Distance grandparenting

I can empathise with Chester Borrows and other families separated by half a world, particularly since we have become so used to popping on a plane to go to the other side of the planet (Distance grandparenting, Focus, June 27).

It is time to re-think how important our trips are relative to the elephant in the room, climate change. It is only natural to want to be able to spend time with family, but is visiting grandchildren regularly more important than risking their future?

So much of the expectations around travel are also about the economy, notably tourism, but there is the total disconnect from immediate wants to our longterm needs, which, I would think, are about avoiding climate change.

The economy also requires continual growth, so how do economists, supposedly understanding mathematics, think that growth can continue infinitely? The environment is telling us that it disagrees.

John Milnes, Whanganui

Bankers don’t care

Rob Stock (Business, June 27) echoes the banking sector’s claims that just 1-2 per cent of their customers are being affected by their changes. In fact 700,000 customers have been identified as unable to access their own accounts through electronic media. This includes many thousands of people in the over-75 age group.

What with disappearing branches, particularly in rural New Zealand, this group is suffering insecurity and depression as they find they cannot access their savings. It was well known that cancelling cheques would cause them extreme hardship but vaguely waffling banking executives have paid lip service to this issue.

Where is the bankrolling coming from, for the voluntary groups trying to sort out this mess? Not the banking sector – it’s everyone else’s problem. Brian Dent, Kawerau

Empty properties

Miriam Bell(‘‘The flip side of the market’’, Homed, June 27) offers a variety of reasons as to why there are few properties being flipped.

Property flipping as we know it today is a term that shouldn’t be applied to the Kiwi tradition of buying, living in and doing up a house as a means of slowly working one’s way into home equity.

First-home buyers were shut out before the new bright-line rules. In the past there were plenty of affordable houses to go around. Houses and residential land have now become big business, because of government policies. Purchasers of houses sometimes rent them out but often these properties sit empty for years in anticipation of future land shortage. This is the main reason there are so few, and no affordable, ‘‘recycled’’ homes for sale.

J Leighton, Auckland

Vaccination analysis

Tracy Watkins’ editorial on the vaccine rollout (June 27) is just one of a number of voices asking why it is so slow.

‘‘Why is it slow?’’ doesn’t seem a very useful question. Better to ask, ‘‘is the government hoarding large stocks of unused supplies?’’ If the answer is no, as I suspect, then asking why the rollout is slow is like asking why all our cars are not immediately changed to electric. There are worldwide constraints in the supplies of both.

It would be far more enlightening to investigate how, where and when our supplies are sourced, and whether we are getting a reasonable share. And then ask whether, given that information, the rollout system itself is reasonable.

Only then might it make sense to complain about the speed.

David Wright, Wellington

Gap in calendar

This last weekend was very strange for mid-winter, as there was no rugby league competition for Australian or New Zealand local teams nor rugby union local teams either. Only the very late second State of Origin rugby league game on Sunday night.

So what games could we have watched on TV or have gone to from Friday to Sunday? A virtual sports-free weekend. Please do not repeat it til October.

Murray Hunter, Auckland

Film subsidies

Just like the billionaire sailors in the America’s Cup, it appears that the billionaire producers of movies need taxpayer subsidies to ply their trade in New Zealand (‘‘NZ must invest to get best from film says Cameron’’, News, June 27).

Apparently ‘‘New Zealand has generous film subsidies and other benefits’’. The consequence is that we are running short of film-making resources.

Surely the sensible response is to reduce these subsidies until this country’s ability to provide those film-making resources catches up.

Ron Scott, Tauranga

Boys to men

Bravo Nicola Gavey and Ali Mau for challenging some of the restrictive male stereotypes (News/Opinion, June 27).

I was, however, concerned to see both Deborah Coddington and Professor Gavey referring to