It is your job; you have to talk to the public
Here we go again, yet another Minister of the Crown "unable to reply". This time it’s Erica Stanford, the minister who carries the immigration portfolio unable to answer repeated questions.
We also have the Minister of Health Shane Reti, another member of the Crown doing the same whenever the ODT or other members of the public wanting answers to legitimate questions. What gives Ms Stanford and Dr Reti the idea that you can just ignore questions from the public arena and hope they will go away? Other ministers of the Crown portfolios are no better.
Can we remind Cabinet ministers you have been given a job that your leaders have tasked you to do and with that goes responsibility as a minister to talk to the public?
You were elected by the voting public to do and keep us informed and if you find that too difficult, just hand your responsibilities over to others happy to engage with the public.
Simplicity itself
The Treaty is actually quite simple when you sweep away the Act New Zealand posturing, the reductionism and the racism.
There are three concepts in Te Tiriti, ie the agreed-upon Treaty, and not the fraudulent English version, which was not agreed upon.
First there is tino rangatiratanga, which is Māori sovereignty and control of their own taonga, their lands, waterways and lives.
Second, kāwanatanga or the governorship of the Crown.
Third, partnership, or how these two principles will work practicably, going forward.
In an intelligent, humane, modern society this can and has been worked out well.
Examples are Waitangi Tribunal decisions, the return of stolen land and the payment of compensation for the crimes of land alienation.
This way we protect Aotearoa and its people and we promote peace. The way of ignorance, hate and racism, as we are seeing today, will produce nothing of value.
Climate of shame
The baby boomer generation, which I am ashamed to be part of, will go down in history as being selfish greedy and stupid.
The future will be very unkind to this generation in the damaging legacy to Earth’s biosphere, which has been stable for 12,000 years.
What a legacy we are leaving for our children, grandchildren and beyond. A hot, out-of-control, dangerous planet for all life.
We have had the tools to avert this crisis for years; the only thing lacking has been the will.
The rich and powerful, leaders, politicians and all need to wake up now as there is now no more business as usual. The window of opportunity to limit the damage to the very nature that supports us all is closing fast.
Climate scientists have been shouting from the rooftops for 20 years of what is happening, to mostly no avail. I am very fearful for the future.
Next time
Many swing voters I know who switched to National from Labour have Kiwibank accounts. I wonder, if Kiwibank is privatised and sold off to foreign buyers, just how many of those voters will still back National? It will make a very interesting next election.
Child welfare paramount in care discussions
Anaru Eketone (Opinion ODT 19.8.24) might understand the world better if he viewed it through both eyes rather than with his non-Māori eye permanently closed.
He states that "every single member of my marae is descended from one of two of my great-great-grandfathers". The reality that every single member of Mr Eketone’s marae also has great-great-grandparents who are not Māori is completely ignored. He assumes that, merely because someone can trace his/her ancestry back to a shared great-great-grandfather, that person will automatically identify as Māori and with the same hapū and iwi, rather than focus on and develop that side of his/her ethnicity that may be Irish, Scottish, English, French, Samoan or whatever.
A child of part-Māori descent who needed to be removed by Oranga Tamariki from an unsafe household might be provided a safe and loving home that represented the non-Māori side of their ancestry; such a home might even be within the child’s non-Māori extended family. The priority in such circumstances should surely be the child’s welfare, and the intention of the legislative change is that that priority be considered with both eyes open.
Anaru Eketone is spot on expecting that before any child is removed from their family into any kind of state care, their relatives are involved. I take my hat off to the foster care that he and his wife have provided over the years. Yet what Anaru seems unable to understand is that application of the Treaty in section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act is totally unnecessary for us to insist that in the interests of any children belonging to families deemed dysfunctional, the Ministry for Children is in the first instance always accountable to the children’s relatives. Untold shame that it apparently isn’t.
Benefits of the physio pool cost-effective
As someone who researches the health benefits of exercise and water immersion, I want to add my support for the reinstatement of the Physio Pool.
Regular physical activity enhances both quality of life and lifespan. It helps prevent or delay many changes in physical and mental health that occur with ageing. Unfortunately, as a society we have underinvested in physical activity for health; the Dunedin Study reveals that in one generation, our fitness has decreased by 20-30%.
One deleterious effect of this fitness decrease is a health system overburdened by medical conditions somewhat preventable by regular physical activity.
Warm-water immersion enables those who struggle to perform traditional physical activity, to achieve some of these health benefits. Bathing in warm water for as little as 20 minutes benefits heart health.
For those with most severe arthritis, bathing is the only time of the day where they are pain free. Not to mention the additional physical, psychological and social benefits that come with being physically active in warm water, that the Physio Pool offered its users.
The Physio Pool is a significantly cheaper and societally more productive investment than the status quo. To neglect the re-establishment of the Physio Pool is to turn our backs on a cost-effective public health initiative that will have societal and generational consequences.
Support needed
Just knowing that emergency services may not be available makes one feel amazingly vulnerable. These workers need every support.
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
