Your views: Readers' letters

It is not the council's role to try to reduce the number of smokers in our community.

Smoking in public

Most of us would agree the number of people who still smoke in Whanganui or anywhere in NZ is a major issue.

It affects all of us, as it comes with a huge cost to our health system.

Those who still choose to inhale this toxic smoke will likely not agree, despite the evidence of damage they cause.

Smokers affect our ability to enjoy our public spaces, as they force us to inhale second-hand smoke.

And for the most part they still get the prime spots, spoiling the outdoor dining areas we would like to enjoy during most of our year due to our temperate climate.

So it is important our council is clear about the role it can play.

It is not the council's role to try to reduce the number of smokers in our community.

So they should not wring their hands over a 2010 bylaw's inability to reduce the number of smokers, as it was clearly never going to do that.

The role of reducing the number of smokers belongs to the Government which set their target and funded agencies to help achieve it.

That is why a new council policy about smoking in outdoor places was put in place in 2014.

While enforcing non-smoking was seen as difficult back then, the policy gave people the confidence to ask others not to smoke around them in public places.

Peer pressure is a wonderful thing.

The success of this led to proposals last year to strengthen that by further reducing public opportunities for smokers to affect others.

Whanganui was the first local authority to use the processes available to do anything about this, and it is good to see that research shows the majority of us support them continuing to play their part in reducing harm to their community.

I look forward to everyone being able to confidently frown or raise an eyebrow at people who spoil the enjoyment of their favourite places.

And I look forward to the day when I never have to ask anyone to stop smoking in a place where I am present. (Abridged)

ANNETTE MAIN
Whanganui

Just think

I regularly read the letters page and follow, with a bystander's interest, the likes of G Scown's right-wing nonsense about anything with a social conscience, or dear old Potonga's ongoing crusade.

Even the increasingly boring tennis rally between the creationists and evolutionists has some merit, but I must take issue with William Partridge and his attack on the erudite and caring Keith Beautrais' article about Education for Sustainability (EFS), among other things.

Had William researched more carefully, he would know concern for the environment is merely one of four pillars of EFS, the others being social, cultural and economic sustainability.

Each is merely asking people to think about how they should live in this world in a way that would still allow future generations to have the same quality of life that they enjoy.

Certainly, wholesale destruction of the natural world that is happening at present features in some of the standards, but in all cases the students are encouraged to research and read widely to reach their own conclusions.

I should know. I introduced and taught EFS at a local high school for many years before retirement.

At no time did I, or any of my colleagues, present an unbalanced and dogmatic picture to the student.

It should seem obvious that our current world, with the increasing economic inequality, social and cultural intolerance and violence as a response to each of these cannot be, by definition, sustainable.

Keith merely asked people to think and, having done some thinking, make the only sensible decisions. (Abridged)

M H CARROLL
Whanganui