Get radical on tackling high rents

The cost of rentals is too high and what is needed is some serious, radical action by the Government. A capital gains tax, rent regulation, and more state houses will do the trick.

If this then forces landlords out of the housing market this is a good outcome. This will then bring down the price of houses, making them more available to first-home buyers, who should be able to purchase with a lower deposit and possibly some form of capitalising on their projected Accommodation Supplement.

Housing shouldn’t be a business that taxpayers are subsidising through grants paid by Work and Income because of unjustifiable rent increases.

Low interest rates benefit landlords, who have more ability to use their business equity to purchase more property and then to up the rents.

New Zealand families should be assisted to own their own homes, giving them security now and as they age. As it is, now our collective tax dollars are assisting low-income families to rent and this is not meeting the unbridled cost of rentals. This results in more government funding for other basic costs for lowincome families, who are spending their very limited funding on rent.

We need to use our tax dollars wisely, to provide welfare directly to where it will be the most cost effective and serve the long-term needs of those who need it. Teresa Homan, Upper Hutt

Hutt housing plans

Hutt housing shake-up (Nov 5) identified changes to Lower Hutt’s District Plan passed by the council as Plan Change 43.

Unfortunately the article failed to address a key element of the change, which is to liberalise development and intensification within the city’s General Residential Activity Area (GRAA) – which covers the vast majority of the suburbs. It’s symptomatic of the way the proposed change was promulgated and publicised that this was missed.

The majority of Hutt residents will have no idea that this change may impact on them, with greater infill and multistorey development on larger or amalgamated sections entirely out of character with the GRAA.

Four councillors (Bassett, Hislop, Sutton and Rasheed) opposed the change, mainly as it applied in the GRAA (there was support for the more logical intensification around transport hubs). That opposition was courageous given it needed to take into account the inevitable criticism that would have occurred around the cost expense and time already spent in getting Change 43 to the table.

Is Change 43 consistent with the vision of the city as a great place to live, work and play? No chance.

Paul Steele, Lower Hutt

Christmas babies

The stupidity of no nursing staff or obstetricians at Capital & Coast DHB for delivery of babies over Christmas is unheard of (Birthing centres shut at Christmas, Oct 31). Where do you expect the pregnant mothers to have their babies – on the road?

Of course you must have Christmas with your families but you can do it in relays, the same as the rest of the world.

Do not be so lazy, stupid, inconsiderate to other people and put expectant mothers before your selfish selves.

Suzanne Holden, Kelburn

Saving capitalism

Karl du Fresne ( Oct 31) criticises Justin Pemberton’s documentary film Capitalism in the 21st Century, claiming that, ‘‘Apart from making a general pitch in favour of a tax crackdown on the superrich, the film doesn’t put forward any economic model as an alternative to capitalism’’,

No, it didn’t and that’s because French economist Thomas Piketty, upon whose work the film is based, is not the ‘‘leftwing’’ anti-capitalist that du Fresne seems to think he is.

Piketty’s research shows that an unmanaged and unregulated capitalism leads to ever-rising concentrations of wealth, reinforcing the same message which appears in Walter Scheidel’s The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century.

However, Piketty is a reformist favouring redistribution, rather than a revolutionary. His remedies have the objective of saving capitalism rather than destroying it, but saving it in a form that maintains the incentive to invest in productive but risky enterprises while not affronting the sense of fairness that is an inescapable part of the human psyche.

Peter Clemerson, Khandallah

Criticism of England

What a lot of English bashing there has been in the media, even before their sensational game of rugby when they beat us.

Rosemary McLeod (Nov 1) is particularly scathing, bringing up the past of colonialism and highlighting all the negative side. English missionaries like Bishop Selwyn walked for miles bringing peace to the Ma¯ ori and stopping tribal wars and slaughter.

We learned our own history at school and the history book had a Ma¯ ori chief on the cover. We read of Korora¯ reka the whalers settlement, and of the land grabs; the missionary wives who taught hygiene, first aid and sewing to Ma¯ ori women.

The invasion of Parihaka is a big blot on our landscape but army discipline was strict so I doubt the story of rape. Several Irish soldiers married women from Parihaka.

No longer mostly descendants of English parents, New Zealand is now a multiracial country with inter-marriage. It achieves nothing to criticise, most rudely, old mother England or any other country.

Geraldine Mason, Waikanae

Measles culpability

While I understand Helen PetousisHarris’ anger over the rise of measles in Samoa, I take issue with her statement that New Zealand has ‘‘exported’’ measles to Samoa and likening it to the spread of infection of the 1918 flu epidemic for which New Zealand authorities were culpable (NZ ‘to blame’ for Samoa epidemic, Nov 2).

It would be more accurate to state that it is unvaccinated New Zealanders who have ‘‘exported’’ measles recently, thus crediting the majority of New Zealanders who are responsibly vaccinated in order to protect the community.

Marcia Whittleston, Kilbirnie

Abuse of workers

The article detailing the pay and work conditions of Anil Verma is unbelievable in the 21st century (No pay, and fighting to stay, Oct 25).

From the government, which provided the promise and presumably the money for broadband internet to Chorus, Visionstream, GMGS mutating into S-Net technologies, everyone took a slice of the dollar.

But the people doing the actual work were paid a pittance or even no pay at all.

Surely our Government has the conscience and ability to direct the ERA and Immigration New Zealand to work cooperatively in dealing with a serious abuse of human beings.

They must have the power to prosecute immediately, and not hope the matter will go away with the forced return to India of the complainant.

Irene Mackle, O¯ taki

Laziness on licences

I read with interest that Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter is pushing out the date for expiry of fiveyear learner or restricted licences to roll over to seven years as 144,000 expire in the next two years.

She describes it as a pragmatic step. I suggest it is a step backwards, as any person who is too lazy or incompetent will use this as reason not to comply with the majority of the driving population. It is just another Band-Aid on a serious problem.

If you are not capable of achieving a full licence in five years I suggest pedal power, a method the minister champions. Rod Page, Island Bay