Letters: Honesty the best policy

Metriai Turei, in this readers opinion, has made some very bad decisions.

I have listened to and watched with interest the self-destruction of the Green Party leadership.

I am a keen ecologist, and have planted thousands of trees and created an area for a Queen Elizabeth II covenant, so could be called a greenie.

With the change in our climate, I believe the burning of coal and oil is not sustainable, and we have installed solar panels for power. But when a friend, David Clendon MP, being a fine and forthright man, is thrown out of the Green caucus for his honesty, I am seriously disturbed.

My wife and I have known him for many years, and appreciate his knowledge and commitment to the ecology of our country and the Green Party of New Zealand. So in my opinion it is a sad day for New Zealand politics when honesty is trumped by people who have owned up to theft from us taxpayers.

It is not a have/have not issue, as shown by Doug Graham and his involvement with a finance company stealing from others. It can be anyone. But it is a moral problem and an issue about trust. We all make decisions every day, but the Greens' leader, in my opinion, has made some very bad decisions.

We all make questionable decisions, in retrospect, but we rectify them as soon as we able. Honesty is still the best policy, I believe.

This has lowered the standard of New Zealand politics to a level that I never thought we would get to when I stood in 1999.

In my opinion we cannot condone theft in any form, whether some think it justified or not. We all have choices, and most of us know the right ones. We are thought of as a one of the least corrupt countries, but this may not enhance that opinion.

I do not want to be led in government by someone who thinks theft and fraud are a legitimate way of getting ahead.

We may not agree with our elected representatives, but we should at least believe they are honest.

ERIC SHACKLETON
Ahipara