Martin Snedden. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Opinion
Rugby World Cup boss Martin Snedden does well to warn accommodation providers - professional hoteliers and private homeowners - against profiteering from the influx of visitors for the six-week tournament next year.
Isolated reports of prices being inflated as much as 1000 per cent - and homeowners grossly understating their
distance from Eden Park - have made the news here and will surely have been seen and circulated abroad.
The tournament represents a real opportunity to showcase this country to the world, and one of the things we want visitors to experience is our time-honoured reputation for honest dealing and a fair go.
There's nothing wrong with seeking to make money for services rendered, but price gouging is counterproductive, It does nothing for our national image, and it is likely to blow up in the profiteers' faces if visitors shun their unreasonable demands.
Keeping a sense of perspective is important at times like these. And the same advice applies to those still agitating for a "party central" development on Queens Wharf.
In the past year plans from the grandiose to the grotesque have been paraded across the front pages - the latest will cost $10 million - but we are still waiting for someone in a leadership position to stop the spendthrift madness.
The heritage case for maintaining the cargo sheds is far from unassailable, but what is certain is that it is foolish to throw a lot of money at any development for a 44-day booze-up of dubious potential popularity.
Architect Gordon Moller, who designed the Sky Tower, is the latest of many voices raised against doing anything substantial before the precinct's long-term future has been decided. He must be heeded.
John Key's "party central" idea was always highly improbable, given the many options that visitors and locals will have for watching the games.
If the energy is there to provide a focal point for celebration, Queens Wharf would be a good site: but a temporary toilet block and a few sheets of gib board and a coat of paint in the cargo sheds will see to that.
That - and charging a fair price for food and lodgings - will give the visitors a taste of Kiwi.
