Aurora response reflects poorly on the company

I WAS gobsmacked by Aurora

Energy’s response to members of the public expressing their feelings at public and stakeholder meetings (ODT, 11.1.21).

Customer and engagement general manager Sian Sutton complained that foul language, scoffing and laughing was beyond the pale in terms of meeting behaviour.

I assume these people are customers, with whom Aurora is engaging. Therefore it is absolutely the responsibility of those customers to let Aurora know exactly how they’re feeling. To do less would be a waste of time.

It is Aurora’s responsibility to listen and hear. With respect.

For a gathering of New Zealanders to express such rage, something must be deeply wrong with Aurora’s relationship with the people from whom they gather their salaries.

The fact that a senior member of the communications team felt it was appropriate to complain about her customers to the media suggests a chasm of almighty proportions separates Aurora from its customers.

No wonder those customers are angry. The behaviour of attendees is not the issue here. It’s the arrogant and totally disconnected response from Aurora.

Clearly, Aurora was shocked by what it heard, but a wise company would have taken it on the chin, given people a chance to calm down, and then spent time to understand what is causing this anguish.

Susan Grant

Mornington

Summer Times story

THERE appears a lack of authenticity in the article on Dunedin in the ’60s from Shirley Johnson (ODT, 2.1.21). Despite her birthright, her memory does not entirely serve her well.

The feature article, somewhat casually linked with the excellent publication from Ian Chapman, Okay Boomer!, is sprinkled with vernacular inaccuracies and patronising asides.

Since when were fish and chip shops in Dunedin called ‘‘chippies’’, and who is she writing for when expounding on the specialties of the pie cart, or that Kiwis were too selfconscious to sing solo?

Neither Okay Boomer! nor The Galloping Gourmet illustrations were linked within the article. A strange disconnection.

Concluding the article with the alien phrase ‘‘damn straight’’, you might think this is an expat who has lost the local lingo and with it a degree of journalistic rigour.

Steve Thomas

Karitane

Wordplay

NOW that the Broadcasting Standards Authority has dealt to “gypsy day”, let’s hope that it can have in its sights “howa”, as in “hour”, used frequently on TV by weather presenters and personalities such as John Campbell.

And, while they are at it, how about “learnings”, one of John Key’s gifts to the New Zealand lexicon?

Warren Jowett

St Clair

US riots

I HAVE heard and read a lot of speculation about the MAGA invasion of the US Capitol Building but perceptions can be skewed by lazy journalism, just like other historic events.

Just remember this in context: the working class in the United States of America is fighting for its life, and the poor are almost beyond hope.

The neoliberal elite are scared, the neoconservative elite are angry, and their rules say only the white middle class are allowed to hold any sort of protest without dispersal by lethal force — especially in Washington, DC.

And given that the only white middleclass group who can protest freely must wear the MAGA livery, it seems that they alone can bear the message of the French Revolution to the halls of power, which loosely translated is the cry ‘‘bollocks!’’ — a word that future historians will no doubt use to frame US politics of the early 21st century.

Aaron Nicholson Manapouri

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