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Freedom camping

I note from your February 9 issue that the problem of freedom campers and their offerings continues to be debated.

In the recent past, one of our prime ministers appointed himself Minister of Tourism but failed to address the maxim that input eventually requires output.

Perhaps the matter is not touched on in the training programme for futures traders.

Any leathery old farm labourer will tell you if you double the number of grunters populating a sty, therefore doubling the supply of tucker, there will be twice the output of unmentionables.

The country has tried to cash in on large-scale tourism before setting up infrastructure to cope with it. D R Lewis Otautau

UBI is feasible

Congratulations to the National Council of Women for its lucid endorsement of Universal Basic Income (UBI); a concept I fully endorse.

UBI has been around for a long time now but, in its latest iteration, really caught public attention after the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 laid bare the inadequacies and cruelties of neoliberalism, at least as far as the non-rich are concerned.

The best description of the UBI that I have read is from Philip Alston, who wrote that it is an ‘‘antidote for growing economic insecurity’’.

It is worth remembering that our country adopted a principle of fairness in economic as well as social terms soon after settler government was attained in the mid-nineteenth century.

Since then, we have continued to pursue that goal, with varying levels of commitment and success.

In 2016 the Labour Party invited Guy Standing, a world leader in the campaign for UBI, to address its Future of Work conference.

Standing, who just last year published Basic Income And How We Can Make It Happen, told the conference New Zealand could implement UBI and that it should.

Apart from an anaemic reference to the idea in its subsequent publication, Labour will not even pay lip service to it, now that it is in government.

I think it is wrong and illustrates moral cowardice.

UBI is feasible and does not depend solely on increasing income taxes, as Standing and many other experts clearly explain.

More to the point, UBI is necessary as our social and economic environment is subject to rapid and radical change. Michael Gibson Invercargill

Uniforms

The board of Fiordland College needs to pull up its big girl pants and stop telling boys to wear skirts.

There is no way you’d find a boy wearing a dress in Waikaka or Mataura. How many girls were in yesterday’s rugby game at Waimumu?

Boards are full of insecure, attention seekers, who run with the hares (parents) and hunt with the hounds (staff), attempting to leave their mark.

The shape of it though, is a society falling apart - the liberalisation of which is to defile every area.

And like an octopus it’s impossible to stop. James Smith Alexandra Fiordland College isn’t telling boys to wear skirts. It’s considering changes to uniform rules that would permit it. - Editor

Drones and ‘copters

I would sooner have helicopters being flown by licensed pilots landing on designated platforms than noisy drones flown by all and sundry buzzing about landing and taking off who knows where (Drones and ‘copters, February 16).

My keyless vehicle was sometimes affected by cell phones close by, as could be done to drone control.

Let’s try a dead stick landing by one? No pilot, no control, no noise, no warning to people below. Safer? No. Neville Stronach Te Anau

Smell of kerosene

Fergus Torr, of Mataura, has an amazing sense of smell. In his letter on helicopter and drone interaction on the Lake Te Anau waterfront, he has this summer smelt clouds of burnt kerosene in his front yard at times (February 16).

Has he a suggestion where our iconic float plane could relocate, to be away from the dangerous drones? Ray Willett Te Anau