SeniorNet Whanganui aims to help older people get up to speed with the latest internet technology including banking. Photo / file
SeniorNet Whanganui aims to help older people get up to speed with the latest internet technology including banking. Photo / file
Cost of staying connected
I absolutely concur with concerns in today's Chronicle about digital technology leaving some behind. ('Digital banking tough on seniors', September 11)
What the piece fails to mention is that a prime difficulty for many of the financially vulnerable is the cost to stay connected.
Tools of this technology have a very short life and upgrades are increasingly expensive, not even beginning to address the waste involved with rapidly redundant tech.
Also, how many others in Whanganui share my frustration of poor cellphone connectivity? In Gonville I often can't receive a phone call on my modern iPhone due to poor connectivity. The call goes straight to voicemail, even as its handset sits right beside me. Texts often don't send.
When querying this with my provider I'm told to walk around the house till I find a signal. Turns out it's not great for my phone to be left in the corner of the garden overnight so I can get a call about whether or not I'm working in the morning. And 5G won't help this. It will just mean we all need brand new devices.
CHANNA MIRIAM KNUCKEY Gonville
You may say I'm a dreamer
Imagine if somehow we could magically do away with the self interest of the people selected to govern and act in the interests of our country whilst they remained focused on the real issues.
If those we selected were actually qualified to address those issues. Where partisan and party politics didn't exist and only a group of qualified and dedicated individuals, focused solely on the relevant issues with no particular benefits accruing to any of them for the implementation of an idea for the betterment of our country.
I believe it is the divisive and self-serving nature of competitive party politics that is responsible for the lack of resolution of our most pressing problems and is responsible for the lack of dedication to the issues at hand, in the democratic process.
We are led to believe this system of competitive party politics with an opposition elected is to facilitate in keeping a governing body honest and accountable.
But is that what we actually witness in the self-serving nature of such a system and the ever-present politicking with personal and party gain always to the fore?
As the John Lennon song goes, I am only imagining. I'll leave it up to those more able and qualified, if ever that which is imagined is willed and implemented somehow to become a reality in the interests of people and a better country and world.
PAUL BABER Whanganui
Your letters
Our rates burden
Horizons is at it again, not playing the ball with a straight bat! ('Confused about rates?', Chronicle, September 5) Who cares if the Horizons region is paying a minor increase in regional rates?
What our ratepayers want to know is how much our district is paying more this year, simple answer we are paying 12.3 per cent more - the second to highest in the region ... I wonder why only councillor David Cotton is jumping up and down?
BOB WALKER Retired Horizons regional councillor St Johns Hill
