Crusade on sugar must target juice

A policy that will remove sugary drinks from vending machines must also exclude fruit juices. Water only is the only approach that will not just lower obesity but also helping with oral health and behaviour modification. Fruit juice can have the liquid of up to 12 oranges without natural fibre which keeps all that sugar from flooding the bloodstream.

Food juices also have too much natural salicylate which can damage children in many ways. Salicylic acid is a bitter chemical used as a fungicide and in the manufacture of aspirin and dye-stuffs.

While teaching in New Zealand some years ago, one of my pupils, definitely on the autistic spectrum, had all additives removed from her diet without any noticeable improvements. But after four days of only water to drink, four ritalin a day were no longer needed and this child never looked back.

Any dentist or oral surgeon will tell you that fruit juice destroys the protective enamel, the hard coating of teeth. Water only is the best policy. Water fountains in schools and public places need to be kept clean. Drinks of water can be refreshed with slices of lemon or orange and maybe a sprig of mint. On hot days the water bottle can be put in the freezer overnight. Julienne S. Law, Kerikeri.

Capture plan benefits

The Unitary Plan should give the Auckland Council an unprecedented opportunity to provide for infrastructure costs using a levy that values the benefits of zoning changes to owners of property. This could be in the form of a betterment levy on the increase in property value gained from a zoning change and payable in addition to property rates. If the levy is significant in value and used in conjunction with a partial remission when the development occurs within a limited time it becomes an incentive to act. D. Reid, Cockle Bay.

Landlords’ lot

I agree wholeheartedly with Ron Goodwin on his article about “tenants from Hell”. We used to be residential landlords but frustration with tenants’ rights and the poorly drafted Residential Tenancy Act, together with the lacklustre performance of the tribunal, made us sell.

We will not invest in rental houses or flats again until the Government changes the rules to put landlords and tenants on a level playing field.

We now invest in commercial property alone where we deal with a different type of tenant. We no longer need to chase rent or apply to the Tenancy Tribunal to deal with bad tenants. We don’t have them. Arnold Kremer, Rotorua.

Picking on Russia

In your editorial you wanted to ban Russia from the Rio Olympic Games. You blamed Russian athletes, Government, Putin, and Russia in the doping scandal and you are mistaken. First, there are lots of clean athletes in Russia. To blame Yelena Isinbaeva (pole vaulter, twice Olympic gold medallist) is the same as to blame Valerie Adams in taking drugs. Second, many athletes in all countries are taking some medicine or drugs (legal or not) to reach high results. It’s everywhere.

The problem is, today this is a legal drug but tomorrow, an illegal one.

Third, this “drug campaign” against Russian athletes has been started just a few months before the Olympic Games in Rio. Why? Everyone kept silent three to five years ago. It looks like another sanction against Russia, but now in sport. I will not be surprised when in 2018 you will join the official USA point of view against the World Football Cup in Russia. My advice: do not mix politics and sport. Andrey Obushenkob, Takapuna.

Ring craft

The bigger they are the harder they fall — it is a well-known saying in boxing circles but one has to hit them first and there are some disquieting signs in the Kevin Barry v Joseph Parker build-up. Parker until now has been fitter and stronger than his opponents, but will this be the case against a Ukranian giant? There were signs in his last two bouts that Joseph was relying too much on haymakers thrown from the floor of the ring than on boxing to find an opening through which he could hit his opponent.

Barry should take a leaf out of Joe Louis' book. The knockout blows of Louis rarely travelled more than six inches yet were so perfectly timed they said his opponents were out cold before they hit the canvas.

Jolt ‘em Joseph, like Louis and Ali. Don’t try to pulverise them like David Tua. Gordon Cooper, Pt Chevalier.

Small city parks

The chair of the Devonport Takapuna Local Board, Joseph Bergin, has been at it again, using his casting vote to enable the sale of a slice of the Hauraki Corner Park and also land at the bottom of Forrest Hill Rd.

The Unitary Plan has no new park space and the media report that the Auckland Council will no longer purchase land for parks and reserves in suburbs like the North Shore. So why on earth are they flogging off our existing ones, without our permission? It is for no other reason than to help prop up the Auckland Council books. Panuku will now go around Auckland and chip away at little street corner parks, one by one, until there will be none of these small sanctuaries left. Gavin Sheehan, Milford.

Complicated tax

It's so simple: introduce a capital gains tax on house sales. But wait. Does that percentage tax include the CPI, or do we subtract that figure? (If not, then property vendors and buyers would be paying twice for the CPI figure). Property inflation is quite separate from the CPI.

How do we calculate maintenance costs? Do home-owners and investor landlords have to keep all the receipts from maintenance, including estimations of their own time? Then there are additions, alterations and modernisations.

Is the tax also to be on the whole property, or just the dwelling and ancillaries? (If this tax includes the land, then what difference is this from taxing the air we breathe?)

Capital gains tax calculations can be very complicated and require a business-modelled tax for fairness, or home vendors, whether private or investors, will be penalised for having the temerity to own and sell a property.

G. McCully, Forrest Hill.

Welcome back

It will be great to see a US warship steaming up the Waitemata again. It's been far too long.

It is only because of the existence of the 7th Fleet that New Zealand and Australia do not have to go down the road of developing tactical nuclear weapons. With a combined population of 30 million, they would be the only way we could destroy an invasion force heading for our shores from any country with hundreds of millions of people. It is less than 80 years since the last time this happened.

I hope the US sends an Agis cruiser and opens it up to the public. I for one will be there to thank them for coming. Wayne Carpenter, Glen Eden.

Weight of opinion

As a sociologist, Jarrod Gilbert offers an exceptionally shallow view of the utility of socially-imposed thought control as his preferred alternative to scientific debate on global warming. Post-modern science has introduced a dodgy method of surveying opinions among a small group of like-minded people. The obvious drawback is that everybody outside the chosen group asks to see some evidence, believing science should place greater weight on data than on mere opinions.

Your op-ed writer is fiercely frustrated that constant appeals to authority have convinced very few. In his desperation, he urges society to “shout down” opposing opinions and lock up the non-conformists. Sociology shows this is the way to win arguments. Surely it would be an easier option to just prove his side of the case. Barry Brill, Paihia.

Consensus rules

Scientific institutions and societies all endorse the consensus of nearly every informed scientist on the planet, that releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is causing Earth to retain more energy. Business-as-usual will cause disruptive and eventually catastrophic climate change. A wide and profound scientific consensus is our best view of reality. If Chris de Freitas wants to change reality, he is free to publish a paper that refutes the science. Dennis N. Horne, Howick.

Marina’s compliance

In response to Domenic Wood, I went down to Sandspit marina at low tide to view the damming of the biodiverse stream and significant ecological area he refers to, only to find it was empty except for the gentle trickle of the lovely stream after it came through the culverts under Sandspit Rd and disappeared into Sandspit Harbour through the culverts under the “illegal dam”. I am sure there are still small jobs to do and that they will be done. Murray Greep, Sandspit.