Bouquets and brickbats for doctors and MPs
I am currently receiving treatment in the oncology department. Every staff member I have been in contact with has been utterly professional, helpful and overwhelmingly considerate. I offer bouquets and my heart-felt thanks to each and every one of them.
For the government to still be considering cuts to the new hospital and thereby placing more stress and pressure on the already stretched staff members mentioned above beggars belief. I therefore offer an enormous brickbat to each and every MP who is supporting these cuts.
Yours and mine
Populist political parties are beating the drums of freedom and equality. Both have great simplistic appeal and in a referendum I fear that "treating all New Zealanders equally" would get majority support.
The obvious problem with freedom is that your freedom might impinge on mine. Total individual freedom is a balance between individual freedom and society’s freedom from harmful acts. A society in which individual freedoms rule is total anarchy.
The problem with equality is not as obvious. A civilised society aims for equal outcomes rather than equal treatment.
We treat the very young and the very old differently as with abled and disabled, those that can look after themselves and those who need help.
The alternative is a dog eat dog world in which only the advantaged thrive.
Is that what we want for the future of New Zealand?
Fatal friendship
Words attributed to Henry Kissinger are apt in describing the advocacy of New Zealand defence officials to joining Aukus (ODT 6.9.24): "It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal".
The advice of these imperial war fans in Wellington all boils down to this. If we don’t join the Washington global schoolyard bully and their pathetic Canberra colony pet in fighting our biggest trading partner, they mightn’t like us any more.
Just imagine
How much cheaper would electricity be if we didn’t have 39 different retailers, all with their own boards, CEOs and marketing departments, selling an essential service?
Voller remembered
Thank you Elspeth McLean for your lively piece about Miss Lois Voller, education and the politics of disappointment (Opinion ODT 4.9.24).
Miss Voller taught history at Otago Girls’ High School, and never wore the same outfit twice. That was impressive enough, but so was her passionate denunciation of pit-ponies pulling coal carts down in the mines, little boys being sent up chimneys, and women toiling away at piece-work or fighting for the vote.
She inspired us with stories of the suffrage and trade union movements that changed everything. Like the other magnificent teachers at OGHS, she quite simply shaped our lives.
AB losses explained
I blame the new jerseys. Dress them like choirboys, they play like little kids.
A tale of two stories from the ODT’s front page
The front page of the Otago Daily Times (10.9.24) carried a report about proposed developments at the private Arrowtown golf club with plans to create a "world-class golf and lifestyle community" involving enormous expenditure from various sources.
A second item on the same page reports that, following the removal of the tents sheltering homeless people at the Oval and rehousing some of the occupants, Dunedin's homeless crisis continues and still awaits a solution.
What an effective way of confronting us with the "harsh reality" that we are a society of haves and have-nots.
Tweaks do not suffice
The minor revisions to the Fast-track Bill, such as giving more responsibility to the expert panel, do not address the potential for corruption. Nor do they fix the Bill's purpose, which is focused on economic gains above all else.
The government is holding a secret list of projects that has been kept from the environment select committee and the public. These pet projects will not be subjected to the normal checks and balances.
Instead, the companies that lobbied behind the scenes might get their way, even if they cannot legally go ahead with their projects today.
This risk of corruption and environmental damage will diminish our international reputation and jeopardise our trade agreements with the EU and UK.
Christopher Luxon needs to display leadership and say "this Bill cannot pass."
Then we will have confidence that the water conservation orders will remain, previous Environment Court rulings will stand, and the environmentally damaging activities currently prohibited by the RMA will not go ahead.
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
