The three-headed dog is a mutt barking badly
Cerberus was a three-headed monstrous dog that guarded the entrance to Hades in Greek myth. It seems to me an appropriate name for this three-headed monster of a government — a slathering, tunnel-visioned beast set on an endlessly futile task of getting New Zealand "back on track".
Futile, because by New Zealand, they don't mean all of us — just the people who look and think like them. Excluded are sick people, Maori and Pasifika, poor people, disabled people, environmentalists, academics and scientists. So most of us then.
Futile because these truly Trumpian troglodytes think they can achieve this mission by the seats of their shiny pants, on whims untroubled by evidence, which they ignore at every turn.
Futile because the world in which they operate has moved on. New Zealand will become a kind of Hades — certainly a pariah amongst other successful democracies.
We will have ever-more polluted waterways, due to actions such as last Tuesday when the Environment Minister sided with polluters over local democracy. We will have more coal and gold mines, hugely destructive to our environment. Minister Jones would like us to have a renewed natural gas industry, an industry found by researchers to be dirtier than coal. And a more divided, unequal, sick and unhappy people due to their social and health policies, dictated by a combination of ignorance and lobbyists.
I love dogs but if my mutt behaved this destructively I would have to put him down.
Deborah Robb
Clyde
Sad sight
It is reassuring that a socially responsible use has been found for the council investment in Sammy’s. City ratepayers will be delighted to know part of Sammy's is a place for the homeless under its veranda. Easy chair, bedding beside other comforts. But where is the toilet-washroom?
Jim Moffat
Caversham
Rewilding
Maureen Howard and Bruce Munro's article in The Weekend Mix(ODT 20.10.24) regarding the rewilding of an Otago property made great reading.
Basically, "let nature do its thing’’ and encourage kanuka growth to allow natural regeneration.
Perhaps the next time the wilding pine mob have their hand out for a few more million, they might be directed to that article.
Jerry Lynch
Mosgiel
Happiness in slavery
The sticking point in Greg Edward's similarities between governing and managing a nation (ODT 21.10.24) comes with his avowal that both roles need to ensure the welfare of citizens and employees. In its running of New Zealand the National-led coalition has forgotten to look after its citizenry by keeping election promises in order to become productive.
Instead Aotearoa's citizenry of productive age is leaving in the thousands (80,000 within the last year) for countries such as Australia where employees/citizens are viewed as assets rather than liabilities.
The days of delivering abusive whip cracking and lowering work conditions and job security to achieve higher productivity should have disappeared along with abolition of slavery.
Marian Poole
Deborah Bay
Democracy had spoken at a much higher level
Should elected bodies be representative of the people who elected them? And how should that be measured or evaluated?
The question arose when contemplating the composition of the Green Party in Parliament after their somewhat cynical use of a piece of legislation that they opposed at every opportunity to dump one of their own rogue MPs, Darleen Tana. The replacement for Tana from the Greens’ list, Benjamin Doyle, seems to be admirably suited to fit into the current Green caucus: they strongly align with some sectors of society which could be viewed as minority.
Now these areas of society certainly need representation in Parliament, but taken as a whole, the Green Party seems to have a selection policy where any form of mainstream connections is viewed as less desirable than the fringes.
It raises a wider issue locally when bodies such as the Otago Regional Council, despite government indications to amend legislation, ploughed on with wasteful spending on work that some members were ideologically wedded to. Some of the members of the ORC accused central government of killing democracy while seemingly being completely oblivious to the fact that democracy had already spoken at a much higher level.
Furthermore, some local MPs accused some ORC members of being in cahoots with current government MPs. If anyone believes that the ideologists of the left were not in discussion with each other then they need not look any further than the linkages made by some members of the ORC to current government policies on matters that had nothing to do with ORC business.
Based on Dunedin’s political leanings, the current ructions within the ORC don’t seem to have much hope of being settled. That doesn’t bode well for anyone.
Russell Garbutt
Clyde
[Abridged — length. Editor.]
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
