Rugby sevens

When Hamilton was applying to host the rugby sevens I emailed Hamilton City Council with my objections. I received desultory responses although was assured Hamilton city wouldn’t contribute financially.

Hamilton has the event. I believe the event is likely to be a financial failure. I remain unconvinced that the city will not incur losses, even if they are hidden as financial backstopping for the rugby stadium. The event lost its appeal in Wellington when they policed excessive drinking and antisocial behaviour. They tried to rebrand it there, but that didn’t work. There is supposedly a large population in the Waikato and upper North Island that will support the event. They didn’t support Rugby League 10s in Auckland and this event probably has a similar target audience. Hamilton has hosted a large sporting event with limited appeal, specifically the V8s. Is this a repeat?

Was there any competition for the sevens or are we the sucker city saving face for NZ rugby.

Hamilton

grass roots citizens should be at the top of the list for extra funding and rightly so.

Unavoidable costs such as dental treatments, eye and glasses expenses plus other healthcare factors as immunisation injections for such debilitating illnesses as pneumonia, shingles etc should be government assisted.

Failure to do so will create additional costs on hospitals and ACC if these necessary healthcare factors are not attended as they should be on a regular basis.

The potential costs on the health services would far exceed fundings for preventative healthcare. People are living longer and this means the needs for such healthcare will be greater and more costly. A means tested allowance of $1000 per annum would be appropriate for such healthcare maintenance costs.

Government would recoup a fair portion of these allowances back from GST and income tax recovered from the service providers. Election campaigners should take this recommendation on board.

Auckland

temporal beings who all live in fear of some sort, we believe forgiveness just makes us more vulnerable. No, do not forgive but do understand. If we continue to live in fear we tend to think that power, armies and munitions – atomic and conventional – walls and international laws and treaties can save the world from its own evolution. Our fear causes us to justify closing borders, claiming that it is a god’s will that the world’s largest populations live the most deprived lives in the most inhospitable landscapes, and that good countries with excessively good standards of living, such as our own, have the right to confine the not so lucky into their own ‘‘hellish’’ lives anywhere but here. You ask me what the solutions are, and of course I do not know, because I live with the same fears that you do . . . well most of the time that is. Sometimes I get a hint of epiphany that if I understand my own fears, I will understand the fears of others. I hate terrorism, but understand why it happens.

Te Awamutu