Councils need to address the tourist companies that hire out these small vans and make them accountable. These are the minority that spoil it for people like us. Councils need to provide access after hours to public toilets/shower (coin-operated) with several small recycle bins nearby, situated within these designated camping self-contained areas. A great model for this is Napier, at their Clifton site.
So good on you, Hamish. You, too, know what the freedom to explore is all about. Why not develop the larger council carpark near the river especially for this purpose?
The dog pound won't be bringing money into Wanganui via tourism, so by creating an area where people can safely stay, dispose of their small amount of recycling, use a toilet/shower, all coin-operated, happy tourists will stay and spend money in our community. User pays, and still a win-win for council, business owners in the CBD and ratepayers.
Rob Vinsen, sounds like you need to get in a bus/mobile home, chill out and experience a bit of freedom.
(Abridged)
KELLY JORDAN
Okoia
Pacific aid
Wow, I and probably half of the country would like to know where this Government is finding many millions of dollars to give away to our Pacific neighbours.
My reason: We in New Zealand should come first when giving away money.
What about, say, Collingwood? The cyclone isolated them for days, no way in or out, the farmers cut their own road for the milk tankers.
Then the Parapara Rd (locally) closed, and it will happen every time in severe storms.
And then the Manawatu Gorge, which may never open again, so why not upgrade the Saddle Rd or Pahiatua Track? This is the only road linking East to West.
These are only three examples that could have some of these millions. We haven't heard of any Government money in the past few weeks helping these areas out.
I do feel for the Pacific Islands, but New Zealand should come first. If the Government doesn't look after NZ, we will become the next Third World country in a few years.
AILSA DICKSON
Marton
Abortion claims
Russ Hay's swipe at Ken Orr includes very broad attacks on the Catholic Church, the truth, and science, all apparently to promote abortion.
I was surprised Russ would claim the Catholic Church "sought alliance" with "absolute rulers", specifically Hitler.
The Catholic Church opposed Hitler, and the best example of this is Pope Pius XII, who warned the German people against Hitler early on and continued to oppose him all the way through. As Jewish historians, among others, have pointed out, Pius XII was responsible for saving more Jewish lives during World War II than all the Allies combined.
Even stranger is Russ attacking the Catholic Church for suggesting the soul of a child is there from the moment of conception, and his claim that the Church is thereby "accelerating the initial stages of uterine growth to 'human' ..."
Modern science tells us the baby is a human life from the moment of conception. That the Church and philosophers tend to the view that the soul would be created at the same moment as the body is simply logical.
Some years ago a bioethicist told me that every medical professional and scientist he spoke to agreed the child is a human life from the moment of conception, until they wanted to do something to the child. Suddenly they changed to speaking of "personhood", "viability" or other such ways of getting around the fact that they wanted to harm the human life they had just been talking about.
Russ does something similar, suggesting they are not human until the "earliest signs of consciousness" which he places at 26 weeks of age. It has been proven that the child can feel pain before 20 weeks of age, and there are children who have survived after being delivered at only 22 weeks.
Russ further refers to "abnormalities" that call into question "the reasonable viability of a continued pregnancy". If the pregnancy is not viable, it ends in a miscarriage. That is different to deliberately ending the life of the child because it is inconvenient or may not be "perfect".
K A BENFELL
Gonville
