Letters: Labour isn’t to blame for looming power crisis; Olympians have done us proud in Paris

Lake Onslow, the proposed site for Labour's now-scrapped $4 billion hydro project. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery

What’s really behind power crunch

Thomas Coughlan has surely bought into National’s messaging that everything is Labour’s fault (Weekend Herald, August 10). He sheets the current spike in power prices back to Labour banning gas and oil exploitation, and the alleged market distortion of Labour’s Onslow battery project. It could be argued that the Onslow project was a necessary intervention to mitigate against this very situation we find ourselves in now.

To be neoliberal is to not have a linear sense of history. This power crisis has its genesis in National’s Max Bradford’s power reforms, where the dogma of the day decreed that central planning by government was necessarily bad and the market would solve everything. Instead, in good Kiwi tradition, we have the power companies creating value (for themselves) through scarcity and not by investing in new infrastructure and creating value. Very much what has happened in our domestic housing market, with property speculation being our most capital-intensive industry.

Andrew Moyle, Kerikeri.

Golden result

I do confess to not glueing myself to the Paris Olympics, but I note what we already know. New Zealand punches well above its weight in the sporting arena.

How well is not always evident and we are often envious of our big neighbour across the Tasman, which has a vastly more generous sporting budget. Little old New Zealand won a gold medal for every 500,000 of us, while the Aussies won a gold medal for every 1.4 million of them. Even on the total medal count, we scored one medal per 250,000 against the Aussies’ one medal per 490,000.

I will not dwell on the gender ratio, but in gold the ratio was eight to two in favour of our wonderful lady athletes! What a wonderful performance by a nation that dwells so long and hard on our national identity.

Robert Burrow, Taupō.

Sporting inspiration

Well done to the New Zealand Olympic team on such success in Paris. Just one below Germany, one above Canada and only four below Great Britain on the medal table. The BBC acknowledged the success of the New Zealand athletes – keep the funding coming in for the next Games in LA. An inspiration for future New Zealand sporting talent.

Jan Dalgleish, London.

Bus safety

I was on a bus to the North Shore on Wednesday afternoon a month ago when a person was attacked and her phone snatched. The owner of the phone had the presence of mind to yell out to the driver, who had not yet left the stop, as she chased the thief off the bus. The young thief then threw her phone on the pavement and ran off. The young lady was able to hop back on the bus (the driver did have the grace to wait for her, but did not enquire as to her wellbeing). Her phone was smashed.

The following week, I saw a woman in a security uniform hopping on our bus and I said how pleased I was to see her and related the previous incident. She told me to expect more of it as many of our youth are becoming feral and that Albany station has security issues at certain times due to out-of-control youth.

I am now of the belief that bus companies should reintroduce conductors on all peak-hour buses to maintain security.

Lynne Lagan, Takapuna.

Why the delay?

It is commendable that Eke Panuku is asking for submissions regarding the development of the Wynyard Quarter “Tank Farm”, but it amazes me that the last line of the article states: “The project has been allocated $119 million... and is expected to take 15 years”. Fifteen years! I travel to Hong Kong yearly and am always impressed that they have built another bridge or road. They work 24 hours, seven days on them – perhaps if we adopted more of this, projects would get completed in a timely fashion while us Baby Boomers are still alive to reap the benefits.

Hamish Walsh, Devonport.

Congestion fix

A recent report stated that Auckland was falling behind comparable cities in quality of life (NZ Herald, August 12). One of the main reasons for this decline was traffic congestion. So let’s move towards solving that. Introduce traffic congestion changes in downtown Auckland between 6.30am and 9.30am and 4pm and 6pm on weekdays, and use the proceeds to make public transport free during those hours. This will have the double benefit of reducing downtown traffic and pollution, making the area a more viable shopping and business area.

Nick Hamilton, Remuera.

Lotto letdown

I have a Lotto account and play online. I was chuffed to receive a notice of congratulations for a winning ticket, together with exclamation marks. On analysing, I realised I spent $16 on the ticket to win $15!

Brian Winks, Rotorua.