Letters: Are political policy ideas exclusive?

Act Party leader David Seymour. Photo/File

With regard to Stuart Pedersen (Letters, March 5) I am somewhat surprised that this correspondent seems to believe that any idea thought up, regardless as to by who, then remains the exclusive policy of the person who may or may not have thought of it first.

ACT has long believed in different tax policies than say Social Credit, National, Labour and a multitude of other parties, but in reality, ACT will never be in the position to get such a policy over the line as it is unlikely that they will ever be the dominant party in Parliament.

Rather than criticising, people should embrace that others could well achieve the difference and bring them to a point of discussion and consideration.

Unlike Labour who seem to have sat on their hands during nine years in opposition and then when after forming a three-party coalition government have set up a multitude of working groups, costing in excess of $200 million, National is currently planning policy for the next election cycle, in 2020.

Roll on 2020.

Mike Baker
Bethlehem

Maori have big investments

One of the five budget priorities announced by the Prime Minister at a recent Business NZ breakfast was "Lift Maori and Pacific incomes and opportunities".

A few days ago it was reported Maori tribes had $9 billion invested, no doubt originally given to them by the Government to right past wrongs. I have no issue with this but are the earnings from this huge sum helping their tribes "lift their incomes and opportunities"? I hope so.

Angela Dold
Tauranga

Bus lane signs needed

Enough of this nonsense of a bus-lane-only at all times on the Hairini-Turret Rd slip road. Why can't it be "Buses Only 7–9am Weekdays" and outside those times revert to free access?

Simple signage to that effect is all is needed.

The current fiasco results in a backlog during the rest of the day (including weekends) on the interchange for those wishing to continue on SH29A or Maungatapu, plus those that are wanting to access the Turret Rd causeway but currently are needlessly forced to continue to the next exit - often taking two to three traffic signal cycles to do so.

All the while the Hairini slip road remains devoid of any traffic – including buses for the most part.

Oh, and while you're at it, please reinstate the speed limit on the causeway to what it was before – 70kph (or LSZ ) instead of the ridiculously redundant "50kph Temporary". (Abridged)

Ken Green
Hairini

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