Losing battle

that only a person with six months or less to live — with or without disability — would be eligible for assisted dying.

In terminal illnesses, such as multiple sclerosis and motor neuron disease, it is usually the disability that’s the cause of death, but such diseases are not considered by doctors to be terminal, due to the inability to predict the time of death. Though some go on for decades, they are ultimately fatal.

Bert Jackson (Changing the rules, letters February 20) fears that the Act will be extended to broaden the qualifying criteria for voluntary assisted dying. That could only be done democratically, by Parliament. So why is Mr Jackson afraid of what Parliament might decide in future?

Of course, if his concerns are similar to those of MP Simon O’Connor, who is on record as saying that Parliament has no authority to decide who shall live and who shall die, that would explain Mr Jackson’s opposition.

One is bound to infer that O’Connor, a Catholic who almost became a priest, believes that it should be God, not Parliament, who should decide on matters of life and death. One can’t help feeling that many religious conservatives who oppose the Act feel the same way. MARTIN HANSON

Nelson

Martin Hanson rails against those that he claims are guilty of presenting a less than truthful view of what the EOLC Act would legalise (The first casualty, letters February 20).

He particularly objects to the ending of another person’s life being described as “killing.” Presumably he would rather refer to it as “assisting them to die.”

Hanson is in a battle with the English language which he cannot win. Strangely, he appears to acknowledge this fact when he describes the phrase “deliberately kill as being “technically accurate.” There is no “technically” about it — it is “accurate,” full stop.

Hanson goes on to say that such an awareness is “worlds away from most people’s understanding of the intent of the End of Life Choice Act.” If this is so, it is because the promoters of this legislation have done such a successful job of sanitising what is really involved.

Then Hanson pours scorn on the Curia

Research poll taken in November, which revealed how confused voters are about what the EOLC Act would mean in practice, with 74 per cent of respondents believing it would allow the turning off of life-sustaining medical equipment, without realising that this is already legal.

Hanson wants to talk about truth. Here it is.

PAULA SALISBURY

Hamilton

Nothing new

Since the dawn of humanity, people have been ending their own lives by suicide to escape unbearable, irreversible suffering. Ancient texts thousands of years old from all over the globe speak of slaves, tortured prisoners or the starving practising suicide rather than face their grim future.

But now Mary Appleby sheds new light: it is the passing of the End of Life Choice Act that exacerbates youth suicide in New Zealand (Mixed Messages letters February 20).

Genuine accolades and heartfelt thanks are due to nurse and therapist Dion Howard, who works with suicidal youth. It appears that some of his clients use the internet to research ‘how to’ methodologies. These used to be passed on by word of mouth, but are now online. The existence or otherwise of the End of Life Choice Act would have absolutely no bearing on whatever they find on the internet.

However, as these young people are clearly computer literate, I hope Dion Howard directs them to www. referendum.govt.nz, where they can read the eligibility criteria for medicallyassisted dying. Almost all will conclude they are ineligible, I’m sure. If any one of

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them are eligible, he/she will have a choice previously denied.

ANN DAVID

Waikanae

Naysayers blocked?

I’m blocked from Facebook’s ‘Kia Kaha Northland’ page, but I genuinely believe intelligent queries, considered criticism and honest suggestions from citizens who don’t fully agree, aka naysayers, should always find voice. These social media campaigns represent the “ever-more sophisticated methods of mindmanipulation” Aldous Huxley warned us about in Brave New World Revisited (1958).

My harmless critiques of Kia Kaha Northland, aka “trolling,” constitute the same freedom of speech politicians so vigorously defend, a foundation-stone of the mechanism by which we employ them, aka democracy.

We all love Northland differently. However, “every Northlander who loves our region” is not allowed to comment. I don’t want four lanes Auckland to Whanga¯ rei without a Green wellbeing economic justification. ‘Well Fair,’ like Kate Raworth’s ‘Doughnut Economics,’ not neoliberal cronie-corporate welfare. The perpetual economic growth model has been debunked and superseded.

Ports of Auckland shifting to Northport might supply such justification, provided the Automobile Age doesn’t end before the expressway reaches Oakleigh. There are so many finite resources other than fossil fuel enmeshed in the motor vehicle industry, EVs and hydrogen included.

Even driving all of Northland’s garbage in refined diesel oil-powered trucks to Marsden’s proposed gasification plant is pointless if it only renders chemicals rather than the biodiesel it was originally designed to produce from waste. Biodiesel can fuel all diesel trucks 90 per cent more efficiently at half the cost, disconnect A¯ otearoa New Zealand from fossil fuel, co-power an industrial hemp industry (to replace pines) and probably fund a UBI too.

Climate change dictates we must localise our industries now, and optimise regional trade. Local Government NZ fully supports localism, an (ironically) global movement. Localism is much more intelligent future-proofing, incompatible with globalised ‘Think Big’ projects like The Big Five.

Kia Kaha provides no information about how many and what type of jobs will be created. Construction phase or long-term? Public sector or private? How will these massive infrastructure projects be funded? Does private enterprise benefit inequitably?

Instead of facts and figures we’re expected (or peer-group pressured?) to support Kia Kaha’s cause by ‘liking’ it on Facebook, based only on the brief endorsements of various government, political, Ma¯ ori, community and business ‘personalities,’ one of whom is quite derogatory about his fellow Northlanders, his “unemployed and intergenerational beneficiary” neighbours, who his neoliberalism created.

I conclude that Kia Kaha Northland is effectively a sneaky anti-government campaign. “Labour-led’s NZ Upgrade” simply isn’t #bigenough. We “rich neglected Northlanders need much more.”

When does consultation happen? National MPs, both sitting and former, among the endorsers lend credence to my conclusion. They’ll save us from Labourled’s realistic, egalitarian approach.

Facebook facts can’t lie though; 117,000 engagements, 25,000 with attention spans long enough to watch a one-minute video, and 3000 likes. If ‘likes’ equal support, that’s 2.5 per cent support. Congratulations Kia Kaha Northland! A “humbling” achievement.

Northland’s biggest transport problem is getting logging trucks to the port. Therefore, obviously, four lanes should next extend northwards from Whanga¯ rei, not south. How about a Facebook campaign for that?

WALLY HICKS

Kohukohu