Letters to the Editor: Governments like to forget the past on housing

Governments like to ignore lessons from the past on housing, says a reader. Photo / File

Thank goodness for the rationale of Bryce Heard in his comment (Opinion, April 15).

Governments like it when the people forget the past, but I haven't forgotten when 35 years ago working for Housing Corp (a government department managing taxpayer-funded houses) began selling off state houses all over the country.

This might seem a long time ago, but it ignited and has perpetuated the problems we have now.

They were a gauge if you like, for housing. We need that back again big-time.

A Bates
Rotorua

Make a move on natural burials

Re natural burial (news, April 10).

I read with much interest that Whakatāne now has a natural burial grove, which means people can be laid to rest in a decomposable coffin or a shroud with a native tree planted above.

In time, that burial grove becomes a stand of native bush. What better resting place could there be?

Could Rotorua Lakes Council follow suit?

But please get a move on as I'm not getting any younger.

Eve Kilmore
Pukehangi

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Influence of violent games 'disturbing'

All-in fighting and boxing and all the violent films and computer games are encouraging violence among young and impressionable members of our society - and frankly, it is disturbing.

I remember the way we felt as youngsters, leaving the cinema after watching a cowboy film, or a war or cops-and-robbers film, always that feeling that we wanted to be like our heroes, to emulate the hero, to swagger, and to win the fight, the war - and that was after a couple of hours on a Saturday morning.

What goes through young heads after several hours of war games or space wars on the computer screen?

Are we indoctrinating our children - brainwashing them into feelings of violence, of having to kill vast amounts of enemies?

This is exactly what we are doing, brainwashing them - ask any psychiatrist and I am sure they will agree, computer screens are the platform for hypnosis - past leaders such as Hitler or Stalin knew how to encourage followers.

Is this what we are inadvertently doing to our children?

Worrying.

Jim Adams
Rotorua