VIEW

The idea is to give life your best shot

The world I actually live in is one in which I try to learn something positive, something that can make it a better world each day I’m granted.

I understand and respect people with different views. I appreciate that change is threatening because I’ve been threatened by change every decade of my life. The greater the investment emotionally, financially, and the potential for further demonstrated profit, the tighter we cling to the status quo.

Yet the statement, ‘‘change is inevitable, growth is optional’’, is still a basic truth. Drivers cause accidents. Cars don’t.

Hunters make good kills or bad kills. Guns don’t.

Shooters maim and cripple. The shot itself doesn’t.

If I can prevent the inappropriate suffering and deaths of a precisely unknown number of a variety of birds and, at the same time learn a new skill that is even more satisfying than the old one, then spot on. More satisfying because the clean kill per shot is higher than before, more satisfying because we know at the moment of truth we have, and are, doing our best for ourselves, for the resource, and for the sustainable future. If those conditions aren’t present, we pride ourselves on not taking the shot.

My family, friends, and fellow countrymen and women don’t live in a perfect world, but are on a quest to be open to change in order to make the world a little bit better.

Best of all, there’s a place in our world for everyone. TONY REIGER Riverton

Jobs for Kiwis first

I’m ashamed to be a Kiwi when KiwiRail is planning the closing down of Hillside workshops, the home of a very highly skilled ISO 9000 workforce.

Hillside was, and still is, a very capable Kiwi icon whose personnel have built steam locomotives and wagons etc for more than 137 years.

We need to stand up and stop this closure now.

KiwiRail has work for Hillside for at least the next 10 years as it still needs 3000 new container wagons. But this Government would sooner employ Chinese workers at a lesser wage.

They say Hillside isn’t capable of carrying out the work, well KiwiRail’s website states that these 3000 wagons will be delivered over 10 years, that’s 300 per year or 7.5 wagons per week over 40 weeks. Not hard to do as KiwiRail designed them, then built 35 to trial, before putting them out to tender.

Hillside was one of the top three prices for the first 500 which were From 1968 through to 1974, was without a doubt one of the most challenging production eras of The Southland Times. It was disappointing in the recent publication Times of Change, celebrating the 150 years of the Times, the apparent lack of recognition the boys and girls in the engine room received during this period.

Much has been recorded about Ian Gilmour and his vision for the Times, but it’s strange that there is very little mention of the hours of planning and decisions that he made so making the transition from hot metal to cold composition happen smoothly.

There is no mention of shipping staff off to work on the Nelson Evening Mail so they got insight into what lay ahead, nothing on buying Sight and Sound to retrain operators and later turning it into a business, buying a carrying company to enable the distribution of the paper to a wider audience, recruiting operators from Australia, who would do the typesetting while the linotype staff could be retrained on the new ‘‘qwerty’’ keyboards.

For the record: Laurie Dick did not get a till thrown at him. Mr Anderson picked individual notes out of the till while saying ‘‘take one, take 10, take 20, take the bloody lot’’ and stormed off. Gordon Hope was the night foreman and ruled the night shift. Gordon Couling became the night foreman around 1972-73, Bert ‘‘Blimey’’ Craig was the day foreman. Max Rattray did not die at his linotype machine, he died in the old library room trying to master the ‘‘qwerty’’ keyboard, in the arms of Gordon Couling and myself. P HEWITSON Wellington

Mayor gets it wrong

Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt’s convoluted explanation of his interpretation of ‘‘status quo’’ for his crucial vote, which gave a bare majority for the sale of the Don St car park, defies understanding.

The only status that should have mattered was that the council, on behalf of the ratepayers, still owned the land prior to the vote.

Thus the status quo, irrespective of any implied provisos, was the opposite of the mayor’s interpretation. Simply put, the council still owned the land, therefore he should have voted for no sale.

The mayor, conveniently, didn’t mention anything about an independent market valuation of the property either, if one was done.

If the property had a presale market valuation of, for example, $750,000, and they sold it for $1 million, I would be the first to congratulate the council. But here’s the thing: a valuable and strategic CBD property, clear of buildings, was sold for a mere $1 million, well under the rating value.

Consider this: how much would it have cost a potential purchaser to obtain council consents to demolish any buildings, plus demolition and disposal of waste fees?

Surely property purchased for development, situated on clear land, has to have a premium value? I’m sure the purchaser is still popping champagne corks over such a well-done deal.

I certainly don’t challenge the council’s right to sell and buy property, so long as any deals are to the financial advantage of the ratepayers.

Will the mayor provide the ratepayers of Invercargill with an independent presale market valuation report? As a ratepayer of this city, I want some real answers, minus the waffle and piffle. BARRY MUNRO Invercargill

Letters are welcome, but writers must provide their name, address and telephone number as a sign of good faith - pseudonyms are not acceptable. So that as many letters as possible can be published, each letter should be no more than 250 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for length, sense, legal reasons and on grounds of good taste. Please send your letters to: The Editor, The Southland Times, PO Box 805, Invercargill; or fax on (03)2149905; or e-mail to letters@stl.co.nz