Time to clean up your act
My wife and I have arrived in Napier on holiday to find an immaculately clean city free of graffiti and with freshly painted buildings. Contrast that with central Auckland which is filthy, unsafe, with parts covered in graffiti, albeit it often falsely titled art. And run by bureaucrats bent on wasting rate money on worthless projects. Auckland, get some civic pride going. Napier, you can be proud.
Paul Beck, West Harbour. weekly tax-free income of $1000-$2000, no wonder overseas sex workers are beating a hasty track to NZ. The tax-free status is great for them, but when they get diseases, who pays the bill? Worse, what happens when they pass diseases on to clients? Should they get pregnant and want an abortion, again, who pays?
Is it time for this Labour-led Government to undo the horrors that earlier government created?
Margaret Scott, Pakuranga. Freedom of speech means everyone has the right to say what they believe without it being a criminal act. It also means everyone else has the right to criticise what was said. In recent days, several correspondents have written here expressing disapproval of this. They want to play the religious belief card to justify a claim of immunity from criticism.
But many moral codes have a principle that teaches that everyone should have the same rights: “Don't do to others that which is hurtful to yourself”; “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”; “Everyone deserves a fair go”. If these correspondents want to be allowed to say what they believe, they have to accept that others should be allowed the same freedom.
Morgan L. Owens, Manurewa. Deborah Hill Cone wants to know why Clarke (with an e) Gayford annoys her. David Clark (without an e), Minister of Health, annoys me. His party fought to get alcohol sponsorship of sports teams banned but now in power is barely interested in the issue. Perhaps Cone (with an e) could ask the important questions like why does more money have to be wasted discussing the obvious. The media and governments have vested interest in maintaining a revenue flow from the country’s favourite drug.
Steve Russell, Hillcrest. The University of Auckland’s Libraries and Learning Services Vision and Strategy for 2017-2021 identifies as its mission “to enable our students and staff to flourish by providing excellent opportunities, environments, services, resources, tools and expertise for learning, teaching and research”. The proposed closure of the fine arts, architecture/town planning and music/dance libraries is in direct contradiction to these stated aims.
The university’s report recommending the closure of these libraries appears to have been written solely to support a decision that has already been taken, seemingly on purely financial grounds.
My career as an independent curator, writer on the visual arts and director of three notable public art galleries, has been in large measure founded on the education and facilities provided by the fine arts library at Elam.
I am appalled current and future students will be denied the opportunities, resources and experiences that I and many others have been enriched by and I call on the university and the ViceChancellor, Stuart McCutcheon, to reject the report’s recommendations.
Priscilla Pitts University of Auckland alumna.