Much more relevant. Much more grounded. Much more worthy of celebration.
Go Matariki!
TERRY DOWDESWELL Whanganui
Your letters
Is tail wagging dog?
The Whanganui District Council's enthusiasm for divesting its responsibilities to third parties is interesting. Does the council do anything itself nowadays, other than regulatory and corporate services?
Any hope of having a lean, efficient operation has been lost in the rush to stand under the council money-shower while responsibility and accountability are diluted and surprisingly, council itself never appears to get smaller.
The illegal dumping of rubbish is an unfortunate side-effect of council having divested itself of responsibility for rubbish collection services, years ago.
The new "Tosser" sign ('Hot spots targeted', Chronicle, September 10) ticks the boxes perfectly by encouraging people to be guided by their conscience and do the right thing, but illegal dumping will still become a major issue if bag collection services are stopped.
Although wheelie bins are convenient, they don't encourage waste minimisation or recycling, and many households would not fill even the smallest wheelie bin before it flew itself away in the summer heat.
The council has put ratepayers at the mercy of a raft of third party suppliers ... The tail now wags the dog - as demonstrated by the proposal to do away with rubbish bags in just a few months.
If commercial rubbish collection services don't meet the expectations of ratepayers, the council must reinstate a weekly bag collection service, keep actively promoting recycling and waste minimisation, and extend the use of its smart new signs to discourage those who would prefer to foul our landscapes rather than be responsible.
A broader review of other third party services is also warranted. [Abridged]
Heather Marion Smith, Social Credit, says "We have always maintained that the Reserve Bank should fund the government and rejected the neo-liberal debt-funding model." (Chronicle, September 10)
I would love candidates to use language that's accessible to folk on the streets.
While I have an idea what neo-liberal means, it is political rhetoric and has varied meaning depending on its context, and on the agenda of who's using it.
