The answers, and what I really wanted to say
What is a poll for? I ask because of your headline of 2.4.25: "Lunch parents’ duty: poll majority".
I am sceptical, because of a call I had this week from a Curia pollster. My conclusion at the end of that call was that the intention was less to learn my opinion, and more to shape responses that accorded with a particular point of view.
For example: what current issue was I most concerned about? The climate emergency, was my answer but I wasn’t permitted that, because, astonishingly, it wasn’t on her list of possible concerns.
I was asked: who’s responsible for school lunches, parents or the government? It’s a manipulative question. Without context, the obvious answer would be: parents. The answer I gave was: the government. My actual answer should have been that the government is responsible for ensuring that no child’s ability to access education is diminished because of poverty.
That might involve lunch. A decent lunch.
Who is the muppet?
In reply to Anonymous (Letters ODT 3.4.25) I'm certain Dr Hamlin does not need or want you to feel sorry for him for what you say is his apparent inability to sit quietly for 30 seconds of karakia at the start of a meeting.
You will know the 30 seconds is not the problem so be straight up. The problem will be the principle of it, if you can understand that, and not wanting to go along with completely unnecessary nonsense to appease Māori and their sympathisers.
Māori are only one of about 160 ethnicities in our country. Why not have a religious occasion for all of them before meetings?
And you insolently refer to Dr Hamlin as a muppet. When you wrote that were you looking in a mirror?
Should not be elected
I would like to reply to the letter from Dunedin City mayoral prospect Andrew Simms (31.3.25) in which he tries to legitimise the dropping of Robert Hamlin from his party’s election ticket.
In my view Robert Hamlin shows values and integrity sadly lacking in most members of the current council and the Future Dunedin party.
Robert Hamlin is an intelligent man who knew his views would enrage the woke mob. He voiced what most agree with but are too scared to say in public.
Mr Simms writes that he is tired of non-core issues like this being turned into a sideshow and costing ratepayers millions in lost productivity.
Does he think that staff productivity is not affected by having to sit through a karakia during work time?.
As for his opinion that the university staff were being distracted and hurt by what Robert Hamlin wrote, this view alone encapsulates why this man, and his party should not be elected at the next election.
Paris is dead
If you believe that CO₂ drives climate change and that the world must decarbonise, then either all countries are on board or you forget it. Any action by New Zealand on its own is futile and self-destructive. At present; the BRICS block is not involved in any action to decrease global CO₂. The USA has pulled out, Argentina and Indonesia are set to follow and both Europe and UK are now reversing their net zero policies. Canada is also about to pull the plug under its new leadership. In addition, no country is actually meeting its commitments.
In short; the Paris Agreement is dead.
[Abridged — Editor.]
We are not cooking lamb with butter these days
Why is a leg of lamb so expensive? I grew up in England in the ’50s and ’60s and we had a roast leg of lamb every Sunday.
Think of that: a leg of lamb every week. To do that today, here, would cost about $3000 a year. The lamb was stencilled with the words "New Zealand lamb". It was cheaper than English lamb and no-one worried about food miles back then. We weren't a well-off family.
Travel around rural New Zealand and there are dairy cows everywhere. Why is butter so expensive? More expensive than cheese.
When I was growing up there was lots of talk of a "butter mountain". Well I guess all that butter got eaten back then because now the supermarket cabinets are sometimes empty of the cheaper stuff, leaving the $20-a-kilo butter as the only choice.
My generation also had heavily subsidised school dinners served hot at the table. This was despite Britain being bankrupt after the war and not paying off its war debt till the next century.
How did they do it?
I'm not saying life was better then. Just different. Maybe David Seymour should investigate how Britain did it in the ’50s and ’60s.
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