Harland Murray, right, and Brady Forrest cook up some kai at the Kelston evacuation centre. Photo / Rowan Quinn, RNZ
Time for gratitude
I fully appreciate that so many people in the North Island have suffered and lost so much over the last fortnight. I’m sure many parents, myself included, remember telling our children when they were young to be grateful for what they had, not what they didn’t have. As devastating as these storms are, New Zealand will recover and emerge resilient and able to plan for future weather events, support the people worst affected through social agencies and the inherent kindness of New Zealanders, and work to enhance programmes for climate change mitigation. We’ve lost so much, but we also have so much. The people of Syria and Turkey, having endured 10 years of civil war, are now in a living hell they may never recover from. All the things that make New Zealand a good place to live are absent there, and hope for their people is dying under the rubble. We really do have much to be grateful for. Do what you can for each other, no matter how insignificant that might be, and go hug someone you care about.
Mary Hearn, Glendowie.
Concerted response
Jacinda Ardern was pilloried by her critics for her Government’s micromanagement of the pandemic, particularly the vaccination mandate and the closure of the borders. I notice that those same critics of government interference in their private lives are more often than not the people howling for help and handouts from the government in other crises like the current weather disaster. The pandemic and the Cyclones are national emergencies. Local councils can’t manage them. I do hope the so-called “freedom” protesters have learned that, at times like these, the government has to step in and do the best it can. I also hope that National do not try to score political points from this emergency as they did with the pandemic.
Sue Rawson, Pāpāmoa Beach.
Strategic thinking
I grew up with a father who was a traffic cop in Auckland and the most important thing that he taught me was to “look behind the words and see the truth”, something he needed in the job, and something that seems important to survive the times we are living through now. So thanks Wayne Brown, and the team that you have around you, for the way you have applied your strategic brain to analysing the key factors that need to be taken into account, both to get us through this cyclone, and look towards the future needs of Auckland. The information you have provided helps us to take responsibility and to make sensible choices, something that we New Zealanders can do well. Thanks also Wayne, for standing back and allowing those in your team to manage those aspects that they do well and leave you to get on with the very skills that we elected you for. It is so good to see a team working together to optimise what is best for Auckland.
Robin Harrison, Takapuna.
Building ambitions
I was surprised to read David Seymour (NZ Herald, February 14) and Christine Fletcher singing the praises of the Auckland Unitary Plan in an article about building houses in the wrong places, when much of the AUP has zoned intensification for flood plains, such as in Wesley in Mt Roskill. I would urge these politicians to support the intensification of areas which did not flood, such as the vast majority of Ponsonby, Kingsland and Herne Bay, which are currently limited due to the extremely subjective “special character” designation. For a libertarian who supposedly has property rights at the heart of his interests, Mr Seymour is oddly obsessed with stopping people from being able to build on their own land and letting the market dictate outcomes.
Jon Turner, Mt Roskill.
Pilot’s kidnapping
Camellia Webb-Gannon’s article (NZ Herald, February 13) is on the mark. Philip Mehrtens, kidnapped by the West Papuan Liberation Army (TPN-PB) in remote Nduga, is an unfortunate pawn and New Zealand should negotiate skilfully, bearing in mind the Indonesian military’s record of “disproportionate” responses. As Webb-Gannon says, kidnapping cannot be justified, but New Zealand and Australia need to examine their past abysmal human rights record dating back to our acquiescence in Indonesia’s takeover of West Papua in the 1960s. Indigenous West Papuans were given no say over their political future and have never stopped resisting, despite the repression that inevitably follows any expression of opinion considered “separatist”. Nduga is a war zone, the conflict triggered by Jakarta’s determination to open the mountainous area up to exploitation. Indiscriminate mililtary sweeps have displaced tens of thousands to fend for themselves in neighbouring regions or in the forest. The conflict and our bad role in it has been hidden as the territory has been closed off to most outsiders. Our Government should reconsider its defence ties to Indonesia and instead seek a way to repeat the positive mediator role it once played to help resolve the Bougainville conflict.
Maire Leadbeater, West Papua Action Tāmaki Makaurau.
Heads we win
With widespread neurological defects suffered by former professional rugby players an increasing reality, and despite newer scrummaging laws helping mitigate against this, international rugby administrators are still battling to prevent serious outcomes from head injuries. I can expect a tirade of objections to this suggestion, but it occurred to me whilst watching the American Super Bowl final, that if these players participating in a similar challenging contact sport have worn helmets for decades, then why does the rugby hierarchy, and players themselves, not admit that without helmets there will always be a serious and continuing problem? Once it was considered an effeminate proposal that professional male cricketers wear helmets, where rewardingly this is now routine, even amongst the youngest players. Many other sports participants always have helmets, including professional cyclists - being also compulsory for recreational participants. Is it not time for rugby to understand that many parents, fearing such injuries, are stopping their children from playing the game, and admit that helmets are a necessity to further assist in eliminating head injuries?
Dr Hylton Le Grice, Remuera.
Sincere advantage
The recent political polls show how people react to sincerity and care. Chris Hipkins has shown those traits whilst Christopher Luxon remains a typical CEO and his offsider David Seymour continues to strut around the fowl yard like a bantam rooster. One should be reminded roosters do not produce the egg, they only crow. Cometh the hour, cometh the man
Reg Dempster, Albany.
Berm clearance
Moana Ave in One Tree Hill has a wide, grassed, tree-lined centre berm dividing its double carriageway. The avenue was originally designed to be the entrance to Cornwall Park. The berm is surrounded by gutters. Council mowing teams mow the grass, much of it blowing into the gutters. Edge-trimmers add to the mulch deposited into the gutters which then makes its way into the drains at each roundabout causing them to block. Material that does not make it to the drains steadily nourishes the growth of weeds. Unless residents weed these, they happily grow tall. In the Onehunga Borough Council days, the gutters were regularly cleaned. The result was no floods. Not so now.
Beverley Mosley, One Tree Hill.
Port retention
If nothing else, this latest catastrophic weather event has shown us that the idea of moving any of Auckland’s port traffic outside the city is an absolute folly. Surely the only safe port for Auckland freight traffic is Auckland. Not dependent on fragile road and rail links that are so easily disrupted during our warming planet’s more intense and increasingly frequent severe weather events.
James Archibald, Birkenhead.
Poor return
Your editorial (NZ Herald, February 10) criticising the dumped $3.5 billion social insurance scheme should also have mentioned it was a ripoff. The scheme would have paid 80 per cent of a worker’s previous income for up to six months. For this “benefit”, a worker on a $70,000 salary would pay 1.39 per cent or $973 per annum, and the employer the same, a total of $1946 pa. to the government. Five minutes online shows that a 35-year-old male clerical worker on a $70,000 income could buy income protection insurance for $680 per annum, paying out 75 per cent of previous income for two years, with a four-week stand-down. This is only 35 per cent of the cost of the Labour Government’s scheme. That the unions support this proposal is a disgrace, and of course, if there really was a demand for this product, any worker can purchase income protection right now without the need for government compulsion. Such proposals only lead to more dependency on the government and idiotically duplicate what is already available privately.
Leigh Marshall, Remuera.
Haven’t the remotest
I would like to offer my thanks to the advertising companies who have invented the man & the woman in the sickly green tracksuits who suddenly pop out of boxes, cupboards etc. Also, the daft people who sing a daft song whilst doing something equally daft like driving forwards, instead of backwards. And the third shows people doing something from their bucket list then suddenly spotting the TV audience, “Oh, Hi there”. I believe they’re all advertising insurance of some sort, I have no idea of the names of these companies. Why am I thanking them? At the age of 80 my reflexes have improved out of sight as I can locate and hit the mute button in a nano-second.
Margaret McDonnell, Glenfield.
On Labour
Never has so much owed by so many to so few. Great Churchill quote sounds like the costs of all the reforms being shelved by the Labour Party. Ian MacGregor, Greenhithe.
On delivery
Buses, trains, ferries, planes – all cancelled. But the Herald arrived in the letterbox, as usual, this morning. I’m grateful. Brian Millar, Titirangi.
At this time of fierce storms and wide flooding, the delivery of our NZ Herald was not affected. Chris Parker, Campbells Bay.
On balloons
If Phileas Fogg took on another 80 days around-the-world venture, he would be unwise to attempt a balloon crossing of America. Peter Culpan, Te Atatu Peninsula.
On floods
As long as the council is not maintaining the creek running alongside our street, it will continue to overflow and flood here. L H Cleverly, Mt Roskill.
Perhaps if we had Three Waters 20 years ago, the country’s cliff-top subsidence and lack of flooding and roading infrastructure would not be such a shambles. Bruce Tubb, Devonport.
David Seymour: Stop building houses in the wrong places
As a residential developer in Auckland, I cannot stress how accurate this is. the Auckland Unitary Plan is a well-thought-out plan for developing the city. It took into account years of analysis and input to decide the best way forward to develop Auckland. The new housing law destroyed the ability to develop in a sensible way. Please repeal the National-Labour law. And let’s develop sensibly. The AUP already allows for more than enough new housing. Jeffrey M.
It’s not the centralised power that the National Party liked but the disbanding of local councils’ ability to block progress. By the time both Nats and Labour are on the same page you know it’s past overdue. Rose W.
Where is our infrastructure? Brisbane is the same size population-wise as Auckland and once both [cities] had a bridge and one tunnel. We still have one bridge and one tunnel. They have at least six bridges, six tunnels and growing. They are also by a river and their aspirational plans, their speed and their commitment to growth is mind-blowing. We need to be a complete mindset change and unfortunately, that will not come without a change of Government. Mark C.
In my little street, there have been about 10 homes pulled down and at least three three-storey houses being built on each site with no thought to infrastructure upgrade or even parking issues. We’ve had terrible flooding in this storm so I hate to think what is going to happen when more intensification goes on. Catherine M.
Wellington also. Every time I see those houses perched on steep hillsides, with no proper geotechnical engineering, I shake my head that anyone ever buys them - or that banks will lend against such patently risky collateral. Marcus A.
There was a fragile truce after weeks of gang warfare. The violence almost re-ignited.