Being haunted by the ghosts of past follies
Why does it come as no surprise to the business community in this city that our economy is in decline? It astounds me the key architects of our slow but inevitable decline into economic, political, and social obscurity have finally woken up to the fact their follies are now haunting us.
The Dunedin City Council now dominates the local economy and it has neither the skills nor the foresight to lead Dunedin out of the localised depression we find ourselves in. The very councillors who now bemoan our economic status must shoulder at great part of the blame and the electorate must address this with tenacity and objectivity at the next election.
This council and preceding councils have spectacularly failed to champion, or support, a thriving and vibrant economy but rather wasted millions of dollars on projects that do not to contribute to a sustainable future. In reality, successive councils have slowly bled us dry with cumbersome, overstaffed, and inefficient delivery of anything useful and indulged in fantasy projects that are a mere veneer to an underlying crumbling economic and infrastructure failure.
We need to grasp back the initiative from a local government that is in denial about its usefulness and its proper place in our community. And we are tired of internal dysfunction and poor behaviour that is also costing us millions.
Physics of sound
What a lovely story about the Cook siblings and the family penchant for studying physics.
You may not be aware that their mum is an audiologist — this is a health profession underpinned by physics. Indeed it's a multi-disciplinary career that NZ students with an interest in health science, psychology, engineering, or physics should check out. As such, I suspect mum can hold her own in many of the family discussions!
Living wage
ODT page 3, government plans to axe the living wage payment requirement for agencies tendering for government contracts.
Move on to ODT page 6, Bill passes making wage theft a crime.
National and Act opposed it.
Maybe we should ask National and Act members to apply to the taxpayer agency that voters could set up, for their existing position, and get their salaries to be set below the living wage.
Silly me
I attended Grant Robertson’s lecture on the future of the arts within the academy and noted his reference to the Future of Work project that Labour championed before winning the 2017 election. I followed that project closely, watched all the video streams, read all the papers, and genuinely looked forward to a Labour government implementing the recommendations as soon as it has the opportunity.
Silly me. Just like all the other reviews and inquiries into the welfare system, mental health and many other topics that Labour poured public money into, it completely failed to remedy the shortcomings the experts identified.
I believe this is because Labour’s hierarchy lacks the stomach and the political will to confront neoliberalism, even as it morphs into something even more ugly.
For that reason I do not expect to see any change from the current culture of managerial mediocrity and commercial commodification at the university, regardless of which political brand holds office.
Dunedin should follow Edinburgh’s paw prints
May I support John Robertson and Pepper (ODT 20.3.25) and their request for the Otago Regional Council to allow approved dogs on buses at off-peak times.
Like John, I drive to a variety of sites to walk my dog as I am 74, live on a hill and my dog, Rosie, and I struggle with the walk uphill to home. In today’s environment where reduction in the use of cars is recommended it seems sensible to revisit using public transport. At the moment I cannot do that without a carrier for my dog, which is totally impractical. Like John, I will eventually be unable to drive and my inability to walk with Rosie will affect my health.
I have noted when overseas that there are many cities that allow unrestricted access for dogs on public transport.
Indeed, a good example is Edinburgh, where dogs can be taken on all forms of public transport. As the "Edinburgh of the South" it would be significant to lead the process of bringing the current position up to modern day standards.
In order to enable suitable controls and security it must be possible to set appropriate regulations as other cities around the world can do it.
From a personal point of view, I would be happy to have my dog licensed to travel following an approval process, and to pay an annual charge. I believe that the majority of dog owners are responsible about the handling of their dogs in public and would be compliant about travel in public transport.
Rules for those who fail to comply could have appropriate penalties – really no different to people who misbehave on buses.
The ‘ODT’ and the athletes run lap of honour
Congratulations to all concerned for the outstanding coverage of the Jennian Homes New Zealand Track and Field Championships in Dunedin. The team at ODT provided both quantity and quality my counterparts in the northern regions can only dream about.
The photos printed in the ODT were first class and were backed up by outstanding articles from Kayla Hodge. The army of people who organised and ran the event will be grateful.
The woke mind virus
Re the opinion piece by Anaru Eketone (17.3.25) in which he bemoans the unfair treatment handed out to people who follow the precepts of being “woke”.
He finds the term woke offensive as in his mind people considered woke are paragons of virtue, intellectually and morally superior and the type of people who should be trusted by the masses to take Western culture into a new age of enlightenment. Conservative thinking people like myself see wokeness as a disease which will eventually destroy Western civilisation and deliver us into the clutches of those wishing to destroy us.
Woke is predicated on certain values, one being pick a group who they consider to be oppressed, support that group no matter what irrefutable evidence there is to the contrary.
Another value is to be kind to those they deem to be deserving of this treatment and woe betide anyone who does not go along with this philosophy, as they are cancelled.
The woke are heavily into social engineering, whereby instead of letting social change occur organically and at a pace society can sustain, they go all out nuclear and trample over the feelings and aspirations of a society that has taken centuries to evolve. The woke force the issue which in most cases is detrimental to the oppressed and alleged oppressor alike.
[Abridged — length. Editor]
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