Name change not a priority
We read that Epuni St in Aro Valley is to be re-named Hōniana Te Puni St (April 30). This is all very nice, but it comes at a huge cost to Wellington ratepayers. Reprinting the name change on maps, electoral rolls, stationery letterheads etc. is a very expensive process. As well as the added burden for the individual residents.
Surely this expenditure would be better spent on our leaking water pipes (two of which are in our suburb). We can live with an abbreviated street name, but we cannot live without fresh clean water.
Heather Bray, Johnsonville
History lessons
At last, a significant and damming critique of the New Zealand history curriculum by eminent historian Professor Paul Moon (New history curriculum is failing our students, May 2).
He uses expressions like “…insists they view the past in a strangely narrow and ideologically shaped way”; “Students are encouraged not so much to discover the past as … made to feel responsible for it”; “…the discipline mutates into a form of propaganda.”; “Almost as troubling as the ideological orientation… is the mass of topics it omits”.
Like many others, I am delighted that New Zealand history is now part of the school curriculum. But what many of us are not delighted about is explained so clearly by Moon. These concerns prompted many of us to make submissions on the content of the draft curriculum., particularly on the almost complete non-inclusion of the pre-1840 history of New Zealand. These concerns have not gone away – it now seems not so much history as social engineering.
George Orwell wrote in his book 1984 “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past”. Like so many of his predictions, this seems to have arrived.
David Marshall, Johnsonville
Tools no good
In your letters (May 1) John C Ross’ comment on the Helen Clark Government’s Defence Force spending he failed to mention the absolute waste of spending on 104, yes, 104 LAVs, which to take anywhere in a Hercules had to be taken apart. Most have never been used and the only time they were turned on was to get them on and off transporters to get them to the army camps.
An enormous waste of our taxes. I assume they are now some sort of giant flower vase. They definitely have not added to our armies useful tools.
Carol Cooper-McCord, Lower Hutt
Us and them mentality
I am writing to follow up The Post article Cycleway win, but “friction” on the rise,
(May 2) reporting that the High Court has dismissed the Foodstuffs’ judicial review of the process related to placement of the Thorndon cycleway.
I am appalled at the naive, “we”, “they’ mentality in the council’s approach to the development of cycleways that comes through in this report. Surely that mentality alone should be a big wake-up call to council that their consultation process is highly deficient and flawed.
If security guards are needed at public consultation meetings, if there are numbers of (costly) judicial reviews about this matter in the pipeline, and if Cr Matthews makes comments about council “winning” to warn judicial review applicants off, what does that say about the relationship between the council and the residents they serve?.
Perhaps if council spent some time and money on finding out how to consult effectively so that Wellington residents felt they were engaged early and brought along in the decision-making process, such adversarial approaches would not be needed and the need for strong public pushback would be reduced. Who knows, Wellingtonians may even come to feel they are well served by council.
Freda Walker, Oriental Bay
MP meltdown
While the Green MP Julie Anne Genter’s outburst during Parliament’s transport debate was not acceptable to parliamentary protocol, it was nevertheless an echo of the dissent many New Zealanders are feeling over the government’s actions since gaining power.
Sure, she went over the top, but she did reflect the frustration of not being heard and the lack of tangible responses for information when reigning ministers are questioned.
The watching or listening public are not convinced by the rhetoric and slogans which feature in the interplay between the coalition teams. Their boring mantras of blaming “the previous government’s legacy” has run its course – as have “getting the country back on track” and “we will deliver”. Whilst I don’t condone her meltdown, Genter is human and can be forgiven for feeling patronised.
Mari Housiaux, Paraparaumu