Letters: Kiwi pride, truants, vaccine, office spaces, road blocks and groundskeepers

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has attracted admiration from overseas for her leadership during the Covid 19 coronavirus pandemic. Photo / Hagen Hopkins, Getty Images

Opinion

Letter of the week: Margaret van Dijk, Toronto, Ontario.

As an expat, you get used to people mocking New Zealand. You know that Aussies like to make jokes about Kiwis, and elsewhere, Godzone can be often seen as the Newfoundland of the South Pacific.
I can't tell you how many times I have heard the joke about the airline telling people to put their clocks back 50 years on arrival in Auckland.
No matter how often you tell them how progressive New Zealand has been since the 19th century, with free education, votes for women, free education and a version of old-age pensions, many people still insist on seeing Aotearoa as insular and parochial, an insignificant bunch of islands near Antarctica.
So when Jacinda Ardern performs brilliantly as a communicator, when she comes across as a politician people can trust; as a leader who encourages questions and tries to answer them; as someone decisive, with clear, consistent and honest messages; a commitment to transparency and cultural values, unlike most politicians on the world stage today, Kiwis abroad are proud.

Parenting onus

Your letter of the week (Weekend Herald, April 25) reads like someone is trying to blame everyone else for their problems. Why doesn't the buck stop with parents?
Kids with problems aren't a result of the Government or the education system. Children are produced by parents, so they are no one else's responsibility.
Yes, maybe the parents have had a bad upbringing as well, but how long can this go on? If kids are roaming the streets at 11 or 12, the Government needs to send them to army camp and completely reset their minds.
Education is there and it's part of parenthood to get them there.
Bryce Rae, Hamilton.

Vaccinated world

Contrary to Andrew Tichbon's assertion, "natural immunity" does not come from vaccines, (Weekend Herald, April 25), but rather from natural exposure to wild type pathogens.
The current epidemic has not arisen in a world without vaccines, but in a world where vaccines are readily available. It is caused by only one of thousands of viruses and bacteria, which are constantly changing and evolving, to which we are exposed on a daily basis.
It is this daily exposure itself that naturally builds and strengthens our immune systems. We will never have enough vaccines to protect us against every possible disease.
Ashley Clarke, Beach Haven.

Convert offices

The Covid-19 pandemic may give a chance to both commercial property owners facing sudden expensive vacancies, while providing urgently needed rental housing to the deserving homeless.
Both retail and office space can be easily converted to rental housing by wiping away the red tape so beloved by various councils when trying to convert commercial to residential.
It seems madness to me that people are free to spend 24 hours a day, including weekends, working long hours in offices, which are usually fitted with partitions, toilets, kitchens, and many other comforts, but should they lie down to have a sleep it suddenly becomes illegal. This is a total nonsense.
The pointy heads in the bureaucracy insist that the moment an office or retail worker has a nap, a great danger instantly arises that mysteriously didn't exist when that same worker was awake in the same space.
So long as there are effective smoke alarms, easy access, and fresh air and light (all available in ordinary office conditions) then we can solve two problems at once:
Rental income for owners of vacant commercial space affected by Covid, and a sensible solution for those who are in desperate need for a respectable roof over their heads.
Olly Newland, Remuera.

Future block

I suspect that those running possibly illegal roadblocks to stop people entering their areas may find that no one will want to come after alerts are raised, and this may come back to bite them.
Those unwelcome now (possibly understandably) may regard themselves as always unwelcome to the financial disadvantage of those running the blocks.
Stuart Hayman, Remuera.

Profound incompetence

Once again Matthew Hooton (Weekend Herald, April 25) claims the current Labour Government has shown "profound incompetence". He lists housing, well being, child poverty, tertiary education participation, school management reform, freshwater allocation, cleaner rivers, openness and transparency, mental health and gun reform as areas of failure.
The fact these problems were inherited from a National Government which hadn't got around to successfully addressing them (in the case of guns, not at all) in their near-decade of power shows clearly where the accusation of profound incompetence should really be placed.
Juliet Leigh, Pt Chevalier.

Groundskeepers

In reply to Derek Smith (Weekend Herald, April 25), I am sure that ground staff can perform their duties on the golf courses safely and not put themselves or others at risk - unlike the many people I see every day driving down to Cockle Bay, and no doubt other beaches around the county, and sitting in the public benches.
Barry Wood, Cockle Bay.

A quick word

At the bottom of the Opinions page (Weekend Herald, April 25) under "Your Views", it reads "down to Alert Level 2 on Tuesday". Should this be Level 3? Leo Stafford-Bush, Mt Roskill. Editor's note: Yes, it should have, our apologies.

Tom Lehrer once said satire was dead after they gave Kissinger the Nobel Prize. It is now rolling it its grave. Perhaps after a hot shot of Dettol to the mainline. Scott Poynting, Newtwon, NSW.

I'm disgusted and disappointed in our national broadcaster. They could not even put a Last Post on the TV at 6am Anzac morning and carried on broadcasting as usual. Tom O'Toole, Taumarunui.

The sight of queues at food banks prompted me into thinking these people don't need food, they need jobs. Gary Hollis, Mellons Bay.

Keep calm and carry on? Australia did and will bounce straight back. We didn't and we'll be paying through the nose for our lack of nerve for the rest of the decade. Will McKenzie, Sandringham.

We really don't need any more advice from Rich-Listers and overpaid CEOs. We need new ideas, better ideas for our new future. V M Fergusson, Mt Eden.

Simon Bridges and David Clark exemplify the term "bullet proof". No matter what they do wrong they still don't get dismissed. Jock Mac Vicar, Hauraki.

Today's paper (Weekend Herald, April 25) has 11 crosswords, 10 Sudoku and one Code Cracker. Please give a thought to the Code Cracker addicts. Christine Bennett, The Gardens.

In listening to PM Scott Morrison speak at Anzac Day in Australia, I wondered if his thoughts could turn to fair treatment of all the Kiwis working and living long periods there, paying a fair share of tax, and yet refused basic social welfare cover. Rob Buchanan, Kerikeri.

The greatest chance America has in defeating the coronavirus is for the CDC to provide the President with a protective mask that has a gag mechanism inserted over the mouthpiece. Mary Hearn, Glendowie.

Jacinda is only saying what the experts are telling her and then voicing her opinion and people think how great she is. She certainly has the way to put it across. Val Walker, Orewa.

It is easy to understand why the Government claimed that the extension was only two days. Most have never worked in the private sector, relying on the taxpayer to keep them instead. A J Petersen, Kawerau.

To prevent the potential for a fire-sale of land, property and business in the wake of the pandemic, all foreign exploitative transactions should be banned. Kenneth Lees, Whangarei.