There are consultants and more consultants
National berated Labour many times over the use and cost of consultants. I can hardly believe my eyes at their hypocrisy.
The ODT reported (9.11.24) that five firms have been hired to review retrofitting the old Dunedin hospital — work that’s been done already. On the same day it also reported that a review into classroom new builds cost $112,000. Murray McCully (a previous National MP) was a beneficiary of the payment.
Another report in the same issue mentioned a Whangarei electrical firm may be contracted to do electrical work on the hospital build. The consequences of that will be loss of business for local firms and lost income and jobs for the local economy.
Economic mismanagement and wasteful spending to say the least. The government demonstrates again its disdain for the South Island.
Ann James
Abbotsford
The decision to get five firms to review the retrofit for the hospital is about as stupid as it gets.
Reviews have already been done, which was the basic reason for the new build. To employ consultants to do this work again will cost a massive amount, not to mention the delays that also increase the cost.
For heaven’s sake stop stuffing about, just get on and finish the half-done build so that it will be fit for purpose. We need it now.
J Park
Wakari
Kicking goals
Our prime minister’s latest promise is for a ‘‘kick-arse’’ hospital (ODT 1.11.24). Apparently that word means exceptionally good. The 2021 plan would have made that cut; but that plan now lies in ruins, or at least in abeyance. The cut-down lesser options since proposed would certainly not qualify as ‘‘exceptionally good’’.
Whatever credibility the prime minister may once have had on this subject, bearing in mind his explicit and unambiguous pre-election promise to the people of Dunedin, is surely now at risk. Here’s hoping the gathering movement across the southern south, and Cliff the Ambulance’s trip up north, will persuade him of his error; and that the 2021 plan will be, in full, reinstated.
Otherwise, this will be his enduring legacy: to be known as the Shonky Salesman who Shafted the South.
Dr Mac Gardner
Dunedin
The MMT
In response to Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop’s statement that there is no magic money tree (MMT) to pay for the new Dunedin hospital, Positive Money NZ (PMNZ) approached Dunedin’s Mayor, Jules Radich, and told him that our Reserve Bank provided private banks and financial institutions with $55billion in 2021 and 2022 and there was no suggestion of a lack of money back then.
PMNZ informed Mr Radich that rather than provide stimulus to the banks, Reserve Bank money should fund public works such as the Dunedin hospital as well as fixing up our failing infrastructure: roads, schools, bridges, water, etc.
Mr Radich responded saying their current focus was on ensuring the government builds the new southern region tertiary hospital as promised.
Modern monetary theory is a debt-based monetary system that creates all new currency as debt. PMNZ campaigns to reform money and banking seeking government fiscal/public deficits to be created debt-free and spent into the economy at zero interest for positive outcomes establishing the magic money tree.
To start the magic, New Zealand’s people need to be awakened to the positive outcomes that can be generated by funding deficits debt-free while holding government accountable to the social contract.
Steve Laurence
New Plymouth
NZ’s long, honourable history of offering asylum
In 2004, two Kiwis on an Eastern European tour with a busload of Americans and Australians received warm special treatment at the Polish border. We have never been prouder of our country as we explained why. In 1944, New Zealand accepted over 700 Polish orphans and their caregivers. Later, New Zealand authorities had refused to repatriate these orphans unless there was reliable proof that there were parents living in Poland, a country by then under Communist control. Sixty years later, the New Zealand action was still recognised and appreciated by young border officers, well aware of the sanctuary offer.
Now 80 years since, are the majority of New Zealanders as compassionate towards refugees coming here to find shelter from missile attacks and the brutality of war ? Do we make as much effort to understand as they try so hard to learn English?
We would like to think that most people understand and sympathise as they did in 1944.
Peter and Lynne Hill
Mosgiel
Why are we waiting?
Dunedin's airport is a credit to the city. It is modern, spacious and uncluttered. But it has one major drawback — connection with the city. It is the only one of the four main centres that does not have a public transport link between city and airport. Even Auckland now does — every 20 minutes a bus arrives at the domestic terminal to take passengers from the airport to the Puhinui railway station and then by train to Britomart. Surely the ORC could run a bus on the hour every hour during the day? Why must travellers have to rely on shuttles and taxis?
Warren Jowett
St Clair
