Please put more ‘ODT’ opinion online

HILARY Calvert’s columns are a great addition to the ODT’s opinion pages.

Often, I keep them for rereading later as issues progress, and share them with people outside the district, and not only exOtago people, as many issues are similar elsewhere.

Why are they not available online so links could be shared? I understand some writers’ columns are syndicated in several publications but Googling has not indicated this is the case here.

Please, if you can obtain permission from Ms Calvert and other opinion writers, put them online for us. Some of the best opinion columns (agree with them or not) are by intelligent, thoughtful local people whose ideas are worth reading and discussing.

K. Nordal Stene

Northeast Valley [Thanks for your letter. We are continually considering which of our offerings should also go online or are for the newspaper only. — Ed]

Cheaper fruit and veges

YOUR regular columnist Anna Campbell remarks that ‘‘vegetable growing has become the domain of largescale business’’ and goes on to ask whether ‘‘the government (should) remove GST from fresh fruit and vegetables’’ and thus help make healthy food more affordable.

Call me a cynic, but I struggle to believe the benefit from removing GST would end up in cheaper fruit and vegetables. It would be shared unequally between said largescale producers and the franchise holders of our effectively monopolistic supermarket operators.

Instead of bagging hardworking bureaucrats, perhaps Ms Campbell could turn her mind to how the distribution system could be more effectively regulated to the benefit of consumers and all producers, not just the big battalions who can afford to take the supermarkets on and (sometimes) win. Hugh Perkins

Oamaru ...................................