Auckland’s issues spread to regions
In the article by Imran Ali, ( November 3), regarding the current Government buying a park in Whanga¯rei for housing, Dr Shane Reti said the people of the district, and not HNZ, should determine the future shape of the city.
In our opinion, that statement is shallow. Over the nine years that National was in Government, National allowed massive immigration of 70,000-plus per year. Where were those 630,000-plus people to live? New Zealanders were being displaced, sleeping in parks and shop doorways. Now this problem has moved to the regions.
Aucklanders sit in their cars for hours each day, and 30,000-plus more cars are registered each year, compounding the problem. It is proposed to take precious native bush in the Waitakeres for a dam, as water supply will not meet the increased population requirements. Aucklanders are paying an increased petrol tax because roading is now insufficient.
There was no public consultation as to whether Aucklanders wanted, or were prepared to pay for, massive migration. It is obvious that, when Auckland reached saturation point, these problems would move to the provinces.
Labour inherited this problem and is producing a solution. Do we want all of our parks and land covered in houses? Do we want our house and section sizes reduced? The long-term ramifications would be flooding, as rainwater has nowhere to go except through the public stormwater drainage system.
All New Zealanders, including the newly-arrived, must have a safe, warm house for their families. Point-scoring with housing is unacceptable. Our letters regarding lack of infrastructure for such high immigration policies were ignored. Taking away parks, orchards and market gardens for housing, as happened in Auckland, will have long-term repercussions. We do not want the same thing to happen in Whanga¯rei. Intensive housing to house people immediately is a shortterm solution. Long-term, we must think about the numbers coming into the country, and ensure there is the infrastructure in place for them — housing, roading, electricity, water, stormwater drainage, sewerage reticulation, etc.
Immigration, unless to re-unite families, should be put on hold until our infrastructure is adequate.
We also need consultation on immigration and its effects on our communities, as stated by Dr Reti. Beverley Aldridge/ Kathleen Pattinson Otamatea Grey Power
Abortion reality
Saying the abortion law should be relaxed because that’s where “reality” is, is like saying “let’s put up the speed limit because most people travel over it!” If you want to fit the abortion law to reality, why don’t you bring in some biologists to say what a baby feels like when it’s going through the abortion process? That’s reality. It’s nice and easy keeping it “the mother’s choice”, but that automatically excludes another human being. (Wonder how the Bill of Rights deals with that?) NZ is always championing the underdog (or under-whale as the case may be), so how is it we can be so two-faced over this?
Before this is written off as a complete anti-abortion rant, I would like to simply say, we cannot afford to relax abortion laws because we
Our letters regarding lack of infrastructure for such high immigration policies were ignored.
have had 1⁄ a million abortions in this 2 country, which shows something is very wrong. Therefore, I recommend tackling it at the other end — not more, or younger sex education, because that doesn’t work, but some homework done on the age/race/ situation end where statistics will give a clue as to where to target. J L Wiklund Kerikeri