Kim Dotcom

It is with disgust that I see Kim Dotcom yet again ensuring his name is to the forefront of the New Zealand media (Tuesday).

This man is obviously still annoyed at the prime minister because he had to get up early one morning and answer the front door to some men in black.

Hiding behind the skirts of others and using this modus operandi to seek revenge and access to the business and political worlds of New Zealand does not sit well with me.

Do we need rich asylum seekers like this? I think not. STEVEN REID Pleasant Point have missed them. Not one mention was made by the narrator of the building of the Midland line, the sacrifice of the hundreds of workers who worked in atrocious conditions to make it happen.

There was no mention of the building of the Otira tunnel under the Alps linking Canterbury and the West Coast.

Nor the line south to Invercargill, nor for that matter building the Mikiwaka Tunnel on the outskirts of Dunedin.

However, mention was given to the railway workshops in Dunedin and at Addington (now both closed) with points being made that the rails used to build the North Island main trunk line were all New Zealand made and that the KB class of steam engine originated initially from Christchurch.

My view for what it is worth was that the programme was a complete waste of time as it had little balance for South Islanders other than a quick view of the new TranzAlpine Express and did nothing to recognise the contribution made in those same years by those who built the system north and south known in those years as New Zealand Rail. TERRY KENNEDY Timaru