Letters: The numbers speak for themselves

The RDRR has a continued level of support from Rotorua residents, says a reader. Photo / File

I note Keith Garratt's questions (Letters, June 15). Once again, instead of engaging with the many positive suggestions from the RDRR, he tries to distract attention with a relatively trivial issue, in my view; the size and nature of our growing membership.

The pertinent facts are that, with a membership of about 250 at the 2016 election, our endorsed candidates attracted about 42,000 votes. The most recent count of equivalent memberships is 777. Our Facebook friends list hit the 5000 ceiling long ago.

Two key questions are how these numbers compare to other district political organisations and why.

Informants tell me that the National Party membership in our district is about 250. The Labour Party membership does not get into triple figures. On this comparative basis RDRR legitimately speaks for local residents and ratepayers.

Why this significant level of support? The answer seems to lie in three simple propositions.

First is our preliminary vision: Making Rotorua a Better Place for Everyone.

Second is our long-term commitment to particular governance values; democracy, the rule of law, financial responsibility and returning policy-making power to elected representatives.

Third is the clarity of our priorities summarised at our Facebook page as Issues and Preliminary Positions.

Reynold Macpherson
Mayoral candidate for Rotorua

Silence on Uighur persecution

We recently celebrated our contribution to D-Day, the day we helped free the world of death camps and tyranny.

How odd then that our major trading partner and chief foreign investor should be engaged in precisely the same death camps, tyranny and ethnic extermination that the Nazi, Marxist and Italian fascist regimes exercised 80-odd years ago.

The People's Republic of China, called the Middle Kingdom in their own parlance, currently detains, tortures and executes millions of ethnic Muslims in Xinjiang province.

We bathed ourselves in sympathy for the followers of Mahommet who died at the hand of an Australian last month, but we are strangely silent on the plight of their brethren whose cries are lost in the cruel winds of Xinjiang.

Because why?

GJ Philip
Taupō

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