Honest and refreshing opinion from Jessie
The opinion piece on the Queen by Jessie Gurunathan was honest and refreshing. Time to move on and pay attention to more important news.
Vijay Nyayapati, Blockhouse Bay
Precious All Blacks
The Haka is a war dance used to intimidate and threaten the opposition with all the atrocities that they were going to do to them. The opposition would in turn perform their version before the battle commenced in ancient times.
Why are the All Blacks so precious when some teams don't take their ancient ritual seriously?
Why don't opposition teams in turn perform their own ancient rituals?
Jock MacVicar, Hauraki
Standard of living
I am amazed at how naive people are to think that no matter what happens in the world their standard of living and the wealth of the country will always go up each year.
Cries of inflation going up 7 per cent but my wages have only gone up 4 per cent.
Do people not realise we have just gone through, and still suffering the effects of a pandemic, and a major war is raging in Europe. These things affect all the economies and we can, just like investments have good years and bad.
When war is raging and pandemics prevail we obviously will go backwards and we can hope for better times and perhaps return to increasing prosperity for all in the future.
Vince West, Milford
There are positives too
In Heather du Plessis-Allan's weekly opinion piece she again laments the lockdown enforced by Jacinda, the silly rules of mask wearing etc. She informs us her opinions are shared by her friends and colleagues — well what a surprise that Mike, Baz and Kate are onboard. Opinion is opinion and I get that, however the 99 per cent bad news is pure fiction. No mention of last quarter's growth of 1.7 per cent, higher than UK, Aussie, OECD and the US which experienced negative growth. S&P has just confirmed NZ's
AA+ rating. Quote: "New Zealand's economy is performing well, under-pinned by low unemployment and pent-up demand. This is despite the after-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic."
Heather sites Iwi co-governance, Three Waters and falling house prices as negatives. Listen to the experts, these are positives; it shocks me so many people are ill informed.
Three Waters opposition is partly about race and the Opposition are scaremongering to their core support, white 60+ years.
We could debate health and education until the cows come home, however three terms of no investment by the Key Government set us up nicely to fail.
Enough of the flaky media opinions and more debate and actual policy from the Opposition please.
Paul Kenny, Auckland
Thanks but no thanks
Susan Grimsdell (letters, September 18) states Labour is "helping" us with higher taxes. I can do without all that extra "help", thanks.
Steve Dransfield, Karori
The Republic of New Zealand?
Those debating the idea of a republic should be aware that it has already been considered here in the form of a private members bill and declined by the major political parties in New Zealand.
The role of the Governor General is mainly ceremonial and the only real power that they appear to have is to dissolve Parliament when there is a constitutional crisis and call for an election to resolve the issue for the people, as happened in Australia with the Whitlam Government.
So a New Zealand president would have no political powers whatsoever if a republic was formed along these lines, but the pomp and ceremony that accompanies visits from the royals would be lost.
A republic is likely to come about eventually in many people's opinion, including that of our current PM.
Bruce Woodley, Birkenhead
Becoming a republic
Advocates of change need to define the problem with the status quo. Only then options for change can be considered.
Nick Hamilton, Remuera
The status quo
There have been a number of letters on the significant potential problems and dangers in our becoming a republic, but nothing on what is wrong with the present system. I vote for the status quo.
Peter Hawley, Havelock North
Would-be republicans
How many hypocritical would-be republicans will be enjoying this long weekend commemorating the life of Queen Elizabeth?
You can bet your house that none will politely decline the paid day off.
Dave Miller, Matua
Sorry-looking St Lukes
There are already quite a few empty shops at the St Lukes mall. The latest smash and grab robbery there may just add some more.
L H Cleverly, Mt Roskill
Russian ambassador
Some time ago Christopher Luxon claimed the rest of the world had "moved on from Covid" and that we should follow their lead by abolishing all restrictions.
Now Gerry Brownlee is calling for the expulsion of the Russian ambassador even though the "rest of the world" has not been expelling Russian diplomats.
I do not think expelling the ambassador would make the slightest difference to Vladimir Putin. I do think that maintaining channels of communication is more important than grandstanding.
Greg Cave, Sunnyvale
Who's in charge around here?
Our Foreign Minister, Nanaia Mahuta, is considering declaring the Russian ambassador persona non grata and expelling him from New Zealand. Within a few hours of that press release, our Prime Minister declares that is absolutely not the case and the status quo remains.
A question from us all ... who is running the ship and which tail is wagging the dog?
Ted Partridge, Māngere
Fix your own backyard
Jacinda Ardern likes strutting her stuff on the international stage. However, we have a level of poverty and homelessness in New Zealand that we have never seen before, the cost of living skyrocketing and a health system that can barely cope with the demands made on it all while national debt levels continue to mount at increasing rates as the Labour Government continues to borrow money at ridiculous levels.
My advice to Ardern, therefore, would be to get her own ship in order, look after your own and then, once that's in order, look at fixing the world.
Paul Beck, West Harbour
The North Island is expected to get off to a wet start this morning, with lingering rain.