Are we too worn down to complain?

Waikanae is called a ‘‘retirement’’ suburb, ‘‘God’s waiting room’’, despite the healthy rolls at two primary schools.

With this in mind, you would expect it to be a quiet residential area. This could not be further from the truth; every afternoon and evening the streets, and the beach, of this suburb are beset by the moronic activities of ‘‘boy’’ (many middleaged) racers. The black tracks of burnouts decorate most intersections.

Years of reports to the council and the local police have produced zero response. Does nobody care? Are there really ‘‘more important’’ matters than the safety of children, cyclists, and pedestrians, not to mention the huge impact from the number-one stressor of the modern world, noise pollution?

I thought this just a Waikanae problem, but anecdotal evidence suggests it is widespread throughout the Wellington region, and probably the country.

Do we get so worn down by negative impacts in our communities not being addressed by the authorities that we lose the energy to do something about it and complain?

Does complaining to ineffective public agencies do any good anyway? That’s what we always think. Does anybody else feel like this?

Sue Smith, Waikanae Beach

Envy of the world

Kerry McDonald, a member of the Business Roundtable before resigning after about five years, complains the pandemic has made us increasingly reliant on the Government (letters, July 6).

The pro-market, neo-liberal roundtable advocated deregulation and ever lower taxes, delivering us leaky homes, Pike River and varroa mite, to say nothing of underfunding schools, hospitals and welfare.

He complains of incompetence in an ‘‘ineffective, unreliable’’ public service. In fact, our public service, epitomised by Dr Ashley Bloomfield, delivered a response to Covid so effective it is the envy of the world.

McDonald’s claim that all ‘‘post-1960 governments had, in my judgment, been largely incompetent’’ is inaccurate. He states Aotearoa New Zealand experienced a major decline in living standards compared with the OECD. A fact-check shows in the last decade, annual GDP

growth averaged 2.99 per cent, while the OECD average was 40 per cent lower at 2.13 per cent. A similar story is true of previous decades.

He says the wheels have fallen off our border protection that is riven with ‘‘halftruths, evasions and prevarications’’. Slip-ups had occurred, as in all countries, but most of us know Bloomfield’s communication has been outstanding and honest. The thousands queuing to return here tell the real truth.

Simon Louisson, Seatoun

Regulate plastics use

Plastic pandemic (July 6) could not be more apt. Focusing on the need for everyone to play our part and reduce plastic uptake is like asking us to once again do our best to contain the spread of Covid while opening our borders to tourists from all over the world.

It just doesn’t make sense any more that it is only consumers who are being asked to be responsible for plastic waste.

The Government needs to urgently regulate the amount of plastic coming from supermarkets and other businesses happy to pass on the cost of land and sea degradation to us and our children.

Some businesses are trying to do the right thing but it is only a drop in the bucket compared to a concerted effort that has to start from the top down as well as the bottom up.

‘‘Doing the right thing’’ is just not working for some of our biggest plastic polluters. Regulation is necessary. Miranda Munro, Melrose

Native planting

I agree with Dame Anne Salmond that one of the unwelcome results of the flawed ETS will be an incentive to plant pine plantations on good quality agricultural land, to the detriment of agricultural output and creating a future headache in terms of disposing of the huge volume of wood eventually produced (ETS incentives misplaced, July 7).

In the meantime the landscape will become blotted with unattractive pine plantations which, like most monocultures, present a high risk in terms of disease and fire.

A far better solution is to restore our native forests to their former magnificence. Although native trees are slower to grow, and thus to absorb carbon, they have a better capacity to fix carbon in the long term, are less susceptible to disease and fire, and are an attractive addition to the landscape because of the many species involved. Native bird populations will also benefit.

This solution would also increase New Zealand’s attractiveness as a tourist destination, Covid-19 solutions permitting.

Bas Walker, Wellington

No need of flowers

Whether the taxpayer or the traveller pays for the managed isolation of returning citizens, one of the issues seems to be the cost of the accommodation. At about $4000 for a room per stay it’s certainly not cheap.

Surely other options are available apart from five-star city hotels.

A friend, until recently a frequent and fearless flyer, told me that it wasn’t concern about the virus that prevented him from travelling overseas. It was the possibility that the cost of his managed isolation might exceed the cost of his flight.

A man with minimal needs apart from the need to travel, he would be quite happy to self-isolate in today’s equivalent of a monk’s cell as long as it had a bed, a table, a shower, a loo, and a window that opened. No flowers or chocolates, thank you.

Perhaps the Government could offer basic accommodation for free, and those who wanted to upgrade would have to pay.

Ian Badger, Akaroa

NZ First found wanting

The latest report on what might happen to Auckland’s port raises serious questions about NZ First’s misallocation of Provincial Growth Fund money.

Parliament and the electorate must consider this matter seriously and all the minister’s decisions need to be independently reviewed.

As we consider the matter contrast these two recent statements:

Light rail – ‘‘Every programme must stack up, must be fiscally sound and it’s got to work.’’ – Winston Peters

Northport/Northland - ‘‘. . . a shoddy opinion piece not based on facts’’. Auckland Mayor Phil Goff

Clearly, the hypocrisy/double standards demonstrated by NZ First can be seen by all. On this matter NZ First has been found wanting.

Philip D McIntyre, O¯ taki

Darwin’s contributions

As a scientist I can only agree with Allen Heath’s praise of Charles Darwin’s huge contributions to modern science (letters, July 3). And, unlike Gavan O’Farrell (letters, July 4), I see no reason to diminish Darwin’s contributions by implying they were purely theoretical.

Darwin made use of all the evidence available in his time to support his views. More recently, modern evolutionary science has provided overwhelming evidence that humans, apes, and other primate groups evolved over millions of years from common ancestors that were neither apes nor humans.

Darwin was unable to fully develop his argument, because science had not yet advanced sufficiently to set out all the relevant facts. This points, of course, to the fundamental differences between scientific methods and the very different approaches espoused by religious leaders and politicians, who regularly show themselves incapable of changing their views, no matter how strong the contrary evidence.

Bill Sutton, Napier