G R SCOWN
Whanganui
Police chase terrifying
Visiting relatives in Whanganui on Boxing Day, we saw a terrifying high-speed chase by a number of police cars.
They passed the intersection of Anzac Parade and Talbot St and continued at the same pace into the city, in pursuit of a vehicle also at speed but well ahead of them.
One police car even passed an oncoming vehicle on its left-hand side, risking God knows what. There were local children about on the footpaths and cycling.
In the light of police insistence on road safety, this behaviour can have no excuse whatsoever.
A copy of this letter will be sent to the Police Complaints Authority and its minister.
JOHN BLINKHORNE
Waiheke Island
NZ seafarers ignored
Interislander, operators of "New Zealand's" ferries, are advertising for two masters with a promise of assistance with visa and relocation costs!
Once again, local seafarers will be ignored and now taxpayers' funds used to bring foreign captains to New Zealand to fill a high-salary position. The last overseas appointment was in 2016 when a lucky elderly gentleman was offered a master's position at the age of 67.
Interislander informed ships officers' representatives that no one else was available from within New Zealand. That was simply not true then or now.
The Government-owned company is now dominated by senior officers from out of New Zealand, brought here on visas in the last six years.
Training of existing staff is neglected and the pool of intellectual knowledge in the maritime industry in this country largely dismissed in this new wave of colonialism. It is disappointing that the KiwiRail board, as well as ministers of transport and immigration, have allowed this situation to evolve.
GRAEME SHEPHERD
Patea
Wheelies sidelined
I'm a wheelchair user and pay full price for tickets at public venues, full rates on property and full taxes. So I don't feel grateful to be sent to an afterthought position at the side and/or back of an auditorium.
The underlying attitude seems to be that wheelchair users are lucky to be accommodated at all. What we pay full price for is, after all, merely the floor space, since we provide our own seats, so perhaps we should receive a discount, not some otherwise unsaleable outer spot behind a pole.
Fire safety is no reason, since we are far quicker than many, and we prepare for access far more carefully than we ever did when we walked everywhere.
I seldom go to the Davis Lecture Theatre because I don't want to bother staff about access through the museum.
I-Site closes at 6pm so ramp access to the cafe is shut. Wheelies are customers — many of us are loyal ones — but we don't return to restaurants with locked or blocked ramps, shops with cluttered floors or inaccessible public buildings.
Wheelies are not a cost to businesses and community; we are working, contributing citizens who provide a return on investment.
FELICITY CAMPBELL
Whanganui
Early history
Phillip Thomson (letter, December 21) knows his history.
He is right in everything he has written when he says there were people here before the Māori.
This leaked document that Phillip has mentioned is the sale of Whanganui, which the Māori chiefs sold to the Europeans. No wonder this document was supposed to be in secret. The block sold contained 80,000 acres.
Māori never owned land, as they only occupied it until other tribes invaded and took it off them.
In Whanganui, in May 1840, Edward Jerningham Wakefield purchased 40,000 acres of land on the banks of the lower Whanganui River from 27 chiefs.
The natives believed in the existence of other beings who lived in communities and built pas; these people were called Patupaiarehe.
Māori originally took the land off the earlier inhabitants.
IAN BROUGHAM
Tawhero
Send your letters to: The Editor, Whanganui Chronicle, 100 Guyton St, PO Box 433, Whanganui 4500; or email editor@wanganuichronicle.co.nz
