Letters to the editor
Ratepayers not money machines
HCC is proposing to increase rates by 19.9% for 2024/25 and four further increases of 15.5% pa. until 2030. Rates will double within 5 years.
Commercial properties will have increases above this level, due to council changing the “differential”. Having reviewed the council's accounts, it is clear that the only way for the council to reduce costs is by reducing staff numbers to 2017 levels. This would save $40m pa. Ratepayers should not be considered a money machine. Councillors, please do the right thing and reduce costs.
Colin Jones, Hamilton
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Questions on costs
I read with interest the rental of the ex WINZ office on Victoria St of Re:circle. What concerns me is the percentage Re:circle claims - 20% of the sale price, plus a stall rental.
This in my mind seems excessive - we are not Auckland and definitely not so well heeled that as second hand sellers we can continue to pay these excessive overheads. The concept is awesome and I envisage it being a success at the right cost to the supplier. What we need to ask is: Who is set to benefit the most from these high percentage of the sales plus the stall rental? I would assume the owners of this building would be glad to set in place an option to lease after the building being empty for so long, rather than charging excessive rental fees.
Carron Huymans, Hamilton
Off track
The National Party campaigned during the election on the slogan "get the country back on track". Yet everything it has done since forming a Government has seemed to be completely off the rails.
Firstly, the removal of the regional fuel tax in Auckland. Now a lot of essential transport projects in that city of traffic chaos and congestion cannot be undertaken.
Secondly the cancellation of the contract for the urgently needed replacement ferries for the Cook Strait linkwith no viable alternative. And damaging our trading relationship with South Korea.
Then two very unfair and unjust cuts. School lunches: the program has proved its worth and provides vital assistance to many children and families.
Now the proposal to cut free transport for young people and children, and yet I as a person with a Gold Card and quite welloff will still get free travel. It will not save any money. But it will extract money once again from a group who can least afford it. The buses and trains with their drivers and other staff are operating anyway. Furthermore it is to the benefit of all that young people get into the habit of using public transport.
When asked to explain all these rash and ill considered cuts the prime minister just says "we are carrying out campaign promises". Well a more reasonable person might look again at what was promised and conclude that many things were foolish, just simple vote getting, and then reconsider. But it is probably expecting too much to hope that politicians can admit they are wrong or that the conditions have changed since those policies were made.
Russell O Armitage, Hamilton (abridged)
Ratepayer dollars
Council had given up the idea, of quoted $700,000 to shift a bus halt by about 100m from the adult sex shop. Wonder which council gave permit for the adult shop to be opened in that location.
The raised speed bumps are of different heights and is causing a problem for fire crews and a huge problem for the patients in St John ambulance emergency vehicles on the way to the hospital. Council's city transport unit and the councillor who was in charge of this unit should be held responsible for wasting ratepayers' money. Some raised platforms are definitely slowing down all the vehicles.
The joke is same as shifting the bus halt cost, now the director Hamilton City Council transport unit say any changes to the current speed bumps will come at a cost to ratepayers and need to be approved by the council’s infrastructure and transport committee. In other words 19.9% rate increase is required to waste rate payers money on these silly projects by the highly paid staff.
Mano Manoharan, Hamilton
Media chaos
There is much current dismay and angst over the now bleak-looking future of television news and programming in NZ. But this was forecast, and addressed, by the previous Ardern-led Labour Government – aiming to merge TVNZ and Radio New Zealand, to create a non-commercial news and current affairs channel – before Chris Hipkins’ weak-kneed and visionless scrapping of the proposed legislation. We have long needed a proper publiclyowned non-commercial TV channel, like Australia’s ABC. In Australia, the ABC enjoys a trust rating of 80%-plus for news and current affairs. We have no such media bulwark to fall back on in NZ. So our TV has been prey to the commercial exigencies of the market, which is now determining how much of it we are about to lose.
The previous Government saw the danger in this, and the imminent collapse of the industry, and tried an initial $52 million funding injection – a financial lifeline. But Hipkins, as the new Labour leader, gave this away in the face of the aggressive “bribe” accusations by the then Opposition – now our coalition Government. Hence the media chaos that has now erupted. Both Hipkins and the then Opposition are entirely to blame.
However, establishing a proper TV public broadcasting channel is not something this current business-friendly Government will want to pursue. National is most wary of being scrutinised by current affairs media, and has constantly, during its terms in office, frozen funding for our one public broadcaster, Radio New Zealand (RNZ). Why would they add TV to that now? Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.
Clyde Scott, Auckland (abridged)
Ed’s note: We’re looking forward to stepping into the breach under Stuff’s new agreement to provide 6pm bulletins to Three.
Tauranga commissioners
No wonder Anne Tolley wants to keep on in this role … at $1800 a day ($225 an hour), who wouldn’t? And the other commissioners on $1500 a day! Crikey, how can one person be worth this sort of wage. My relatives and other contacts in Tauranga tell me there has not been much change in council since Tenby Powell was kicked out, Tolley is just a selfserving dictator who has no idea of the feeling in local area.
Good luck Tauranga – hope you get a decent mayor next time around. Our latest in Chch, Phil Mauger, is a good example to follow. He gets things done without putting up with too much garbage from council paper pushers trying to justify their existence.
Peter Swain, Christchurch
Workers slashed
I feel like a steamroller is crushing NZ as the coalition government are like the Jabberwocky, slashing indiscriminately at government workers. So far 3000 are unemployed, many of them without redundancy as they have been contracted for short term specific goals.
The Coalition say it is to take workers back to 2022 numbers but when you find out who is to get the chop it is people such as those working on NCEA changes, that the new government were demanding when in opposition.
An email has been sent to every person involved in the NCEA Change programme: over 300 staff. The programme is supposed to be the biggest reform to NCEA since its inception. So all that expensive work and hours of consultation already done on NCEA reform with schools is worthless. Is this the way to make savings for tax cuts? Waste previous work done by taking us back and stop midpoint fixing admitted failings and mistakes. Ideology ahead of good government with voters struck dumb by the wastage of money by the Coaltition. Frankie Letford, Hamilton
Two-state solution impossible
I see (Times April 9th) that our foreign minister has joined the international chorus calling for a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians.
A two-state solution is an impossible dream - one cannot force two peoples into an agreement that neither side wants. Palestinians have repeatedly declined offers of a two-state solution, and Israelis are a lot less enthusiastic since October 7th – seeing that invasion as a small sample of what an independent Palestinian state would mean to them. Palestinians said no to the original United Nations two-state proposal in 1947, and have said no five times since – twice with Jerusalem as their capital. Palestinians continue to hold out for a one-state solution - they see all of Israel as ‘occupied territory’ and all Israeli towns and cities as ‘illegal settlements’.
The US’S idea of the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority being ‘more moderate’ and a suitable future leader for all Palestinians is seriously flawed. The PA have been enthusiastic supporters of Hamas – particularly in Arabic - and the only reason they did not join the October 7th invasion is the level of Israeli control there.
That control is now demonstrably essential for relative peace in the region.
Fred Barrett, Cambridge
Defence dilemmas
Reuben Steff (NZ poorly placed …) makes sensible commentary on New Zealand’s approach to foreign affairs, in contrast to Don Brash’s hesitant warnings about AUKUS. That Brash teamed up with Helen Clark to write the op-ed “We must not abandon our independent foreign policy” shows that he has surrendered his thoughts to the very person who sabotaged our independence by disestablishing the RNZAF Strike Wing. As a maritime nation, the RNZAF and RNZ Navy are our front-line defence services.
The first principle of war is selection and maintenance of the aim. Clark did not establish what our defence aim was. Clark’s favouritism to the army was massaged by politicking from the army “A team” which was running interference behind the defence chief’s back.
Having dumped our most potent line of defence, Clark sanctioned the purchase of very expensive operationally unproven NH90 helicopters. The result was years of modifications and delays before they became operational. There were other cheaper and more effective machines available. They are still not considered suitable for Pacific Island operations. The NZ light armoured vehicles were another Clark debacle, and they are now being sold off.
There is anecdotal evidence that Clark had promised to get rid of these (Skyhawk) “baby-killers” if she got into power. Presumably, the army’s guns are not “murderers?”
Beware of regurgitated ideologies. Winston Peters is doing a statesmanlike job as foreign minister, despite some of his peccadillos in local politics.
Hugh Webb, Hamilton
Trump threats
Donald Trump has promised to "weaponise" government institutions, if elected, and to get "revenge" against others who have opposed him. Those on that hate list include senior armed forces leaders, senior politicians and federal court officials. Trump has praised Russian and Chinese leaders and their leadership systems. He has stated expressly that he considers democracy to be a defunct system that will in future deliver only defeat for his right wing believers. The stage is set for civil war. I believe that current American world leadership is about to morph into a triumvirate of three nations each with a despotic ruler.
The people of the United States look likely to elect Trump as president in November, and appear quite happy to lose their grip on their great experiment, and only remaining claim to virtue, to one Donald J. Trump. R.G. Thurston, Huntly