NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / New Zealand

Letters: Honest and refreshing opinion from Jessie, Becoming a republic, status quo

NZ Herald
24 Sep, 2022 04:00 PM6 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

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.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

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

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Ardie Savea celebrates the try scored by Codie Taylor of the All Blacks against Australia in the Bledisloe Cup match at Eden park last night. Photo / Getty Images
Ardie Savea celebrates the try scored by Codie Taylor of the All Blacks against Australia in the Bledisloe Cup match at Eden park last night. Photo / Getty Images

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."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

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

Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from New Zealand

New ZealandUpdated

'The public have a right to know': Judge denies man with cache of child abuse files anonymity

11 Jul 07:00 PM
live
New Zealand

Wild weather set to ease across the country, clean-up efforts begin

11 Jul 06:00 PM
New Zealand

St John defends decision not to send ambulance to toddler who broke jaw in fall

11 Jul 06:00 PM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from New Zealand

'The public have a right to know': Judge denies man with cache of child abuse files anonymity

'The public have a right to know': Judge denies man with cache of child abuse files anonymity

11 Jul 07:00 PM

'I must denounce your conduct in the strongest possible terms,' the judge told him.

Wild weather set to ease across the country, clean-up efforts begin
live

Wild weather set to ease across the country, clean-up efforts begin

11 Jul 06:00 PM
St John defends decision not to send ambulance to toddler who broke jaw in fall

St John defends decision not to send ambulance to toddler who broke jaw in fall

11 Jul 06:00 PM
Green light for fires on Napier beaches after council quietly revokes bylaw

Green light for fires on Napier beaches after council quietly revokes bylaw

11 Jul 06:00 PM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP