Letters to the editor: Ports of Auckland, banks, road toll and Destiny Church

Ports of Auckland should re-berth at Te Atatu

The only real option for shifting the POA is to the land that it currently owns at Te Atatu alongside the Northwest motorway.

A spur rail link can be constructed from there to the rail yards at Henderson via the Henderson Creek at a reasonable cost, eliminating the billions of dollars plus needed to just upgrade and double track the North Auckland line alone.

Last year there were 973,000 TEU's landed in Auckland (and port traffic is said to grow 5 per cent annually for the immediate future ). Based on these numbers, that is 111 container movements every hour by road or rail.

If the POA was moved to Marsden Point there would be approximately one container travelling down that line every 32 seconds to Auckland and another same number back to Marsden Point for exporting.

The POA currently provided the Auckland Council a $78.6 million dividend which would have to be made up from other sources.

The Te Atatu land has been owned, firstly by the Auckland Harbour Board and now the POA since the 1940s for exactly this purpose. Why not get on with that task?

One of major drawback is the Waitemata Harbour would need constant dredging but, with modern technologies, the spoil can be used for hardfill and other purposes.

The current port land once cleared can be utilised for more appropriate purposes, housing infrastructure , recreational purposes etc and the money gleaned that these uses can be used to offset the massive costs of moving. Auckland City can still benefit from the income that the ports generate whilst solving a headache that needs to be addressed.

Ross Harvey, Remuera

Bank locally

Bill Mathews (NZ Herald, April 30) is correct

that we can easily stem a massive flow of money out of New Zealand every year.

All we need to do is change from an Australian-owned bank to a New Zealand-owned bank. We should all do it.

Indeed the Government can play its part too. I have heard the argument that no New Zealand bank is large enough to handle Government funds.

But what they could do is transfer the smaller government departments and steadily shift more departments as the local banks grow in size.

Brian Taylor, Lynfield

Brain fade

Head-on highway smashes are big in the news right now. I was in the next car behind one last Sunday afternoon. It was so unexpected. We were fourth in a stream, slowing as the first two turned left down the leg of a T-junction. The third car continued on, but a stationary opposing car suddenly started to turn right, and they hit head-on. My 19-year-old male driver instantly swerved right to avoid becoming meat in a sandwich from behind us.

Clearly the cause was not deliberate recklessness, but apparently some kind of brief blindness or brain-fade. The light was good, and cloudy, with no royal sunshine available to blame. No laws can prevent this. Only passive safety, like seat-belts and airbags and crumple-zones, can help protect you. Be careful out there.

Jim Carlyle, Te Atatu Peninsula

Man Up

Any chance of Destiny Church having its Man Up programme accepted by Corrections NZ must have surely evaporated following Brian Tamaki's

(NZ Herald, April 30). If he is going to prophesy violence just because he can't get his own way, then clearly he and the Destiny Church are unfit to be awarded any government contract. Perhaps he needs to do the Man Up programme himself.

Craig Wedge, Auckland

Anzac Day

Thank you to John Roughan for

for tolerance on Anzac Day (

NZ Herald

, April 29), although there is dispute about whether the words of Kemal Ataturk to the mothers of New Zealand were indeed all written by him. However, Roughan was right to highlight the generosity of the Turkish people in welcoming people to Gallipoli.

In fact, Catherine O'Donnell, who is thought to be the first mother of a deceased New Zealand soldier to visit Gallipoli, was welcomed to place a wreath on the shore in 1924 once she explained her purpose. Her son, Jack O'Donnell, was killed at the Battle of the Landing and is buried at Plugge's Plateau at Anzac Cove. New Zealand unveiled its memorial at Chunuk Bair in 1925. Turkey officially agreed to the renaming of Anzac Cove from Ari Burnu in 1985.

We must remember that Gallipoli is just as much a pilgrimage site for the Turkish people - who had nearly a quarter of a million men wounded and injured during the campaign - as Australians and New Zealanders which makes their generosity all the more remarkable.

Roughan is right to argue that a Muslim prayer would have been appropriate on Anzac Day - not so much because New Zealand fought against Muslims, but because there were Muslims fighting alongside Anzacs. The British and the French had Muslim soldiers from their colonies. In fact what may have been the first attempt at a propaganda war occurred on May 27, 1915, when the Turkish flew planes over the allied lines and dropped leaflets in Urdu inviting Indian soldiers not to fight againt their Muslim brothers.

Sandra Coney, Waitākere

Dancing bare

Dancing with the Stars

could have easily be called Dancing with Shirts Off until Glen Osborne turned up looking classy and professional in a stunning shirt (buttoned up) and suit with tails and nailed it.

Memo to Mike McRoberts: Find a shirt with buttons and stick to the dancing for great charities.

Dave Miller, Rotorua

Notre Dame

Correspondents from time to time feel the need to question the "unimaginable" wealth of the Vatican, as Annemarie McCambridge did today. The Vatican is not the financial reservoir of the weekly financial sacrifices of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics, but, even if it were, the value of its art treasures would probably total no more than $10 or $20 for each Catholic. Lovers of beauty willingly pay to enjoy this imagination-stretching wealth which, added to the income from the Vatican's estimated investments, is needed for the upkeep of this sovereign state.

Charities under the umbrella of the Vatican such as Caritas and innumerable others contribute much more every year than these combined capital values to alleviate poverty and sickness around the world.

Notre Dame was built over hundreds of years by the faith and donations of ordinary folk like you and me, and as ownership of all cathedrals was seized by the state among the notorieties of the French Revolution, it is now up to the French state to finance the restoration of one of its financial jewels.

The really unimaginable wealth of the Vatican lies in the fact that it is the symbolic headquarters of the faith that built western civilisation.

Tony Molloy, Morrinsville

Air travel

Minor changes in individual lives won't suffice to prevent the climate catastrophe we're headed for. But David Stevenson

(

NZ Herald

, April 29). We would have a better chance if governments made the political decision to declare a climate emergency and acted accordingly. Our PM could start by banning air travel for all MPs below ministerial level. An emergency calls for extreme measures. Limiting air travel would be a meaningful start and set a precedent for other organisations.

Pat Baskett, Okura

Auckland waterfront

I must be living in a different Auckland to Viv Beck of Heart of the City.

The "beautiful waterfront" she

(NZ Herald, April 30) surely cannot be what I saw waiting for the Rangitoto ferry last Friday.

Apart from the old ferry building I could not see one building with any significant aesthetic attribute to it. The ugliness of some of our buildings is so extreme they could scarcely be worse if it was intentional.

The water was virtually opaque with sediment and stank with some putrid miasma emanating from it that I cannot begin to properly describe. Even at Rangitoto, there would have been barely one metre visibility in the sea.

As far as downtown Auckland is concerned I might - if absolutely necessary - go through it, but there is nothing there of any sort that would make me want to actually go to it.

John Christiansen, Mt Albert

Breast cancer

Thanks to your publicity, the public have been told of the shocking treatment of many women with advanced breast cancer being denied the latest drugs that can help these desperate women. The CEO who manages the budget supplied by the government treasury has told us quite plainly that her department is short of funding, spends their budget for the treatment of those most likely to survive - and this does not include those women with advanced breast cancer. Because of low survival rates!

This is a shocking disgraceful disgusting statement. I have emailed Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern about my concern for these disregarded, deserving women. I received a prompt reply from her secretary acknowledging my email and saying my concern has been passed on to the Minister of Health. That also has been acknowledged and I am waiting for his response.

Meanwhile, some three women are dying from breast cancer per week, 300 a year. A public appeal should be started for these women who deserve every positive chance of extending their life and their quality of life, and the possibility of remission. In a word: Hope.

Eric Strickett, Henderson

Short & Sweet

On council

I really have had enough of all this council bashing that has been going on. When 50 per cent of the income from our rates goes to council wages, and another 24 per cent goes on servicing its debts, that leaves only 26 per cent to do everything else. Give them a break.

L.H. Cleverly, Mt Roskill

On surplus

So the Government has a $2.5 billion surplus? Good, now they can afford to fully fund St John's Ambulance.

C.C. McDowall, Rotorua

On roads

Why not work with the organisations in the countries where they do manage to bring down the road toll? Why, oh, why not?

Reynout de Court, Onehunga

Every single driver in the country must examine their conscience to ensure that none is responsible for putting others at risk.
Liz Siber, Hamilton
On Destiny
Until the self-styled "Bishop" can demonstrate his credentials to have a right to bypass the correct procedures for dipping into the taxpayer's pocket by walking across from Devonport to the Ferry Building, no key to the vault.
P.D. Patten, Albany
On expressions
A. Albiston ( NZ Herald , April 30) asks if stupid expressions can be banned. I doubt it and nor should they. Banned? No. Ridiculed? Certainly.
P.K. Ellwood, Beach Haven
On GOT
The best news about Game of Throne s nearing its conclusion is that I'll soon be able to do something I've been thinking of for a long time - finally get rid of my Sky TV subscription!
Allan Gyde, Tauranga