Today's Letters to the Editor from readers cover topics including the IRD, US election and the new hospital.
A strange message and even stranger content
This morning I received an email from Inland Revenue. Rather than send me a letter via email or snail mail, they wanted me to log on to ‘‘my IR’’ to read a letter.
If that process isn’t strange enough, the content of the letter was almost beyond belief. IRD admit to having supplied Meta (Facebook) with unencrypted information including my first and last names, phone number, email address, date of birth and most of my physical address.
If the above is not sufficiently surreal, the reason for this breach of data, and trust, is given as ‘‘an effort to contact people who might have tax owing.’’
I don’t have a Facebook account. I am contactable, however, via phone, email and post. The very information which IR supplied to Meta.
Furthermore, last year IR owed me a small amount of money.
The commissioner of Inland Revenue is defending this method of contracting taxpayers. A total inability to grasp the wider reality of a given situation seems to have become a prerequisite for employment in the so called public service.
Julian Price
Creedmoor
Just get it built
I consider it blatant skulduggery by these anonymous naysayers who should know better in making massive decisions to try to demote our Dunedin hospital, which services the largest areas of southern New Zealand.
The hospital and the Medical and Dental Schools are world class in teaching, caring and sharing. These professionals in all the various departments have researched and evaluated what is best for the new hospital build and rightly so — it is their field of expertise.
I consider that the physical, mental and social wellbeing of all the staff have been totally ignored. Of late, I have been visiting the hospital and have been simply shocked at the clutter and bedlam of the corridors to the wards, which are akin to rabbit holes. The nursing and other staff — it is no easy task for them.
Just get on and build it please.
Diane Bennett
South Otago
Eventual destruction
The American election has come and gone, with the same result as in the New Zealand election a year ago. The left has had the door slammed in their face by the silent majority whose voices are very rarely heard, except on election day.
The academic elite, the mainstream media, the managerial class, the rich listers, the critical race theorists, the transgender activists, the Hollywood A-listers, etc., have discovered that what they are selling is not being bought by the silent majority.
It is clear to me that the silent majority want to get back to the more traditional values that have served us well over many years. These are: one man one vote, no men in women’s spaces, every citizen is equal, free speech even if it offends, facts trump feelings, and people are judged by what they do, not what group they belong to, just to name a few.
In my opinion, the next dominoes to fall will be Canada and Australia who, like us, have suffered under the ideological boot heel of the left.
It is amazing how politicians from both ends of the spectrum are unable to read the room as regards to the feelings of the silent majority and who blindly continue on their path to eventual destruction.
Dave Tackney
Fairfield
Centenary
Leith Croquet Club celebrates its centenary November 16-17. Former members are invited to contact glennjoan.m@gmail.com for details.
Changing times and changing territories
Mark Wallace (Letters ODT 30.10.24) has an interesting idea of shifting Gaza to the West Bank.
In 1947 the UN proposed a two-state solution. The Palestinians would have territories that included the West Bank, Gaza and part of northern Galilee. Jerusalem would be under international control. The UN vote was 32 to 12 in favour. The Jews agreed but the Arabs opposed the plan. Subsequently, Israel declared statehood in 1948 and the war saw Jordan take possession of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In 1967 Israel retook them.
Alan Paterson
North East Valley
What is and is not
Re Malcolm Moncrief-Spittle (Letters ODT 8.10.24) on what is and what is not antisemitism and Anti-Zionism. ‘‘Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.’’ The Holocaust Remembrance concurs and states ‘‘criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic’’. They know what antisemitism is.
President Benjamin Netanyahu calls accusers of Israel’s war crimes antisemitic. A clear abuse of the term, for political ends.
Also, anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. Zionism began in 1897 aimed at forming an extended Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates rivers; ‘‘Greater Israel’’.
Current Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently commented ‘‘Jerusalem would eventually extend to Damascus in Syria, in line with the ‘Greater Israel’ ideology based on religious interpretations of a promised land.’’ Netanyahu is currently undertaking an expansionist project, disregarding borders and relying on a weak international stance. Wanton disregard for those who are not part of this selfish plan has seen the death of far too many.
Peter Fleury
St Kilda
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
