Chicanepictures.com

Ban freedom camping

Southland District Council should ban freedom camping altogether.

They could then concentrate on helping their ratepayers, not foreigners. The freedom camping law should have been wiped as soon as the Rugby World Cup finished.

It amuses me to see the powers that be bending over backwards for bludging freedom campers at the expense of services for ratepayers.

In our town, Lumsden, we hear about the economic benefits and the town looking alive etc. Freedom campers do not spend up large and if a bunch of people lying around fiddling on smartphones is looking alive, so be it.

The main word in their vocab is ‘‘free’’.

I may be old and grumpy but I was brought up in an era when nothing was free (except perhaps parental love and guidance) and ration books were in use.

When we Kiwis go overseas, it costs us an arm and a leg but we suck it up and get on with it.

Most tourists come from countries that are well favoured by the exchange rates.

There is no way in hell that we get special treatment.

I have written before about the way our toilets are used and we put up notices for them to be treated with respect but they are ignored.

Lots of campers are ‘‘one night standers’’ and they do not care about the mess they leave behind.

If the call for a ban falls on deaf ears, infrastructure changes should not be driven by perceived camper needs.

The best solution (radical) is to ban all mini-campers and just have fully self-contained campers available for hire. I welcome comments/criticisms. Mick Ellis Lumsden

Tourists are an issue

Michael Joy’s letter (February 25) made me laugh.

Not in a humorous way but in an alarmed, discomforted and nervous way.

From the comfort of Michael’s armchair in Scotland, I can imagine that the statistics can make us look paranoid and intolerant.

However, I ask Joy to please recognise that the stats he is seeing are averaged out over the whole country.

The rate of accidents caused by tourists on the South Island’s main tourist routes are far higher, and when you consider also the ratio of tourist drivers to local drivers, you might have to reconsider your attitude.

Living on one of the main tourist routes, I can assure you that every local has a story (or ten) about near misses, campers on the wrong side of the road, or rental cars suddenly stopping on main highways to take photos or going around roundabouts the wrong way.

Ask the local fire chief or any of the police if we have a tourist driving issue. I suspect they would emit the same nervous, uncomfortable laugh.

We certainly have an issue but you need to be living amongst it every day to truly understand. Yes, the tourist dollar is important, but not at the cost of local lives.

And yes, there are bad Kiwi drivers but if we are tackling the issue of road safety as a whole, why is the tourist driving issue being swept under the carpet?

By the way, China is not part of the international reciprocal driving agreement.

Beats me why they are able to drive here, yet we need a Chinese licence to drive on their roads, try Googling ‘‘can I drive in China?’’. J Peterson Te Anau

Communism in NZ

It is intriguing to me, that in a country with a centre-right government, which asserts the virtues of the free market system, we are simultaneously supporting the purchase of our industry and infrastructure by a communist regime.

I never would have thought the free market policies of successive governments would bring about what can only be described as a growing economic overthrow.

Is working for a communist regime the economic miracle we were promised? Are we going to end up exiles in our own country?

The free market baloney pushed by all four of the major parties needs to go.

Like rugby without rules, the deregulation of our financial sector has led to a free for all.

It is becoming apparent that our sovereignty and the future of our democracy may become casualties of profit.

Profit for the few, however, at the expense of the many. Carl Findlater Ryal Bush