LETTERS FNHL needs to care for natural world too

Do we dare hope Far North District Council has learnt a lesson from the Paihia Waterfront debacle?

Since the current councillors were elected in 2019, our SEA CHANGE group across the Far North has been repeatedly asking our council to align governance of the council-owned Far North Holdings Ltd with the Local Government Act.

Up till now, FNHL has been given a free rein to pursue economic goals without taking wider community needs into account.

It doesn’t seem rocket science to ensure KPIs for FNHL around the requirements to “promote the social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing of communities in the present and the future”.

Come on FNDC, isn’t it time we all faced in the same direction and cared for our communities and the natural world — together?

Jane Banfield

Paihia Risks from China

In his comment piece “We should go our own way on foreign policy” (June 15), Vaughan Gunson cautions that our increasingly close relationship with the US-led Nato camp, together with our stronger diplomatic language, are “provoking the displeasure of China’s rulers”. And yes, of course this could threaten our trade relationship with China. We have seen China’s bullying trade retaliations against Australia, which had dared to push for an investigation into Covid origins. But our regional security, sovereignty and unfettered access to Pacific trade routes — now threatened in the case of the South China Sea — are surely of more vital importance. We should not be ignoring China’s human rights violations in Tibet, Xinjiang, its clampdown in Hong Kong, and future threats to our own regional security, in favour of current trade benefits.

Working in South East Asia for 18 years I was witness to China’s aggressive takeover of the South China Sea on preposterous historical grounds and in contempt of the UNCLOS-designated Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. In the case of the Philippines, aggressively taking over parts of its EEZ. China’s naval vessels and militias ruthlessly evicted Filipino fishing boats from their traditional fishing grounds. With the subsequent plunder of coral reefs, artificial island building and their militarisation, despite promises to the contrary. This was deemed an illegal occupation by the Court of Arbitration at the Hague, a judgment also treated with contempt by China.

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Returning to New Zealand after working 44 years offshore I was astonished at the extent of sales of strategically-important asset to China, its carefully crafted political influence, and cultivation of a network of supportive Kiwis in influential positions.

Our Government is belatedly recognising the risks presented by China’s objectives in the South Pacific, which are obviously to ultimately establish military bases through its insidious infrastructure loans with debt for equity conversion provisions. Tactics following China’s global Belt and Road initiatives, where corrupted politicians enter into deals that their nations are unable to repay.

An invasion of Taiwan looks increasingly likely. Alarmingly, China supports Russia’s barbaric war in Ukraine and that alliance is strengthening. Western democracy is increasingly under threat from totalitarian nations prepared to use force to advance their interests.

New Zealand has little alternative but to re-establish strong security alliances that have served us so well in the past, increase our defence spending, as well as diversify our trade relationships. I am afraid that Foreign Minister Mahuta’s invoking Taniwha is unlikely to do the job for us.

Tony Climie Whangārei