Letters to the editor: Our bus service is great ... so let's use it

Tauranga has a good bus service, writes a reader. Photo / File

Cars have indeed been a great invention, but there have been negative consequences as a result of our love of the car.

Worldwide, people have never paid the full price for the freedom they love in the use of the car, but they now realise the cost has been deferred, for 100 years, for future generations to deal with.

One of the consequences is the proliferation of low-density, low-height cities spreading out over the landscape, further and further because of the car, and a case in point is Tauranga.

It is difficult to back-engineer a bus service into a city designed ad hoc around the private motor car, but here in Tauranga we have a very good bus service that goes regularly to most areas.

More people just need to use it and not complain about buses on the road while sitting in traffic jams in their cars.

Tom Seddon
Brookfield

Farmers at it again

It is almost 20 years since the farming sector promoted the effective, but in my opinion misleading, sound bite of a "fart tax" to thwart government measures to manage methane emissions and start countering the threat of climate change.

Now farmers are at it again, protesting water quality measures proposed by the Government.

Just what measures are unreasonable, is not specified. One proposal is to limit the application of artificial nitrogen fertiliser to 190kg per hectare - and that is on top of concentrated urine discharges.

The huge majority of farmers would never use that much fertiliser, trashing our land and water resources. These proposed limits target only the laggards of the farming industry or those who have over-intensified.

The longer we put off cleaning up our water the more it will eventually cost us.

Basil Graeme
Tauranga

Home should be safe

Columnist Merepeka Raukawa Tait hit the nail on the head with her column on child abuse (Opinion, July 14) and I 100 per cent agree with it.

I'd like to add one more thing: lust because someone was beaten up by their father or mother when they were a child does not make it right for them to beat up their children.

Home should be a safe, loving place for any child.

If a parent can't supply that, walk away.

Gavin Muir
Springfield

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