Students will inherit our folly
I fully support today’s student rally in Christchurch to demand our coalition Government does more get the country to lower its dependence on fossil fuels.
The students have a big stake in our future and will inherit the effects of our profligate use of energy and resources. I’m in my seventies, so don’t expect to see the worst climate events that will befall us.
We have known about climate change for decades.
Now is the time to act to make our economy sustainable and minimise the storms, heatwaves and sea-level incursions that are coming. We need to show solidarity with our young people, people on low-lying islands and people in hot regions that could become unliveable.
A good turnout of students and anyone who can attend today’s gathering will be a much-needed show of support for the planet.
Kerry Moore, Bishopdale [abridged]
Protections sidestepped
We should be extremely concerned that the Fast Track Approvals Bill is pushing for development and sidestepping protecting the environment, a stable climate and our democracy.
Globally the data indicates humans are currently consuming at least 70% beyond what nature can bear in the medium to long term, and it is a fairytale to believe that any development is a greater good, and an ever-expanding GDP in a finite world is achievable. We cannot uncouple GDP growth from resource use.
The bill’s expedited approval process for fish farms, marine consents, winter grazing operations, and intensive dairy farming developments, which are already causing enormous environmental impacts and disregard for the welfare of animals, will further compound the exploitation and suffering of animals, damage our trading reputation and destroy our indigenous biodiversity.
Models of steady small localised economies are gaining ground and need to be systematically explored by any responsible government before the impacts of biodiversity loss and climate change become too extreme and world economies begin to crash.
Jenny Easton, Nelson
Indifferent to suffering
So members of the Myanmar military have been invited to attend a meeting in New Zealand. Whatever happened to principle, integrity, and a determination to stand against oppression and tyranny?
Are our political leaders indifferent to the suffering and state-sanctioned murder that is threatening to overrun the people of Myanmar?
We are a small country but our voice is heard.
We need to be united in voicing our opposition to this appalling decision. Russell Gifford, Burnside
Diplomatic hypocrisy
For once I agree with Lorne Kuehn (Letters, April 4).
Why we choose to trade with one country that rules by military force and one that uses similar force, such as China’s Communist Party or Indonesia (in Western Papua New Guinea), now Israel, needs explaining by successive governments whose diplomacy over trade highlights our hypocrisy and double standards.
Claire Coveney, Opawa
Finest gold
Thank you for your timely coverage of the plight of Reefton’s elderly folk in The Press yesterday (’Obscene waste’ - cleaners’ daily visits to empty rest home).
However, a photo of Reefton Medical Centre was published under the article about Ziman House, Reefton’s aged residential care facility.
It does not do to confuse the two. Reefton Health/ Medical Centre is an efficient service that the district deeply appreciates.
Our area’s first responders, the ambulance service, police and fire brigade are top of the range. We count our blessings.
On the other hand, Ziman House stands serviced but empty, while the town’s aged folk have to leave their families and community for residential care in other centres, where they soon lose heart and die.
Of the 10 Ziman House residents removed against their will in October 2022, only two are still living. Reefton is losing its finest gold. We appreciate that the management at Te Whatu Ora Poutini are busy people, too busy in fact to reply to repeated requests for information about the future of Ziman House, after publicly committing to open it.
Their silence is not only deafening but ill-mannered.
Helen Bollinger, BlacksPoint
Driving culture
Reading about yet another tragic traffic accident, I want to make a comment about our driving culture.
I am over 80, so I am too old to be able to claim to be a good driver, but I suggest that the attitude that leads to safe driving is to take pleasure in driving as safely, considerately and competently as we can.
Enjoy the satisfaction of realising you are driving to the highest standard you are able and you and others will be more likely to keep safe.
Norman Wilkins, Avonhead
Long grass problem
Sick of lawn mowing? Just stop doing it, ecologist says (April 2).
Ecologists with PhDs should also consider the downsides of creating urban mini-jungles. Not only our “nice” creatures would thrive, but also rats and mice, creepy-crawlies like katipo spiders, pet rabbits on the run from lawful captivity, and predatory bird-murdering cats would lurk unseen in the undergrowth.
Long grass often hides illegal rubbish tips of dangerous junk and chemicals. Add the fire risk from tall dry grasses, and it’s clear why local councils demand we mow our lawns.
Ecologists have forgotten that nature is “red in tooth and claw”.
Phillip Rex Robinson, Waltham
Terrorism’s definition
World Central Kitchen workers killed by Israeli strike in Gaza is the headline of an April 3 Press article.
These were targeted assassinations, the aid workers, travelling in a convoy, had coordinated their movements with the Israeli Defence Force.
Is anybody surprised by this news item? Considering the ongoing obscene deadly violence being inflicted on the people, the men, women and children of Gaza, for months now?
Considering the ongoing destruction of hospitals, mosques, residences, bakeries, schools and universities?
Aren’t these violent attacks, including the most recent killing of World Central Kitchen workers, acts of terrorism?
How is terrorism defined? This is an important question.
Does it depend on what is done or does it depend on who the perpetrators are? Lois Griffiths, Strowan
Only love wins
War is not the answer. Only love can conquer hate.
With staggering rapidity the nations of the world are arming themselves, driven by fear of war.
In so doing they are providing an astonishing rejection of the lessons of history, rushing headlong into the very thing they fear.
We have fools and idiots with their fingers on the triggers.
We stand by and witness the genocidal feast on the weak and disenfranchised.
And all this while the planet recoils from our rapacious greed.
Jesus said love one another, sadly no-one really understood him.
Make peace, you fools.
P A Newsome, Christchurch Central
Across the country councils are being pushed to sell off locally owned assets. In Auckland, Mayor Wayne Brown has proposed selling the remaining 11% of Auckland airport shares in public ownership, leasing the port’s operations for 35 years, and establishing a rolling asset sales target of $300 million.
In Wellington, the Green-led council has voted to consult on a proposal to sell its 34% stake in Wellington airport.
Bay of Plenty Regional Council is considering selling its 54% stake in the country’s biggest port, the Port of Tauranga.
Christchurch council voted in December last year to take asset sales off the table, after it was suggested the council sell off its stake in the city’s airport and port. It’s a good time to revisit why council assets should stay in public hands.
Running a council isn’t the same as running a portfolio of financial assets. It’s not just about surveying returns, and divesting assets where they’re not making high enough returns.
Not all public assets should – or do – make returns. Councils own parks and libraries, for example, so spaces can be accessible and enjoyed by all. That requires investing in assets without a return. (Even if running a council was about making returns on assets, many assets on the chopping block – like Auckland airport – are returning strong revenue.)
Strategic infrastructure, like ports and airports, must be stable and reliable.
Selling these assets to for-profit companies leaves infrastructure operations vulnerable to the vagaries of the market.
That doesn’t provide the security for everyone relying on transport routes. New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses rely on these routes more than most.
Selling off assets also contributes to a values shift in society.
It’s 40 years this year since the start of Rogernomics in 1984, and the wave of privatisations and deregulation that continued under Ruth Richardson as finance minister in the early 1990s.
Those privatisations of the 1980s and 1990s helped make us into more of a market society.
A greater proportion of activities in society is now run for profit, rather than public good.
If we want to halt the shift towards being an individualistic, competitive society – where profit is the overriding goal, markets govern, and money’s the main marker of success – we need to hold onto spaces and assets not driven by profit. It may be a sign of how far our political “centre” has moved right that NZ First leader Winston Peters resigned from the coalition government in opposition to the proposed sale of Wellington Airport in 1998 – and we now have a progressive majority in Wellington council entertaining the sale of the public stake in that airport.
The election of a right-wing government means supporters of asset sales in councils know they can accelerate asset sales without opposition from central government.
Lobby groups like the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance, affiliated with the Taxpayers’ Union, have ramped up pressure to sell assets, including through highly tilted polling questions.
Councils face some cost pressures, including higher insurance costs. But there are alternatives to address these costs, including collaboration with central government for self-insurance, increased borrowing, or pooling risk across councils.
Central government could provide much more robust funding to local government, to relieve some of these pressures. It is high time that a long-term funding settlement was negotiated by central government to support councils.
But disingenuous arguments are being marshalled to justify cuts and asset sales.
An Infrastructure Commission report suggests claims about councils facing debt crises are likely overstated.
The commission found “[a]ll councils have low debt servicing costs”, “the fundamentals of council debt are strong”, councils have “been significantly more indebted in the past”, and credit rating downgrades – which are not imminent – would incur only very modest increases in debt servicing costs.
In Wellington and Auckland there are proposals to put revenue from offloading public assets into future investment funds. “Future funds” sound good, but future investment funds were the main rationale for the sell-off of state assets in the 1980s, and are simply a way to make unpopular privatisations seem palatable.
Councillors, and the public, should see through these arguments and stand up to pressure.
If privatisations are accepted now, it’ll be far easier for community assets to be sold in the years ahead. Our libraries, pools, and parks could be next.