Chronicle readers share their opinions on the Whanganui River's new legal status and more. . . .
Misunderstood
The Hobson's Pledge criticism of the Whanganui River person certainly got a few yelps out of columnist Rachel Stewart, who appears not to understand the settlement.
Perhaps Stewart thinks that by making this river a person and throwing money at it, a transformation from green and greasy to pristine would miraculously occur.
Not so. According to the settlement summary, $81 million plus interest has gone to tribes to stop complaints about past alleged misdeeds by the Crown, such as disregarding eel weirs during dredging and assuming free use of the river and the bed that it sits on.
A further $30 million goes to set up a fund from which interested parties may get grants for the river's wellbeing.
A further $200,000 a year for 20 years will fund a two-person board known as the "human face" - presumably $100,000 a year each.
A further $430,000 to develop a strategy document on the wellbeing of the river person.
We have gone down this track already with the $211.8 million Waikato River settlement in 2010, which brought complaints last year about the lack of progress in the claimed river clean-up.
Stewart's venomous rant shows that criticism of our new river person has shaken her personal beliefs.
MIKE BUTLER
Hastings
Culpable river?
Now that the river has been given legal status as a person, can it be charged with murder when someone drowns in it?
GRAEME SMITH
Gonville
What next?
So now the Whanganui River is a legal person, what is a legal person? A legal person has all the rights, duties and liabilities of a person but is not a natural person, a human being.
When it comes to understanding the river's new rights and responsibilities, it's easiest to think of it like you'd think of a company.
Basically, the same tax rules apply to it as apply to other legal persons.
It probably depends on what it does, but if it starts supplying goods or services it will have the same GST responsibilities as a company would, or would the river be on a benefit or collect the dole?
Has anyone thought this is a load of rubbish besides me? Doesn't it tell you what idiots we have in power who would support this? What will be next?
I would hope now that the owners of any property affected by flooding will be able to sue for damages from Maori and the Government.
Hands up how many people have been sucked into this. If most of you are, then the country is doomed.
IAN BROUGHAM
Tawhero
Helmeted thinking
It is sad that David Bennett has problems with the personification of the natural world as reflected in the granting of legal person status to our river.
Once his ancestors would have respected "mother Nature" and the spirits of the woods and rivers.
Abandoning that world view has seen a massive decline in the state of the environment.
Now it is not surprising that the great wisdom embodied in local iwi's relationship with the river has swayed Parliament and been praised around the world for the example it sets.
New iwi leaders such as Gerard Albert and Che Wilson have much to teach us, David, so perhaps it is time to take off your monocultural helmet and join the celebration of an internationally significant breakthrough from our own home region.
KEITH BEAUTRAIS
Westmere
Close to the mark
Regarding Rachel Stewart's article (Chronicle, March 7) I am sure she intended to be facetious about our river, but I fear she is very near the mark.
This river is now an identity in its own right, which means it can charge for its use for any purpose.
On the other hand, being an entity with the rights and responsibilities of a person, it must be liable for its actions, like flooding of roads and houses.
Or is this the biggest load of rubbish ever perpetrated by a Solicitor-General in the history of New Zealand to pander to the Maori vote?
An explanation would be very welcome from anyone in the legal profession.
PETER SMITH
Whanganui
Poor decision
I see former regional councillor Bob Walker is still trying to justify a poor decision he and his colleagues made years ago - refusing to increase the height of stopbanks along Anzac Parade.
This decision, to this day, drastically affects the lives of many homeowners, businesses, girls' college and Kowhai Park.
While Mr Walker is concerned about a few extra dollars on his rates bill, I am concerned about the stress on people in this community who have to suffer from Mr Walker's economically challenged, pie-in-the-sky "managed retreat" hoo-ha.
For him to say stopbanks do not work is bizarre. They certainly do not work all the time, but they do work most of the time if built to an adequate height for the location - and that certainly is not the case here.
If Mr Walker and his council had raised these stopbanks by less than a metre, we would not be having this debate today.
Mr Walker's faulty logic about managed retreat was not disregarded by the Whanganui District Council because it fitted into a too-hard basket; it was ignored because of simple economics - why spend up to $30 million when a $7 million stopbank would do the job?
If Mr Walker understood flood plains, he would also be calling for a managed retreat along Taupo Quay, also a natural flood plain.
Neither does Whanganui need the 500-year protection that Palmerston North has, but it does need a reasonable level of protection.
It is unbecoming of Mr Walker to suggest a self-centred financial interest as my motivation.
Properties along Anzac Parade have already sold for fair market prices since the flood. I have no interest in my property as an investment - I have investments all over the world.
But I loved this little home, as did my mother. At nearly 80 years of age, however, she did not want to go through that trauma another time, so I bought it off her.
Nor is my investment at risk. I have full insurance and no intention of selling.
STEVE BARON
Whanganui
Truth and lies
Terry Sarten (Chronicle, March 11) usually writes an interesting and thoughtful column, but to label groups of people as supporters of truth or lies based on their political, social or religious views is the worst kind of sweeping generalisation.
Lumping people he doesn't agree with into a group and describing that group as supporters of lies is disingenuous at best. Most of us know that people from all viewpoints may be truthful or liars. And as [House TV show character] Dr House put it, "Everybody lies."
Show me someone who claims never to have lied, and I will show you the worst liar of all.
MANDY DONNE-LEE
Aramoho
Fishing cameras
Moana New Zealand CEO Carl Carrington's letter of March 17 was reassuring.
His statement that not all vessels have cameras aboard but the Government's proposed IEMRS system is intended to cover the whole fleet is good news indeed.
It will ensure that the collapse which affected the northern fisheries so badly will not be repeated here in the south.
DARRELL GRACE
St John's Hill
Dog on the loose
If columnist Fred Frederikse (Chronicle, March 20) continues his bizarre practice of letting his dog roam uncontrolled, he is going to be a short-term dog owner in his new rural home.
Fred would appear to be a slow learner. It seems his dog repeatedly managed to access and kill several animals cared for by other people. Or were they all his own family animals?
Either way, little remorse or common sense seems evident in his column. He states he already knew the dog killed what it could get to before he owned it.
Why on earth was this dog not kept on a leash when not on its own - hopefully, fully fenced - home property?
Any neighbouring chook run or lambing paddock his dog enters from now on may be the last place it ever goes.
L MARTIN
Whanganui
Deluded claims
I do not intend to indulge in name-calling with Potonga Neilson, but if there is an "orchestrated litany of lies," it comes from his pen, not mine.
Te Rauparaha did make the statements I quoted about Ngati Ruanui being a degraded tribe - no need for me to "allege" it. If they are Potonga's relations, perhaps that speaks for itself.
Neilson becomes more and more deluded with his claims of "criminal activities of the settler government", "criminal acts" of colonists and so on.
If he knew anything about history, he would know that it was the Waikato tribes who devastated the population of Taranaki and that they, like many Hauhau, were cannibals.
It was the British who were the salvation of the Maori race, which had been well on the way to exterminating itself.
BRUCE MOON
Nelson
He lost an arm and a leg in a crash that killed three friends.