Time to look to the past to make KiwiRail thrive

ISN’T it time KiwiRail was taken back into the hands of the people so it can be developed and utilised in the way we need for the future?

Our rail network was built over several generations by governments who knew the value of a national transport network.

It was owned by the people, linking all the major centres with passenger services and transporting the vast bulk of New Zealand’s freight.

The misguided deregulation and sale of publicly owned services in the 1990s led to the stripping of KiwiRail’s assets by private owners.

Their failure to maintain the network forced the government to buy KiwiRail back but it remains constrained by the StateOwned Enterprises Act, which forces it to run as a profitmaking company rather than a futurefocused service.

Road transport accounts for 47% of our carbon dioxide emissions and urgently needs to be reduced. Kiwirail desperately needs investment to provide the services that can help us to do that, the same kind of investment that roads receive out of the national pocket. Bringing KiwiRail back in public ownership seems like a nobrainer to me.

Jen Olsen

Broad Bay

Thinking differently

SOMETIMES we all get stuck in a rut because we follow past beliefs like they are set in stone This pandemic has made our clever people ask if we can improve our way of living, maybe increase happiness and bring down deaths caused or enabled by disrepair.

So, are we working too much and do we need to have set holidays?

A fourday week is said to increase productivity and happiness.

As the virus lockdown showed us, we really did not need set statutory holidays when the health and maintenance systems are backlogged, and that goes for the tourism industry as well.

Our time is our life and we should use it wisely, especially for what makes us human: embracing nature or socialising with friends and family.

Time is a great investment, not working on cornering the property market for government bitcoin. Aaron Nicholson

Manapouri