Councillor and MP

D Crampton Stoke, March 17 Kerry Bateman Nelson, March 17 Neville Male Stoke, March 19

Work together

All sympathy to the Muslim community here in Nelson as well as in Christchurch. The Press said it – We’ve lost our innocence. Fred Dagg said it – ‘‘We don’t know how lucky we are.’’

And murder came. And many died. Others are wounded. Even while we feel so helpless, we unite with the afflicted. Our solidarity with them is in itself an indication that the evil done by such hate can be overcome with love.

At the Church Steps, Nelson’s mayor, politicians of every hue and community leaders and hundreds of citizens gathered. Race Unity Day will soon be celebrated. Now is the time when we should also work together to build an interfaith community. Not to proselytise, but to understand. How better to work together, undermine the evils that would betray us, and be strong as a community?

Does it need an awful event for us to realise that bigotry has no place in this, our society? All faiths, Christians and others, support the Muslims, now and in the future.

Mixed messages

Is there a causal link between the Muslim assassinations in New Zealand and the actions of Anders Behring Breivik in Norway? Both perpetrators were Right-wing Islamophobes. Both countries send their troops to kill Muslims overseas while condemning this action at home. What mixed messages does this send to gullible citizens, apart from the obvious security risks it creates?

Both countries are in the top 9 per cent of civilian gun-owning countries (Norway 29, New Zealand 26 guns per 100 population).

A strange byproduct of the Norwegian killings was a surge in the membership of Right-wing fascist political parties. With the National Party’s current hold over at least 50 per cent of the New Zealand population, it will be interesting to see if our incident produces a similar surge for our Right-wing party.

An answer to the problems? The gospel according to Paula Bennett and Donald Trump is: ‘‘More guns!’’ Let us thank our Gods for granting us these gifted leaders! We have now learned that Nelson city councillor Mike Rutledge is a part-time support worker for our local MP, Nick Smith.

Not only that, we have also learned that Dr Smith was instrumental in the appointment of Mr Rutledge to a paid trustees position on probably the most important community grants organisation in our region.

So what’s the problem? Well, there are two.

First of all, once again we see another councillor who was appointed to council without voters having any knowledge of that candidate’s possible political party affiliation. Admittedly, he is not yet a councillor seeking a seat in Parliament, but his political party allegiance is very clear.

Secondly, his being appointed trustee of a funding body that hands out large sums of money to selected Nelson organisations but not others is a conflict of interest with his councillor role. Sure, councillors have a right to earn a living, but they are appointed to represent the interests of all ratepayers, and should not while in office compromise that important role in any way.

The last thing we need in Nelson is to have councillors flying political party banners and being forever in dissent around the council table. We are not Auckland, and don’t want to be!