Te Mātāwai and Waka Kotahi have released a flotilla of bilingual traffic signs for public consultation. Photo / Te Ao Māori News
Letter of the week: Neil Cotton, Remuera
I have been saddened to read the decrying of the dual use of Māori language on road signs, and presumably elsewhere in everyday life. Justified as a waste of money, confusing or impractical, it is little more than thinly veiled racism. As an Australian who visited over 50 years ago, and decided to stay, I was immediately impressed by the integration of the races in New Zealand society. And so different from the overt racism in Australia, where Aboriginal people are mostly outcasts in their own land. Māori culture and people are what makes New Zealand unique, and we should be maximising the potential this offers, rather than the negative and Pākehā-centric attitudes these comments suggest.
Lost in fog
Once again Bruce Cotterill (Weekend Herald, May 27) plainly states what many of us believe: crime in New Zealand is not on the decline. Like Bruce, we and friends frequently comment on how rare it is to spot police on the street. Where are they all? Fog cannons and bollards do not address the cause and a lack of meaningful consequences for offenders means they are free to re-offend over and over. The rest of us pay in so many ways. Time for a radical change in approach which could start with more active policing. Fiona McAllister, Mt Maunganui.
Wrist-slapping
As usual, Bruce Cotterill’s very worrying piece (Weekend Herald, May 27) on our vanishing coppers is right on the knocker. So indeed is your piece on a recidivist drunk driver who appears to flout the law with virtual impunity. Forty-three driving convictions and already disqualified from driving. Clearly showing little if any remorse for killing an innocent mother and possibly ruining at least one and possibly two young lives. How bad can it get? No increase in our copper count will save us from morons like this – but the two are intrinsically linked to the overall demise of law and order in New Zealand. If recidivist criminals like this are punished with slap-over-the-wrist sentences and the legal system allows them to have even this reduced, then clearly our whole legal system is failing us. And our minister of police has just told us we should all be so thankful we can now feel safe. Robert Burrow, Taupō.
War footing
Great article by Audrey Young (Weekend Herald, May 27) talking to Mike Smith on the need to shift the debate from who is going to win the next major war to how can we secure peace for the world. The West, led by America, is obsessed with expanding its military to prepare for the next military showdown, which may well be the last we will ever experience. Albert Einstein reportedly said: “I don’t know what weapons will be used in WWIII, but the one after that will be stone axes.” Ninety per cent of security politics and thinking seems to go into: How can we win the next war? This is a fallacy because a full-out war by nuclear powers is unwinnable. How much better it would be if 90 per cent of security thinking instead went into how we secure global peace and avoid WWIII. Security must be more about working together than endless rearmament all over the world. We all know well that there are already enough munitions to extinguish all life on the planet. Frank Olsson, Freemans Bay.
Forced admissions
The refusal to grant Mark Lundy parole after 23 years in jail (Weekend Herald, May 27) has highlighted a contradiction in our legal system. On the one hand, we acknowledge that some people are wrongly convicted and as a result we now have a Criminal Cases Review Commission to relook at troubling convictions. Despite this, our Parole Board insists that a convicted prisoner admits guilt before granting parole. The Parole Board should be more flexible. When assessing parole in the more controversial cases, like the Mark Lundy and Scott Watson cases, the Parole Board should be able to grant parole on the basis of their good behaviour in prison, not on whether they admit guilt. We don’t want to add insult to injury by extending the prison time of wrongfully convicted people. Keith Locke, Mt Eden.
Jury decisions
Recalling Steve Braunias’ article summarising the second trial of Mark Lundy in 2015 and reading his Secret Diary satirical piece on Lundy’s recent Parole Board hearing (Weekend Herald, May 27), I deduce that this very perceptive writer believes the jury system has twice got it wrong. The case is reminiscent of the Lindy Chamberlain fiasco in Australia, where twice juries were swayed by media coverage and misjudgments based on the defendant’s demeanour and appearance and were eventually shown to have wrongly cost the defendant three years of freedom. Juries are made up of ordinary people randomly selected from the electoral roll, with no training whatsoever, who are asked to deliberate on scientific evidence and to see through the eloquence of barristers. A bench of three judges would be infinitely better qualified to decide whether someone should spend 25 years behind bars. Tony Waring, Grey Lynn.
Women’s wants
One of the late, great Tina Turner’s songs was What’s Love Got To Do With It? and I thought of that when I turned the pages (Canvas, May 27) from the article about her life to the one about the growing popularity of sex therapists, where something seemed to be missing. In a whole page of speculation about “what women want”, there seemed to be only one mention of “love”, as part of a book title. Anne Martin, Helensville.
Whisked to Waiheke
What’s all the fuss about with helicopters banned from Auckland Airport? Surely incoming tourists can arrive at the international terminal and board a waiting mass transit rapid rail with just 15 stops to the CBD? From whence they walk their baggage a few hundred metres to an awaiting fast ferry – if there are not too many other passengers and if it’s not too foggy – taking them to Matiatia to be collected by a waiting luxurious bus that takes them to their district, and there to take a car or cab up to their winery destination? This last stage may involve a delay if there is no WiFi on the bus. But wait. There’s an upside. Does all this mean a reduction in the number of illegal commercial helicopter flights – which make more racket that an A380 – over the densely populated eastern suburbs? Robert Finley, Howick.
For many decades our politicians have had as their main policy that New Zealanders should keep down with the Joneses. Roger Hall, Takapuna.
I recommend we all watch out for and vote for the politician that has the skills and programme to raise school attendance to 90 per cent plus . This will be the greatest long-term “change for good”. Craig Fraser, Mission Bay.
We need Mike Joy to keep on doing his work on advocating to protect New Zealand’s freshwater. Let’s crowdfund him enough money to continue his research. Joseph Dougherty, Auckland Central.
Has it occurred to National Party politicians that their election policy strategists may actually be working for their opponents? Gary Carter, Gulf Harbour.
There are so many reversals National is promising it’s impossible to remember them all. National needs to think about the good of the country, not their own election. Frankie Letford, Hamilton.
Ruby Tui may be on the right side of this current short slice of history (WH, May 27), but she is on the wrong side of common sense. And, in spite of what you read in the newspaper and see on television, I think she is also on the wrong side of society’s mood. Karl van de Water, Maungaturoto.
Would you have been as firm if Tui was wanting to display a religious symbol or something else close to a player’s heart? Where would it end? Steve Dransfield, Karori.
Bruce Cotterill (WH, May 27) asks why we are seeing more violent crime. Answer: We are seeing more violent crime thanks to cameras on phones and CCTV everywhere. John Capener, Kawerau.
Is our kind Government endeavouring to help Philip Mehrtens, the New Zealand pilot whose life is being compromised by rebels in Papua? E. Smith, Waitākere.
I wonder whether the airport shares will be snapped up by the same guys who swallowed our banks and state insurance? Gerry O’Meeghan, Pāpāmoa
What’s the next step in Mayor Brown’s regime? “Dare to ask me a question and I’ll lock you up”? Stan Jones, Hamilton.
If the Auckland Council’s budget hole is $325 million, one logical proposal would be to sell $325m worth of airport shares. Mayor Brown’s push to sell its whole airport shareholding worth $2.2 billion is mathematical nonsense. Jeremy Hall, Hauraki.
Having read the article (Canvas, May 27) retelling the story from Stephen Anderson’s side there is no mention of why the family would have a shotgun and ammunition with them when they had failed to ensure their mentally impaired son had taken his medication. Bruce Woodley, Birkenhead.
Police say they are following lines of inquiry to catch the offender.