Re: The story Refugee intake "healthy for community" (Chronicle, February 9).
What alarmed me was the paragraph where Whanganui MP Harete Hipango labelled Thursday's announcement "ill-conceived".
It was not her statement that alarmed me, it was the fact that her Facebook post had since been deleted. Why? Internet censorship, or was she bullied into deleting it?
I have nothing against allowing refugees to come here — indeed, I am a voluntary one myself, escaping an increasingly urban United Kingdom to make a living hunting deer and possums back in 1972.
Are these refugees chosen by us, or are they pushed on us by the United Nations? Those questions are of great importance.
Take the tragic situation in much of Europe where refugees — well, economic migrants — pour into the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and most other European Union countries.
In the UK, Muslims are creating ghettos where Sharia law rules. Police will not, or cannot, go into the ghettos.
So if we are taking refugees who want to be New Zealanders and want to copy and indulge in our culture, that is great.
But if we are being forced by the UN to take malcontents, then please let Harete Hipango at least speak on the multi-media.
WILLIAM PARTRIDGE
Hunterville
Engaging Fred
Fred's back! His millisphere (a discrete region inhabited by roughly one-thousandth of the world population) is a clever view of slices of our over-populated world.
His engaging style packs statistics, demographics and history into an accessible form.
The number of humans has doubled since 1970 and is expected to increase by 82 million this year, though growth is slowing.
New Zealand barely qualifies as one millisphere while some places, such as Java, pack in over a dozen.
NZ has about 39 people per square mile. China in contrast, has 518. Makes you think.
PETER RUSSELL
Whanganui
Fair refugee quota
I am writing to support J Turner's letter regarding the placement of 110 refugees per year in our fair city.
Our mayor, it seems, is out of touch with the reality.
He seems to think we have the housing capacity, jobs and support systems to cater for this influx. Is his head in the sand?
It's obvious there is an extreme rental shortage and it's a knife-edge situation. Crisis will be the outcome, I am sure.
Does he not listen to the spokesman for those refugees currently who says we don't have the capacity?
Anyway, where is the fairness? Out of 750, soon to be 1000, refugees (the NZ quota) we are getting more than 10 per cent.
So, mathematically speaking, 1 per 400 persons.
On that basis Auckland should get 3750 per year.
Could Auckland support that influx? I think not.
I am not advocating no refugees as they add to the colour, culture and vibrancy of our community.
Just not so many. Say 10?
ROB HAWORTH
Castlecliff
Unions and politics
Jim Bolger's fair pay report smacks of compulsory unionism.
We had that before, and it ended up with a go-slow, double-manned fiasco that resulted in a collapsing economy and loss of jobs.
That was in the days when union leaders wanted communism, and to achieve it were prepared to nail us to the wall.
Unions are different now but still don't always have their members' long-term interests in mind, and that won't change until they stick to their knitting and stop backing a political party.
When they back a party — Labour — they are using members' money, and this money comes from members regardless of whether they are Labour supporters or not.
This deal has to be opposed until the unions declare they will not give financial support to a particular party, and leave it to their members to decide who they support.
G R SCOWN
Whanganui
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