Industry supports vape rules

The article on vaping, quoting school principals ( Herald, November 27), makes very disturbing reading.

It would seem that legislation is needed as quickly as possible. Many articles have been published that the dangers from this substance is low, but the risk — especially to youngsters — is concerning. Pharmacies should be the only suppliers with strict control over sales. The longer it takes for urgent regulation signals a very real danger ahead.

Vape support

School principals and health organisations wrote to Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa calling for legislation to regulate vaping. The Vaping Trade Association of New Zealand (VTANZ) supports that call. We’ve been calling for regulation for more than five years. Independent Kiwi vape businesses are also concerned that Big Tobacco is irresponsibly targeting youth. We are totally against youth marketing, all for R18 sales, and support product safety standards. The letter does not mention banning vape flavours, but almost every adult transitioning from cigarettes to vaping relies on flavours to successfully quit tobacco. There is no evidence here or overseas that flavours lead to youth vaping. VTANZ will fight any flavour restrictions.Vape flavours have played a major role in New Zealand’s falling smoking rates. Let’s not now throw the baby out with the bathwater. Jonathan Devery, director of Vapo and Alt NZ.

Trial evidence

Those who have criticised the presentation of evidence germane to the Grace Millane trial clearly want defences to argue their cases with one arm tied behind their backs. Everyone is entitled to a fair trial regardless of how gross or confronting their behaviour has been — which is why the impartiality of the justice system is so important. What would they prefer? The presumption of guilt, no trial, straight to jail? For someone whose life is in the balance, that attitude is not just unfair but obscene. L Barker, Blenheim.

‘New’ cars

The majority of us believe a vehicle on a new car sales showroom floor bearing a sticker of the current year is new. A change in the law in 2007 enabled dealers to display the year of registration,not necessarily the year of manufacture. Recently I entered into an agreement to purchase what I understood was a 2019 model SUV. The vehicle was actually built in November 2017 so in effect was two years old. Following this discovery, I learned a friend had purchased a secondhand import, supposedly a 2017 model. It was in fact manufactured in 2013.

The expression “caveat emptor/buyer beware” is now ringing in my ears. Paul Hickford, Massey East.

Exotic books

Your correspondent Dr Ramsay’s tonguein-cheek observation that exotic (i.e. foreign) literature will soon be taken off our library shelves, is closer to the mark then he might think.

The last action of the recently resigned CEO of our national art museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, was to disestablish the position of curator of historical international art. So perhaps visitors should not expect to see any pre-1900, non-New Zealand art on display there in future. Could this include, along with thousands of other paintings, drawings and prints belonging to the nation, the superb John Webber portrait of Captain James Cook, and any of his on-board artists’ first images of Aotearoa?

C Johnstone, Grey Lynn.

Formatted exams

Jonathan Shamrock asks ( Herald, November 27) about the value of changing the pattern of exam questions. I am an electronics engineer and I have tutored maths and physics to intermediate and high school students for nearly two decades. I’ve seen this too many times before. The point in changing the format/ style of questions is to evaluate the ability of students to think. Stem-based careers require thinkers, not regurgitators.

The only people who refer to these exams as “undo-able” are supporters of the dumbing-down of society through rote “learning”. Stem-based careers require analytical thinking because real-world problems are never in last year’s exam format. Those “few students” who were able to answer the exam questions are exactly what Stem-based career employers need. For students who failed, it’s time for them to stop memorising the “this question format therefore that answer format” and to start understanding the concepts.

Brian Cox, Pakuranga.

Gang crackdown

Getting tough on gangs will bring the return of unannounced raids on family homes, cutting benefits to families, a rise in the prison population and court cases resulting in more waste of taxpayer money. Is this what NZers want? Simon Bridges is obviously not into forming wellbeing, kinder government policies. Tough talk and policies are all very well but there is a vital element missing — the highly vulnerable youngest members of society. Trauma of police raids, greater abject poverty with cuts in benefit, the breadwinner of the family locked up in jail leaving many households without an male adult, will increase the numbers already living in poverty and penalise thousands of New Zealand children.

A far better policy would be to work with gangs and those at the lower end of the economic strata, not rewarding the already well off with tax cuts that never trickle down.

Marie Kaire, Whanga¯rei.

Past mortgages

Cast aside your hair shirt, Russell Armitage ( Herald, November 26).

“We had the very best of times” indeed, but the “huge bonus” of “enormous capital gains” on property came at a price. Postwar parents may have benefited from low interest rates, but it was a different story for their children. From aspiring boomer home-buyers, the banks exacted mortgage interest rates many times higher than the enticingly low deals on offer today. Forty years ago single-figure mortgages were unheard of — in fact, having a single mortgage was a rarity; second mortgages were commonplace, as were interest rates of 18-22 per cent.

Add this to the real cost of property purchase, let alone the struggle to service mortgage payments through wages taxed at much higher rates than currently, and the rosy view of the past looks a little less idyllic. Rebecca Glover, Waiuku.

Listed pests

Paul Majurey from the Tu¯puna Maunga Authority (TMA) claims that there are several tree species on Mt Albert classified as pests and claims have been bandied about that as many as 200 trees are “weeds or pests”.

Of the 345 exotic trees listed on the TMA arboriculture operations plan, just seven individual trees of three species appear on the Auckland Regional Pest Management Strategy list. On the operation plan, the five monkey apple trees are correctly listed as a “pest”, but tree privet and Norfolk Island hibiscus incorrectly appear as “not a pest plant”. Furthermore, the TMA report erroneously lists olive trees as a “pest plant”.

All exotics trees are to be chopped down, including 10 oak trees more than 100 years old and more than 100 mature winter-flowering cherry trees. Peter Janssen, Mt Albert.

Port location

I agree entirely with David Mair’s letter ( Herald, November 27) that the Auckland Port needs to remain close to Auckland City for economical and environmental reasons.

Most of the cargo is destined for Auckland and it will take trucks five to six hours round trip for each load from Whanga¯rei. London shifted its port from the Docks down the Thames to Tilbury and Shearness at the mouth, and Holland has a port at Vlissingen off the Antwerp river. Tilbury and Vlissingen have gone inland with canals to form wharves. I still wonder if it is feasible for Auckland to turn the Tamaki River into a canal. This would take cargo to Seaside Park, an open area that could be developed into a port, and Highbrook, which is close to the Wiri container depot and south of Auckland Central eliminating congestion from trucks in the city.

The optimum would be a canal to the Manukau and locate the port just south of the airport, but cost is probably prohibitive. The Tamaki river idea may also not be viable, but I think it is worth investigating. If it’s feasible, it ticks all the boxes — freeing the city to develop the waterfront. Graham Russell, Pukekohe.