Tennis star’s fight for life
Richard Knowler’s article on Kelly Evernden (Sport, February 14) was a nice piece of writing. Evernden owes his life to a young house surgeon who was on duty that night at the old Cook Hospital in Gisborne.
Dr Cliff Mason and myself managed Evernden when he was brought in by ambulance. I was the night supervisor on duty. Mason recognised immediately a situation known as ‘‘sucking chest ‘‘and acted promptly to seal the injury prior to emergency surgery.
Evernden was a tough lad and he coped very well. Nice to see he is still written about.
Ray Mainprize, Christchurch
Three-chord thrash
Excellent work, Sunday StarTimes (Focus, 14 February). Your articles about the Split Enz tribute album and Punk It Up V made for wonderful reading on an unhurried Sunday morning. Each is a landmark in its own right.
True Colours was the album which Split Enz had been growing into. It was as good as anything that was released that year. Home or away. And more durable.
Punk It Up V just made me smile a lot. Kiwi punk gigs were like nothing else I had been to before or since. Faux-rage and angst. We thought we meant it at the time. But even today, the good old three-chord thrash still thrills.
Mike Buckley, Lower Hutt
Airplay for NZ acts
We’ve had a wonderful summer of music festivals featuring New Zealand musicians. Some we knew, a lot we were pleased to find. The quality was not diminished by the absence of international artists. The crowds speak for themselves, the pleasure of discovery profound judging from comments at these festivals. Surely now some of our commercial radio stations can open their ears and feature New Zealand musicians to showcase the local skills to a wider audience.
Brian Dent, Kawerau
Are we ‘Aotearoa’?
I, too am mystified as to why the name of our country, New Zealand, is being replaced in many publications and media outlets by Aotearoa (Letters, February 14).
Surely there should be a referendum at least to decide what the people of the country wish?
‘‘Family’’ is now frequently replaced by ‘‘wha¯ nau’’ and other words by the Ma¯ ori equivalent, sometimes with the English translation in brackets.
What is actually going on here?
Annette Wale, Wanaka
MIQ ‘stopover’
‘‘Hundreds fly to Australia soon after leaving managed isolation’’ (News, February 14). In other words: ‘‘In-demand MIQ facilities being used as convenience stopover’’.
Easily fixed, if no-one who enters New Zealand via mandated MIQ facilities is allowed to leave New Zealand for three or even six months.
There, fixed. Hundreds of MIQ slots freed up overnight, no additional inconvenience to genuine New Zealand entrants. Easy passport-checking exercise. D B Smith, Napier
Don’t tax, fix
Bernard Hickey (Business, February 14) suggests a 0.5 per cent tax on land or property, on the grounds that people have benefited from the increase in values. But what is the benefit?
I have lived in my house for over 45 years, and yes, it has increased in value enormously. But I have to live somewhere, so to realise this ‘‘wealth’’ I have to sell, move out and buy.
What does Hickey recommend? I live in a tent for my final years? In Auckland someone my age, that 0.5 per cent tax would be more than $5000. Good luck paying that from the pension. Why should the pensioner be punished for having had the sense to save and buy a house?
The reason houses cost so much is because lazy councils protected property investors, charged ridiculous fees and refused to open up land. Governments refused to pass laws that made modest apartments attractive. Try doing something, not simply taxing, because taxes do not build more houses.
Ian Miller, Lower Hutt,
A ‘Weimar’ market
Your story on the Grey Lynn house which sold for 58 times its 1983 price used the CoreLogic index when adjusting house prices for inflation. This was described as ‘‘price adjusted for inflation.’’
The CoreLogic house price index has gone up by more than 12 since 1983. However, most people would understand the phrase ‘‘adjusted for inflation’’ to mean the consumers price index (CPI) and this has gone up only three and a half times since 1983.
I had my driver’s licence already in 1983, and petrol cost me about 68 cents a litre or so. Today it’s $2 a litre. That gives you an idea of the true rate of inflation since the early eighties as most people would understand it.
But house prices have inflated by a factor of sixteen above CPI. That one Grey Lynn house today costs as much as 16