Letters: Sugar tax, climate change, wellbeing Budget and Julian Assange

B N Watkin points out a sugar tax has had mixed results internationally. Photo / File

Opinion

Sin tax and plucking the goose

For good reason there is increasing pressure on the Government to implement a new tax specifically on sugar (NZ Herald, May 24). But, another new tax ... hmmm?
Sugar in itself is simply a carbohydrate, and is included in many products, such as baked goods and sauces as well as beverages, including beer.
It already attracts the tax of 15 per cent GST every time it is packaged and sold.
Internationally there have been mixed results with what might be called a "sin tax".
Denmark (for example) repealed its version because of unintended consequences; basically it hurt citizens on low incomes and encouraged evasion.
A difficulty is that such taxes give politicians the rare opportunity (temptation even) to tax people who we would normally feel awkward about taxing - the poor and the unemployed. In this case, not only can politicians achieve it, they can feel virtuous doing it. Then, how do they use the extra tax created?
A start would be to educate widely - show images of severe dental decay in children, and how to avoid it at primary school level.
Ensure basic dental care is available and free to children, if it isn't already, and subsidised for adults where necessary.
Remove GST on basic, unprocessed food (meat, dairy, vege and fruit) thus encouraging better nutrition.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert (Finance Minister of France, 1661-1683) is quoted as saying "the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest number of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing".
We just have to be wise, inventive and truthful about how we improve our modern version of an old problem.
B N Watkin, Devonport.

Families destroyed

Mum and Dad, married, was supposed to be a safe place, a caring environment to bring up a family in. It is still the best possible solution to bringing well adjusted, healthy young people into the world. But when a lot of these places are not safe, become violent, demeaning, hostile places, then the better thing to do is to get out as safely as you can. Support must be there if we care how our young are to grow.
Reaching back into the past doesn't help either. There seems to be a myth that life was better then, fewer drugs around, fewer women leaving relationships.
Women, unless wealthy within their own right, could not leave a marriage. It wasn't until 1973 that the Domestic Purposes Benefit was introduced and gave women a choice. Rape within a marriage was not recognised until many years later. Up until then, women and children tolerated the abuses, verbal and physical, to maintain some form of societal expectation and religious order.
As children we were often hustled inside when a neighbour yelled at his wife, or when her shrieks became loud and piercing. And at school you wondered at the bruises on the children and kept away from those who wet themselves. So sad.
The biggest offender to domestic happiness is the overuse/misuse of drugs. But the most prolific drug of all is alcohol, which has been with us a very, very long time and still reigns supreme as the most destructive. Should we not be placing our criticisms and concerns there?
Emma Mackintosh, Birkenhead.

Iwi settlements

It's very heartening to read (NZ Herald, May 20-24) about the progress being made by many iwi in bettering their position - and I applaud the Herald for publishing it. It would be helpful to see statistics on crime and imprisonment, employment, health and drug issues in the South island (where Ngāi Tahu have built a strong financial base and been able to put much of it into education, jobs etc) compared to the far North (where Ngāpuhi have not agreed among themselves to settle and therefore are struggling to improve their standard of living).
Rex Beer, Manly.

Wellbeing Budget

So Amy Adams (NZ Herald, May 27) is unimpressed with the forthcoming Wellbeing Budget as being a Labour creation. This cannot be the same Adams who held the Social Investment and Justice portfolios in the last government. Heartlessly, she persisted in defying court findings that Teina Pora should receive the interest due on government compensation for his (from age 17) 20 years wrongful imprisonment, though innocent of the death of Susan Burdett.
Adams led her government in appealing the court's award to Pora of nearly $1,000,000. Is that the sort of "wellbeing" she espouses?
Peter Stead, Huapai.
* Declared interest: I was the officiating minister for Susan's funeral.

Assange charges

As Julian Assange languishes in a British maximum security prison (NZ Herald, May 25) awaiting the inevitable deportation to America, consider that the 17 charges he faces there will be brought under The Espionage Act of 1917 - a measure brought in by Congress to clamp down on dissent when America entered World War I.
It was never intended to be used to prosecute publishers or members of the press (although President Wilson wanted such a provision). It was to expose and prosecute traitors.
One of the key points is that the act does not allow for a public interest defence. Something that Daniel Ellsberg, a whistleblower from the 70s, discovered at the opening of his trial and was effectively silenced and convicted. And since WikiLeaks and the Pentagon Papers were all about informing the public of wrong doing by the government, the inability of the defendant to defend his actions runs counter to all notions of freedom of expression.
The state is using a large muzzle to silence all those who challenge it.
Who's next?
David Aston, Milford.

Teacher support

Throughout my career as an educator I have always looked out for talented, empathetic, intellectual young people and made a point of encouraging them to consider teaching as a career. Most of the young to middle-aged people I currently know with those talents consider teaching a very poor option – underpaid, undervalued and with minimal life-work balance. Why would one go from a +$100,000 job in, say, the city council, where the weekends and holidays are yours, and your hours are specified, to teaching? Paid $70,000 if teachers are lucky, evenings and weekends spent marking and planning, responsibility for 30+ young minds and bodies, with insufficient support for the learning difficulties many students present with. Notwithstanding this, teaching remains a challenging, enjoyable and worthwhile profession. Currently teachers really need our support; there is little doubt that we all, as families and as a nation, benefit from smart, valued and well-prepared professionals in our classrooms. I stand with the teachers.
Vicki Carpenter, Grey Lynn.

Immigration

I see the powers that be at Immigration New Zealand are at it again. First, the restaurant family in St Heliers then the volunteer fire fighter in Nelson.
Now it would seem they are making things difficult for a teacher to stay due to the income rules (NZ Herald, May 24). There was me thinking we needed teachers - desperately apparently.
Debi Buxton, Taupō.

Everest queues

How tragic and tiresome it is to see (NZ Herald, May 27) the queues of egoistical, bucket list-driven punters who pay to reach the top of their first-world ambitions.
Sure, we all have ambitions and goals, but in a world where so much matters more than the decadence of pushing your own metaphorical barrow up hill, there are greater challenges to overcome.
How about just meeting the global challenge of being kind, compassionate, decent human beings to each other, treating others as you wish to be treated?
And, how about, paying the Nepalese porters the kind of wages and benefits commensurate with their highly skilled and dangerous work?
These seem to me to be the real and greater challenges than scaling the world's highest mountain. Nothing new in that.
Jude Gillies, Golden Bay.

Core business

Julie Tyson's letter (NZ Herald, May 27) about Auckland Council getting back to its core responsibilities is very well timed.
In our case, we own a block of land in Māngere,and the land over our western boundary is in Māngere Bridge. Despite being here more than 45 years we have never had a wastewater connection available. For years, our rates have helped to pay for many homes being connected to Watercare's network, now we are told that if we want a pipe made available along the road we have to pay for it ourselves. Is this fair?
Dudley Barton, Māngere.

Boar witness

Your sight (and intellectually) impaired self-proclaimed satirist Steve Braunias ought to visit Specsavers. He correctly identified (NZ Herald, May 24) the stags in the room at Destiny HQ but was sadly mistaken in imagining there were five boars. In fact, there are only three boars in that room. The other two he thought he saw, the pompous looking one and the one with a vacuous grin, were in fact, one bore, looking back at him from a pair of mirrors.
Ron Berrington, Orewa.

Short & Sweet

On Everest
If the world is serious about saving our planet, then maybe we should shut things down such as the Mount Everest summit.
Glenn Forsyth, Taupō.

The Nepalese Government has blood on their hands after issuing a record 381 permits, costing US$11,000 each, to climb Everest this spring season.
Dave Miller, Rotorua.

On sugar
Forget sugar tax, remove GST on water. How ridiculous that sugary drinks should be cheaper than water. It's time common sense prevailed.
Pauline Paget, Campbells Bay.

On protests
Using young children as agitated climate-change spokesmen, when they could not possibly understand the facts unless they had been tutored by their parents or teachers, is nothing less than flagrant brainwashing and child abuse.
Hylton Le Grice, Remuera.

On rugby
Three easy steps to fix the woeful Blues. 1. Get a good coach. 2. Get a good first five/goal kicker. 3. Get a good barber.
Kevin Murphy, Glenfield.

On NZ First
How can NZ be well governed when a minority party that just got over the 5 per cent threshold is dictating to their coalition partner, which got 37 per cent of the vote, on how the country will be run?
Jock MacVicar, Hauraki.

On Braunias
Braunias is a brilliant satirical writer and, yes, his piece on The Destiny Church and Brian and Hannah Tamaki was more than brilliant.
Mary Rutherford, Three Kings.