Letters to the editor: Sign ironic while sitting in gridlock

Traffic jam on 15th Ave to Turret Rd. Photo / File

I found it quite ironic, while gridlocked in traffic on the corner of 15th Ave and Fraser St waiting to drive down to the Turret Rd bridge, that Tauranga City Council has erected on that corner an enormous signboard thanking the Government for funding an upgrade of Cameron Rd.

If the Government had funded a three-lane tidal flow for traffic on Turret Rd or removed the Takitimu Drive tolls, that would have been worth the expensive sign.

Jim Sherlock
Parkvale

Why appoint all by election?

National sports organisations have a mixture of appointed and elected board members.

Even those up for elected positions are screened by a board appointments committee. Government board members are screened before being appointed by the relevant minister. Companies are careful and selective about their board memberships.

Why then are the Tauranga City Council mayor and councillors all appointed by election?

Surely a mix of appointed and elected councillors is the way to go? Five appointed members, four elected city-wide members, one elected Māori city-wide member (as per current scenario) and a mayor.

I don't believe anyone wants the fiasco we saw last time to re-occur.

Paul Kayes
Pāpāmoa

You get nothing for nothing

You know how the Government is trying to get people into electric vehicles by offering rebates to encourage the replacement of petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles, it omits to tell the general populous where it is going to get the funds from to maintain the roads these electrics vehicles will be using.

At present we pay for it with tax the Government collects from every litre of petrol we buy, and the road-user charges it collects from diesel vehicles.

So, it would appear that the Government is going to go without the funds from the tax take and using these electric vehicles will be a saving for the people keen enough to be sucked into the dream.

Yeah, right. You wait until they announce a 12c per km charge managed the same way as diesel vehicles are now.

Twelve cents per km. Imagine that.

Seems to me that the carrot has turned into a horseradish. Just wait and see. You get nothing for nothing, so be warned.

Rod Petterson
Rotorua

Tax rates and bands

In reply to V Ross (Letters, August 10), it is not the Inland Revenue that sets tax rates and bands, it is the Government.

So, it is Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her Government who are to blame for their additional tax liability - a government that continues to refuse to increase tax bands in line with inflation.

Steve Porter
Welcome Bay

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