Winston Peters spoke at the UN General Assembly in New York on Saturday, where he told the world New Zealand would not back a call for Palestinian statehood at this time. Photo / United Nations
Government made the wrong call on Palestine
A very disappointing speech by Winston Peters.
To suggest that New Zealand will recognise the Palestinian state when the fighting stops gives the coalition Government plenty of time to consider the consequences of its decision.
It may well please the White House (for now) but may just as easily cost us a number of trade agreements we have across the globe if other countries feel our complicity contradicts their own values.
Not a very smart move for a Government that wants to “grow, grow, grow” the economy.
If Christopher Luxon hangs his hopes for growth on the 350 million customers in America and neglects the other eight billion potential buyers across the world, perhaps he might like to head back there and revive his trade as a deodorant salesman.
He’d make a fortune in a country that is beginning to stink beyond belief.
Jeremy Coleman, Hillpark.
Military spending
Some of our old friends would like New Zealand to join them in their dangerous venture as they head towards a showdown with China.
Enormous amounts of money have been committed towards the purchase of armaments. So far, New Zealand has agreed to spend $12 billion over four years.
Australia will spend an incredible A$368b ($417b) up to 2055. Last year, the US spent US$997b ($1.7 trillion) on defence projects.
Those sums, if spent on worthwhile sectors such as infrastructure, improving port facilities and hospitals and schools, would greatly benefit the respective countries.
Do we really need to spend so much money on armaments? The world is already awash with weapons. A major conflict between the superpowers will involve nuclear weapons. Our world will suffer.
Hundreds and hundreds of millions will perish. When will our leaders wake up and realise that we all have little time left if we wish to avoid a doomsday scenario?
Johann Nordberg, Paeroa.
Property prices
Politicians constantly talk about the benefit of rising house prices and how we will all feel rich when prices take off again – and somehow this will fix our economy.
What they really mean is that all the investment properties they own will be making them even richer.
What about first-home buyers desperate to get on the property ladder? Do they not matter to these greedy politicians?
National already voted with urgency as soon as it was elected to award landlords $2.9 billion in mortgage relief.
My house is my home, not an investment. If its value goes up or down, I will be buying and selling on the same market.
Vince West, Milford.
Daylight saving
Your editorial “Daylight-saving-time research finds health and economic impacts” gets off to an awkward start by juxtaposing these sentences: “Evidence supporting ending this seasonal time-switching is mounting. Not only has United States President Donald Trump pushed for it ... ”
Isn’t that the guy who reckons pregnant mums who take paracetamol have autistic babies?
New Zealanders, for the most part, are tuned on to clock-switching for spring-summer. The dates the times change could do with tinkering: summertime drags on into April, making for dark autumn mornings. Perhaps those days could be brought forward to the fourth Sundays of March and September (not the last Sundays, which would be erratic).
Your editorial says research finds that moving the clock forward to begin daylight saving is the problem, resulting in increased heart attacks, hospitalisations and fatal crashes.
So why not deal with that by making the day after that Sunday change a national sleep-in Monday public holiday?
There are too many holidays cluttering the first half of the year: Waitangi, Easter, Anzac, King’s Birthday, Matariki.
Scrap King’s Birthday (he won’t care) and have a September Spring Sleep-in Monday instead, for a healthy start to daylight saving.
John Trezise, Birkenhead.
Distrust of Treasury
I much appreciated the good sense of Matthew Hooton’s column (Herald, September 26).
The New Right continue their destructive path. Having “balanced” the books early in their madness by selling the family silver, they now “balance” them by borrowing.
It is a real oddity that Treasury has predicted this second-stage direction as well as it has.
Like Sir Robert Muldoon, in my small way, I distrusted Treasury advice ever since it took the lead in promoting New Right propaganda.
I suggest the graph in your article would have been greatly improved by plotting population size on the right-hand side. That might have got a message through, even to the functionally near brain-dead.
Ken W.J. Lynch, Northcross.
Leave the clocks alone
Please, please, scrap daylight saving and let our bodies go along with their natural rhythm.
Lorraine Kidd, Warkworth.
Livable cities
Time Out has just announced the world’s “coolest” neighbourhood to live in: Tokyo.
The Government’s plan to increase housing numbers in Auckland to two million will destroy the remaining social atmosphere of the city.
John Calhoun’s rat experiment showed this. Instead, support development in Invercargill for people to enjoy the pristine environment. We need politicians who do not think as robots – achieving “numbers” – but as humans.
John Ashworth, Bayview.
How about a price cut?
Fonterra is feeling very elated after its enormous sale and $16.2 billion dividend to shareholders.
Maybe it could make its customers, the New Zealand public, also a bit excited by announcing a price reduction on its products, even if only on some higher-priced items.
Here’s hoping.
Bob Wichman, Botany.