NZers must get serious about boat safety

IT was interesting to see (ODT

31.12.20) comments made by the

QLDC harbourmaster, Marty Black. On Tuesday, December 29 my husband and I spent a couple of hours on the beach at Eely Point, Wanaka, enjoying the sun and also the activity and enjoyment of boat users.

Having been both power boat and yacht owners ourselves for about 40 years in the past we were very disappointed to note the lack of safety by some people.

Adults and children in boats on the lake wearing no life jackets; jet skis towing people on ski biscuits with no observer; swimmers in the water where skiers take off and are dropped off at the end of their runs.

There are orange and black marker poles on the beach and our understanding is that no boats are supposed to be parked on the beach between the poles. Boats are supposed to be outside of the poles but only take off with skiers or land them back to the beach in that area.

What proactive approach is being taken to ensure that boat users know what the safety rules are and, better still, comply with them?

It seems strange to us that in New Zealand anyone can own a boat. It doesn’t have to be registered and not even a theory test has to be passed before getting out on the water. Are we really serious about boat and water safety — we wonder.

Margaret Hall

Wanaka

Prison riots

“GO hard and go early” is a catchphrase repeated regularly by the Government in dealing with Covid.

It was a strategy, despite a few owngoals at the border and in the quarantine hotels, that worked.

But it was a strategy clearly forgotten in dealing with the riot at Waikeria Prison. For six days, 16 prisoners managed to take over the prison, destroy large parts of it, and finally walk out after some form of staged intervention by the Maori Party to be met with pies and coke.

What is now revealed is that the rioters were composed of members of the Mongol and Comanchero gangs and included five criminals deported from Australia. What is also now revealed is that, according to the Corrections Department, no complaints about unduly harsh conditions had been made prior to this riot.

Equally clear is the opportunism displayed by the deputy leader of the Maori Party who seems oblivious to the fact that these people were in prison because they deserved to be.

His grandstanding, blaming colonisation, is ludicrous, divisive and an affront to a multicultural society.

Why much of the media is keen to interview the families of these hardened criminals, who invariably describe their incarcerated family members as cuddly teddy bears, is beyond me. What exactly is so hard about learning that if you do the crime, you do the time?

Russell Garbutt

Clyde [Abridged]

Whangamata riots

HOW perverse your coverage of the riot at Whangamata (ODT 2.1.21). The officer pushing a disobedient youth with his foot was not the story.

Dave Evans

Wanaka

City weeds

AS regards P. Forgie’s letter (Letters, 5.1.21) about the weeds around the streets, the writer should have added one more step for weed removal.

The fourwheeled motor bike does spray weeds in Mosgiel, but the most important part of the process is missed out. The green weeds are sprayed which leave ugly brown weeds. Full stop.

The dead weeds should then be pulled out, instead of leaving them an untidy unsightly mess.

H. Rae

Mosgiel ..................................

BIBLE READING: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17.