people who have concerns and refers to them as ‘‘rednecks’’ then I believe free speech is threatened.

I find his description offensive and racist.

On Thursday, approximately 1200 people marched through Wellington to Parliament. This was a peaceful march by people so frustrated with the Government’s refusal to listen to them.

These are very busy people in the peak of the seasonal farming workload, so they have not gone to Wellington for a day out. To then be treated with so much disrespect by Jones is in my opinion a disgrace to the position he holds.

This march was about the cost to NZ, which is not being factually discussed. The ETS will reportedly cost this country $200 billion. That equates to about $170 per household income each week for the next 30 years. I think that is worth discussing.

I’d ask what benefit this will have to our ordinary Kiwis. The answer is to noone except the carbon farmers who are going to get rich.

Can I thank all those people – Ma¯ ori, European and Asian – who came to Wellington for the march and the thousands of others who supported us by wearing green. Hopefully you will make a difference.

Andy Scott, president, 50 Shades of Green [abridged]

Championing childbirth

Why do we celebrate our birthday ? Obviously because it’s the most important event in our lives. So why have we reduced the act of childbirth to an unimportant occasion unworthy of proper support? Is it because it is run by women for women?

Where are the champions for childbirth? We have time, money and passion spent on euthanasia, cancer research, mental health, cannabis, you name it, and yet no-one in power gives a damn about our most important event. Unsafe maternity wards and grossly underpaid midwives show how much we care.

The sign of a civilised society is how it cares for its most vulnerable. On that measure our attitude toward our babies and their mothers makes me wonder where we are headed.

Roy Edney, Waterloo

Population push

The news that Wellington faces a future housing shortfall (Karori x 5, Nov 16) prompts a more fundamental question: Why is the Government trying to increase the population?

Economist Michael Reddell, for one, has queried the wisdom of this approach which seems to go unquestioned despite the impact on housing affordability. Brian Richards, Khandallah

They’re not the owner

Robert Whitaker, from the lobby group Renters United, said ‘‘It’s a basic principle of natural justice that if something is going to disrupt your life as much as being forced out of your home, that you [should] have to right to address those allegations’’ (Shake-up for city rental scene, Nov 18). Except it isn’t the renter’s home. They are renting it.

I agree that there are bad landlords as well as bad tenants, but this Government seems hellbent on making it more difficult for landlords. If landlords pull out, where are the people who either can’t or don’t want to buy a place going to go . . . a motel paid for by the Government?

Maureen Wempe, Carterton

The associate housing minister, as well as the Greens, is on a war path with landlords. The new proposals for landlords are to give control of the rental property to the tenant.

Absolutely absurd, devoid of any common sense and an attempt to turn New Zealand into a communist state.

Why does the landlord have to go to the Tenancy Tribunal because the tenant cannot pay the rent. Since when have landlords become an integral part of our social welfare system?

The Green Party is green with envy of landlords.

Sjoerd Gorter, Waipukurau

Adoption reform stalled

Robert Ludbrook, after putting in many many years of time and effort as a lawyer, is ‘‘utterly mystified’’ as to why the Adoption Act 1955 has had so little review and thinks there is a ‘‘hoodoo over it’’ (Nov 16).

He despairs at all the relationships lost with birth families over many years.

Well, the answer is quite easy really. First of all adoption very often only concerns women and children and the other issue – that would also send it straight to the bottom of the list – is, there is no money to be made from it.

Carole Naylor, Papakowhai