Reward for doing nothing

Bernard Hickey’s analysis (Dec 5) on how the baleful influence of the Boomers shapes today’s New Zealand is spot on.

Recently I received a new valuation from QV. I amapparently $240,000 richer than four years ago as a tax-free reward for doing absolutely nothing.

Awage earner, meantime, who works every day, commutes, maybe rents and earns the same $240,000 – $60,000 a year – has paid $44,080 in PAYE. To say that is grossly unfair is an understatement.

So the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Many of the social problemswe angst over – child poverty, educational failure, poor diet and health outcomes, crime, gangs, even social alienation and youth suicide – have their roots in an unfair tax structure and its consequent effect on the cost of housing and people’s lives.

The price we are paying is a loss of social cohesion and the erosion of belief that democracy looks after the interests of all. This dynamic is clearly visible in the United States and elsewhere.

All this against the background of an existential threat from climate change.

It is not too much to suggest that, without transformational change, the continuing success the Boomers enjoy in protecting their interests threatens firstly New Zealand’s social cohesion and ultimately the future of humanity on planet Earth.

Geoff Prickett, Waikanae

Screen sector’s value

Thomas Coughlan’s report The ‘significant fiscal risk’ of film subsidies (Dec 8) focused on the findings of an Official Information Act request, specifically the risks the Treasury associatedwith the film subsidy scheme and the impact it may have on the government’s books.

What was missingwas the direct financial impact the screen sector has on New Zealand’s economy, which, according to Aotearoa Screen Sector Strategy 2030, is $3.27 billion a year.

This figure does not include the ancillary economic impacts on hospitality, tourism and services.

Earlier this week, Statistics NZ released figures comparing screen sector employment in 2018 with that in 2017. It found that total earnings by its nearly 30,000 employees, including contractors, increased by 3 per cent to $940million.

New Zealanders have won 25 Academy

Awards and the screen sector has put New Zealand on the map for global tourism experiences and the growth of digital, gaming and technology companies.

The sector also createsmany skilled, well-paid jobs that not only provide employment for locals but attract international talent to our shores. Most projects accessing the grant hire between 90 per cent and 95 per cent of New Zealanders.

These are important facts often overlooked when screen sector subsidies are discussed in isolation.

Mark Westerby, chair, Create Wellington (proxy) andWellingtonNZ

Clipping the water ticket

Councils are trying to soften us up with stories of woe over water supply until we think it inevitable and they seize on another opportunity to profit from ratepayers by stealth.

It is encouraging to see the level of opposition to metering, not that it meant anything on the Ka¯piti Coast.

Obviously the rawmaterial (water) costs nothing, only to filter and reticulate it to where it is required, so the introduction of metersmay reduce usage, but the overall cost to consumers doesn’t reduce correspondingly. The fixed cost of infrastructure to store, reticulate and filter the water (pipes, dams, pumps, resoirvoirs etc) is huge.

Reduce consumption and a small amount of variable cost (chemicals etc) reduces, but the big infrastructure overhead remains. So in drought years when usage reduces dramatically, the unit rate would have to increase to cover the infrastructure overheads – but it never gets reduced again when we have water up the wazoo like now!

Even though leaks should be fixed, water ultimately returns to the atmosphere via the drains, sea or evaporation so is not lost forever. The obvious answer is to storemore when it is abundant and to stop wasting processed drinkingwater for things like flushing the toilet, washing the car and watering the garden.

It would be considerably cheaper for councils (therefore ratepayers) to incentivise household tank storage and systems of grey water reuse but then, of course, they lose the ability to clip the ticket.

Pete Jenkins, Whitby

Retain range of opinions

Correspondent Ellen Legg (Dec 9) requests you not to publish ‘‘selfrighteous drivel’’ from other contributors to your newspaper in response to your apology to Ma¯ori. Anne Russell’s letter the same day is of a similar tone. Please don’t be swayed by them. As your newspaper adopts an increasingly ‘‘progressive’’ agenda, I, as a long-time subscriber with amore traditional conservative mindset, find there is less and lessworth reading. The letters page iswhere I head first and where I can enjoy reading a range of opinions on a variety of topics.

Iwelcome Legg and Russell’s contribution to the discussion but their blunt dismissal of others’ views smacks of overbearing arrogance.

John Morrow, Island Bay