Comments mislead

Comments by media that women were given the right to vote mislead and misinform. Women won the right to vote due to the dedication of political activists including my great and great great grandmothers in Otautahi.

Alongside this was the support shown by women from all walks of life in signing petitions.

Men, including my great grandfather, also supported this.

It is sad to see disrespectful and ignorant comments in all media by both genders.

We also need to acknowledge how racist we were in excluding Ma¯ ori and nonEuropean people from the right to vote.

Time for honesty in history. Claire Coveney, Opawa some companies recently moved to a risk-based approach. Surely it is beneficial to have a market signal through your insurance premium that highrisk natural hazard locations have risks and costs to be avoided or mitigated?

Without such a signal New Zealand continues building in localities subject to flooding, coastal inundation, geological hazards, with the hazard-prone subsidised in their premiums by the non-hazard-prone.

Yes, we are all subject to some hazards, such as earthquake, but doing away with a clear market signal on natural hazard risk is hardly the way forward and those companies implementing a risk-based approach should be applauded.

Laurie McCallum, Strowan systemic barriers to women gaining recognition for equal academic work.

There is an irony in The Press choosing to publish Brockie’s opinion rather than, say, consulting the experts in the area from the University of Canterbury’s Sociology department; perhaps the ‘meritocracy’ wasn’t functioning particularly well there.

S Whitcombe-Dobbs, MSc, Burwood