The right to know

At present the right to know is under attack in Australia, but I don’t know why. Perhaps it is a case of the similar right to be forgotten — effectively a right to not know.

The right to be forgotten, now legislated in the EU and Argentina, is designed to protect people’s present and future from their past. Once, if you did something wrong, probably due to alcohol, people either laughed or condemned, but there was little evidence the next day. Now everyone has a high-resolution camera in their pocket to get the ‘evidence,’ and an avenue to show it with Facebook, YouTube and a number of other outlets that there is little control of.

At present it is difficult to remove this material, and that is the intent of this ‘right to be forgotten’, a chance for the past to be wiped away so that employment opportunities are not dashed.

Although this sounds like a good law for all countries, defining the limits of this right is difficult. A photo of the sleeping drunk at a work event can be best forgotten, but a video clip leading to a charge of bullying or unwanted sexual advances at the same event should not be forgotten or forgiven, and there should be consequences.

A better reality would be the right to know supported by people behaving appropriately so there was nothing to hide, although this isn’t likely to be realistic. DENNIS FITZGERALD

Melbourne You recently published a letter arguing against phasing out plastic bags, and claiming that paper bags are worse than single-use plastic bags.

To be clear to your readers, I understand plastic shopping bags are not our only waste problem, but they can have serious impacts on marine wildlife, and they are contributing to the growing issue of microplastics in our food chain.

It is estimated that up to five trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year. If put one after the other, these plastic bags could be wrapped around the world seven times every hour.

In its coastal litter clean-ups here in New Zealand, Sustainable Coastlines has found that plastic bags are among the five most common items picked up.

Phasing out single-use plastic shopping bags is an important first step to tackling New Zealand’s wider waste problem, including other single-use plastics. Importantly, it signals that as a country

rampant population increases and dwindling resources, that scenario is likely to proliferate.

It is thus astounding that still the vast majority of humanity remain reluctant to face the issues. To “stare down the barrel of the gun,” so to speak. Maybe the perceived (and inevitable) hardships are too frightening to contemplate. Or the particularly selfish notion that one might be deceased before the real hardship begins makes complacency, for now, the preferred option, even though such hardships are likely to escalate and intensify rapidly if the situation continues to be largely ignored.

It seems to me that the horror prospects imagined by many folk have clouded their vision, leaving them less willing to face the truth of the matter — the issue is not going to magically go away. We need to work collectively toward a solution. We cannot continue to ignore the frequent and increasingly accurate signs that point toward our demise as a species.

Scientific calculations by astronomers and organisations like Nasa put the number of stars in the observable universe at more than the entire number of grains of sand in all of the world’s beaches, seas and deserts. A staggering revelation indeed. So how many planets must there be orbiting those stars, given that our star, the sun, alone, has eight planets orbiting around it?

Yet with all of those possibilities for life, no “Goldilocks” zone planet (a planet with liquid water) suitable for immediate colonisation has been detected and confirmed. Not one.

There is much optimism that humanity will be able to “technology” its way out of the problem. That’s simplistic political narrative, and quite frankly laughable, naive even. The tech needed to find and study such planets is still in its infancy, so at this point cannot be relied upon to quickly identify an alternative to Earth.

Our nearest neighbouring star is Alpha Centauri, located 4.35 light years away. Voyager 1, currently hurtling through interstellar space beyond the boundaries of our solar system at a blistering 17km per second, would need 73,000 years to reach that system, and there might not even be a habitable planet to colonise upon arrival.

It is clear, following the recent and ongoing dire warnings from the most eminent scientists on Earth, that unless sweeping radical action is taken now, we will visit upon our children a hellish world bereft of pleasure or enlightenment, where merely surviving would be considered success.

I wish to encourage every person who reads this, or every person who has a need we need to do things very differently — manufacturers, retailers and consumers all have a responsibility to reduce waste and prevent plastic pollution.

The good news is that we’re seeing many businesses taking action — whether that’s food outlets no longer automatically providing straws with drinks, to manufacturers and retailers

to make a positive difference, indeed all people on planet Earth, to continue to learn about the factors influencing our environment and to share that knowledge with others who may not be aware of the doom on our horizon, or the small changes they can make that might mitigate such a frightful prospect.

Make whatever changes to your life you are able to, so that you minimise your footprint on nature. That is possible for every single one of us.

The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, in the UK which is dedicated to the study and mitigation of risks that could lead to human extinction or civilisational collapse, has a great website (cser.ac.uk) that is exceptionally informative and a must read for any enthusiast.

To do nothing but watch as our civilisation, indeed our entire species, slowly condemns itself to hardship beyond imagination, before a slow, agonising death, is woefully irresponsible and morally reprehensible. It is incumbent upon all people alive today on Earth, or at least the vast majority of us, the very generations that have placed us in this mess, to take action to avoid aggravating the already precarious position in which we have placed ourselves.

We must be proactive, not reactive. We have to try! Please help.

SCOTT COLLINS

Lake Ngatu actively finding ways to reduce single-use plastic packaging.

I recently announced the government’s work programme to tackle New Zealand’s toughest waste issues. This includes expanding the waste disposal levy to all landfills and improving our data on waste and resource recovery, investing more strategically in infrastructure and innovation, and a greater focus on product stewardship for problematic waste streams such as vehicle tyres and e-waste.

In regard to paper bags, the best option is for retailers and consumers to use reusable bags — and to use them responsibly, over and over again. We need to move away from using things once before sending them to landfill, and instead design products and packaging to be reused time and again.

EUGENIE SAGE Associate Minister for the Environment

"Phasing out single-use plastic shopping bags is an important first step to tackling New Zealand’s wider waste problem, including other single-use plastics. "

circumstances, having regard to the woman’s physical and mental health and wellbeing.

Right to Life believes that this represents a complete withdrawal by the government of protection for women and their unborn from the violence of abortion, including Maori. In the view of Right to Life, this would be a breach of Article 3 of the Treaty of Waitangi.

When the Treaty was signed at Waitangi in 1840, the Crown gave an assurance that Maori people would have the Queen’s protection and all the rights and privileges of British subjects.

We believe the protection of the Crown for the Maori people included the protection for the right to life of Maori from the beginning of pregnancy until natural death, which was provided by the common law of England and in the New Zealand Crimes Act since 1856.

For the government, acting as the Crown, to withdraw this protection for Maori women and their unborn would, in our view, be a serious violation of the Treaty.

Section 182: ‘Killing Unborn Child, of The Crimes Act provides protection for the life of the unborn, including Maori. It is a serious crime to kill an unborn child, and on conviction a person may be imprisoned for a term up to 14 years. Section 183. ‘Procuring abortion by any means’ prohibits unlawful abortion. This is also a serious crime, and everyone, on conviction, is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 years.

It is the government’s intention to make it no longer a crime to kill an unborn child in an abortion.

The decriminalisation of abortion would be a violation of the human rights of unborn children and an attack on the dignity of all mothers, including Maori mothers.

It would be a declaration from the Crown that we have no interest in protecting the life of your child or protecting you from the violence of abortion, that your child is your property, and it is your choice whether your child lives or dies.

The abortion rate for Maori is disturbingly high. In 2017 there were 3111 abortions on Maori women, 23.4 per cent of the total of 13,285 abortions reported in New Zealand.

Right to Life believes that if abortion is decriminalised, it will result in more pressure and coercion imposed on Maori women to terminate the lives of their child by the father of the child, who may abandon the mother if she does not have an abortion.

KEN ORR Right to Life