I see sprawling suburbs covering good farmland

Quality of life versus GDP is possibly the most important subject raised in recent letters to The Press (John Kent, Sept 22; Brian Ward, Sept 25) as it affects us all.

Daily the media bombard us with the latest GDP figures, migration numbers, house prices etc. Politicians, bankers and economists tell us growth is good. Economists say we need a population of 10 million to be viable.

Can anyone tell me where this is leading us to? Is there a plan? Can ‘‘growth’’ continue forever? Does a growing GDP equate to better quality of life for New Zealanders? Will this system leave a good world for our kids?

I see sprawling suburbs covering good farmland as Christchurch grows to engulf Rolleston and Darfield. I see my old fishing streams covered by city concrete. I see more pollution. More crowding. Where are we going? KEN LOGAN

Sydenham

An old man and EQC

He’s a man in his late seventies. I met him 10 years ago. I was an immigrant with a heart filled with hope and an empty wallet. He became our Kiwi-granddad. My children adore him, hanging unto his lips as he told the story of how he ended up in New Zealand as a refugee after World War II. Around 2001 cancer took his wife. His children all went on their offshore experience.

Then we had the September 2010 earthquake. He lodged his claim with EQC and staunchly waited. The EQC dudes came round with their clipboards, they looked, they wrote, they promised. More quakes, more waiting.

His health deteriorated – the bypass surgery saved his life. The EQC dudes came back; more clipboards, more assessments. They told him he was seen as vulnerable by EQC and they would look after him. Just empty promises.

Knee surgery, a long painful recovery. The EQR dudes started to call in, scoping, talking about fixing up the roof, the piles, the cracks. He asks them to hold a wee bit back, for he needs another trip to hospital to fix up his other knee.

The EQR dudes came round told him to move out so that they can fix up his place. He did not want them to touch his house, his place of refuge. Memories of yesteryear, walls lined with photos of happier times. Stuff on shelves, in cupboards, of his beloved wife. It just became too much.

I had meetings with EQR asking them just to make his home weathertight, safe, the piles secure and cash-settle him on the rest. The EQR dudes came back; some got done, some did not get done.

Then the EQC dudes wanted to cash-settle.

They talked too much, the old man got bewildered by jargon, a different person every time they phoned, many letters in the mail not saying much.

I stepped in to shield him from all the corporate goobledy-gook EQC lingo, deception and lies.

This week I went to visit him on my way home from work, for him to sign a letter of authority so that I may arrange the cash settlement on his behalf with EQC. I could see the tears brimming in his eyes, his fragile frame slumped with sadness as he accepted the final defeat.

In my ears echoed the words, ‘‘Nobody will be worse off’’. THEUNIS KLOK

Mairehau

Panda diplomacy

The People’s Republic of China are apparently revising their policy regarding panda diplomacy.

Favoured recipient nations will in future only be granted leasehold access to pandas for 10 years.

With that in mind, and the economic windfall China gained from their 99-year lease to Britain of the Hong Kong New Territories, shouldn’t we follow suit and only grant leases, not freehold, for farmland and housing to non-New Zealand citizens?

A future generation of Kiwis might then inherit farms and houses complete with high-tech equipment. Now that is the sort of ‘‘inward investment’’ I could see would be advantageous. KEN MAYNARD

Lyttelton

Paying for water

Dame Margaret Bazley of the Canterbury Regional Council suggests ‘‘we’re all in this together’’ when discussing the linkages between Canterbury urban and rural economies.

The Canterbury Development Corporation reports quoted in her letter (Sept 22) also highlight that urban and business water users use 8.5 per cent of all water extracted and used in Canterbury.

Why is it then that Christchurch ratepayers fund over $15.5 million of the $28.5m (about 54 per cent) of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy budget?

Surely the Christchurch share is 8.5 per cent if we are truly ‘‘all in this together’’ and paying our fair share.

My hope is that the regional council will one day tell the public where and how these funds are used because neither urban nor rural ratepayers know where the money flows. SM McNEILL

St Albans

The city deserves

At last – an earthquake memorial that the city deserves.

To my mind Anthony Gormley’s enigmatic Stay sculptures perfectly capture the sense of loss and also of renewal experienced by local Cantabrians while surviving the past five years. A light touch, and evocative, somehow very much in keeping with our natural inclination for the stoic and pragmatic, while resonating with poetry.

These sculptures seem to effortlessly and implicitly acknowledge the death and devastation triggered by the event, but also a willingness among the living to contemplate the future with optimism.

I suggest that Cera calls time on that heavy-handed and unloved ersatz war memorial we are destined to see emerging from the Oxford Terrace riverbank, pay out the various participants, and leave that calm and unsullied part of the Avon River well alone.

We might pay Mr Gormley his full fee and have his superb memorial twice over, with money in hand for a whole constellation of simple park benches on the riverbank. RICHARD McGOWAN Central Christchurch