Your views

Well done

Well done, young man from St John’s Hill School for your concern about the bird aviary at Virginia Lake, Wanganui.

Good on you for getting your schoolmates and teachers to do something about the birds at Virginia Lake aviary. Hopefully you can shock the mayor and councillors by going to all the trouble of getting a petition set up and going to the trouble of getting people to sign your petition.

Well done, young Jack, class, teachers. I’m on your side wholeheartedly. AUDREY THOMSON

Marton

April fools

Temperatures

I was starting to think that my letters had struck a chord and someone had done something about our temperatures, or rather the reporting of them. However, this proved to be only a temporary phase and we are now back to where we were. TV One figures are again out of whack and the tells us that we are colder than Waiouru!

I simply cannot believe that Len Goldsack and I are the only people in Wanganui who care. It appears that, as usual, apathy is rife. Even people who have told me they agree with my thoughts have failed to follow up with any positive action.

They say we get what we deserve, so I guess that’s it, but surely the district council, hospitality industry, tourism promoters, have powers to do something.

I’ve lived in Wanganui all my life, nearly 79 years, and I love Wanganui, but I don’t love the image portrayed to the rest of New Zealand weather-wise.

We’ve got the third or fourthbest climate in the world, but the MetService won’t let anybody know. I was told by a staff member in Palmerston North Hospital that she wouldn’t want to live in Wanganui ‘‘because it’s always cold’’, and I couldn’t persuade her otherwise. I tried and gave up.

Will someone who can, please do something? MURRAY WEIR

Wanganui Like Ross Mitchell Anyon, I was disappointed that the didn’t dream up some dastardly clever hoax to celebrate April Fools’ Day. Then I discover that, in fact, you did run a hoax story — well, a sort of hoax story. As you stated, Mr Editor, perhaps just a little too subtle, and most people would not be very interested in what those Europeans do anyway, as they are mostly crazy!

I remember with delight many of the hoaxes played on your readers in years gone by, but this one I won’t remember — didn’t even recognise it as a hoax.

So, maybe it was you who was the fool, eh? — hoist by your own petard, as it were.

You could have done a real doozy using the art gallery; the sale of Moutoa Gardens, even the dreaded ‘‘H’’.

Better luck next time — no, not luck, just a bit of thinking. C HILES-SMITH

Wanganui

Fooled me

By golly, you’re right. You did indeed have an April Fool’s spoof in the said day’s edition.

Trouble is I don’t read anything other than local stories in the

All the syndicated bumpf, recipes, lifestyle and opinions from afar I disregard. The death notices attract my attention and, for my sins, the under-twohundy for sale column.

Next year, dear editor, give us a local spoof on page one. Curmudgeonly yours, ROSS MITCHELL-ANYON

Gonville

Tax handouts

Mr Pittams asks ( April 8), ‘‘What on earth is Elwyn Evans talking about in his letter of April 1? What are the ‘‘tax handouts to t he r i c h’ ’ he mentions?’’

These are the massive tax cuts that successive right-wing governments have given the wealthy. Before ‘‘Rogernomics’’, the top marginal tax rate was 66 per cent. With the latest tax cuts this has been reduced to 33 per cent, ie halved.

Also, as I pointed out in my last letter, and several previously, the wealthy in New Zealand pay the lowest tax of any comparable country in the OECD, while ordinary folk are amongst the highest-taxed.

The shortfall in tax take that the handouts to the rich created had to be met by increasing taxes on another part of society. This has been the hard-working and thrifty.

I do not begrudge t he moneyed their wealth (indeed, some of my best friends are rich) but they should pay their fair share of tax.

Mr Pittams does not seem to realise it is this Government that is the ‘‘borrow and hope’’ one, not previous Labour administrations.

As I have pointed out before, Sir Michael Cullen ran continual Budget surpluses. National have had to borrow to pay for their latest round of tax handouts for the rich, which are only partly funded by the tax increases on the hard-working and thrifty. This is why Messrs English and Key run continual Budget deficits. It appears it is Mr Pittams himself who is one of the unthinking, as he wants a ‘‘borrow and hope’’ Government to continue.

The is often graced by letters from Mr Pittams about Christianity, but he seems to have forgotten its founder came for the poor and oppressed, not for the rich. Indeed, unlike Mr Pi t t ams, He was r at her disparaging about the wealthy. ELWYN EVANS

Gonville I have to respond to your article in the regarding the lady who is paying off her vet’s bill at $5 per fortnight.

I think, as I am guessing most people in Wanganui will think, that if this lady cannot afford a vet’s bill of $300 then she cannot afford to have four cats and a dog.

It is common sense, really, and these days common sense is not that common.

I think the vet has every right to expect to be paid in a timely fashion, and if the pet owner was shocked at the way she was treated then I suggest she needs a huge reality check.

It’s about time that people who cannot afford to have pets make a decision to have them. Simple, really, SANDRA WATERS

Springvale

Dropping the H

I need a good expletive. One that will accurately describe my reaction to Mr Pittams’ letter April 7 titled ‘‘Pronunciation’’. An expletive the can publish without offending readers.

‘‘My God?’’ No, I don’t have a God in the Christian sense of the word.

‘‘Bloody hell, Tom, what’s your problem?’’ may be acceptable. I don’t believe in Hell or Satan either, but Mr Pittams obviously does, so that will have to do.

So here we go again on that pesky H. The Wh sound in te reo Maori is a consonant in its own right and can never be written or pronounced in any other way. And there is no H sound in its true pronunciation. So how can the H be dropped?

When speaking the Aotea dialect, yes, the H is sometimes dropped, but only from those words which begin with H. And it pains me to hear my mokopuna, who attend a kura kaupapa Maori dropping the H from words like whare, whaea and whenua. All of those of my generation who I have consulted on this trend agree it is wrong. And that people like Mr Pittams are responsible.

So I must say to them all: leave our language and culture to us. The Maori renaissance is now an irresistible force.

And there are no immovable objects to its continuation. POTONGA NEILSON

Castlecliff

Phone survey

Patrick O’Connor, public health officer, stated in your column two weeks ago that he would contact those people whose contact details I have passed on to him as people who felt they had symptoms related to sewer gases — ongoing productive cough, hay fever symptoms which caused respiratory problems, watery eyes, asthma among some of the symptoms.

I have been contacted by people who have been rung and have completed an over-thephone survey now with the public health officer. This is a good start.

Public health should be working with media to promote this survey to all of the people of Wanganui and those families who moved away, as they felt their children or themselves were bei ng made sick by combined toxic sewer gases.

It is time there was some transparency around what gases were in the air, so people can get proper medical advice. Our sewer gases included gases from heavy metal toxic waste. Not all sewer systems have to cope with these, but ours does.

Some gases may have longterm effects — how would we know if we are not told about all the gases we were exposed to over seven years?

This survey should be available to everyone who wants to complete it. ROBYN O’DONNELL

Castlecliff — Abridged