The government claims that water reforms are required to improve water services and that the 10-entity model will achieve a lower cost to ratepayers than if responsibility was left to local councils alone.
Surely no ratepayer would object to better water at a lower cost? However one needs to be a water services expert to form an opinion on costs of alternatives and there is certainly a wide variance in the experts’ opinions, confusing many of us.
But what about the water itself? Jacinda Ardern and Nanaia Mahuta both refused last year to rule out an option in future for Maori to charge a royalty for water to the 4 (now 10) water services entities. There have been no further reassurances on this and we have no idea whether it is still a possibility and if so, what is the upper price limit (if any). Such a cost would no doubt be passed straight on to water-users.
Chris Hipkins has a lot to convince voters about, not just the cost of water collection, treatment and supply, but also the maximum potential costs of Labour’s concept of "ownership".
John Day
Wanaka
[Abridged]
Waimate says begone
More than 250 people came out last month against Project Kea on the biggest street march in Waimate since the Springbok tour in 1981.
After another small town assault by the incinerator salesmen of South Island Resource Recovery Ltd (SIRRL) and 18 months of PR guff about the incinerator's fabulous flues, scintillating scrubbers and sexy sludges, you can now hear the healthy hum of Waimate citizens' 7-phase b/s filters at work.
SIRRL's biggest hoax has been well delineated.
This community, like the besieged Westport and Hokitika before us, wants this incinerator gone.
Heather Campbell
Waimate
Police work praised
Over the last few years, I have been impressed by the steady stream of police operations across the country that have resulted in large drug busts.
These operations have involved international co-operation and have resulted in the arrest of many gang leaders as well as those selling drugs at a local level.
As reported in the ODT (25.4.23) the doubling of police assigned to combat organised crime in the Southern Police District has obviously contributed to these results.
Credit should go to the Police Commissioner Andrew Coster who has brought a well-focused and intelligent approach to modern policing using sophisticated tools of surveillance and appropriately skilled manpower.
I think it is about time that those National Party MPs and ex-leaders who made unacceptable personal attacks on the Police Commissioner as soft on crime now apologise to him.
John Kaiser
Dunedin
Maths and madness
The NZ draft maths syllabus has some extraordinary statements, amongst them: "Statistics, mātauranga Māori is a body of knowledge with a history and a future. When we afford mana ōrite to mātauranga mathematics and statistics and mātauranga Māori while retaining their distinctiveness, ākonga can draw from both in ways that are beneficial to both spheres of knowledge."
(Mana ōrite, according to Google Translate, means "equal power" and ākonga means learners, students, or pupils).
Who writes, or pays someone, to write this nonsense? Either they are mad, or they think we are . . . and, as has been said often enough: "Those, whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad"
Mike Corkery
Wanaka
Rev John Whiteley
An engaging, excellent piece of history telling
Thanks very much Anaru Eketone and the Weekend Mix for your article "A Contested Death" (ODT, 22.4.23), about family history and events to do with the death of the Methodist missionary John Whiteley.
Exceptionally interesting for myself as a descendant of early settlers in Taranaki, and quite marvellous to read such an account in the ODT far to the south of my tūrangawaewae.
Taranaki Smith
Palmerston
Anaru Eketone's excellent account of the Te Wētere/John Whiteley affair reveals what threatens to be missing from the new history curriculum: an even-handed examination of all the threads and nuances embodied in our history.
We need to understand and come to terms with events such as those described, as we go on together.
Leaving out the entire history of New Zealand from the 13th century to 1840 from the curriculum can only damage the chances of reaching that goal.
Philip Temple
Dunedin
Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. — John 15:13
