I think a managed retreat would be the most sensible answer. If anyone living in a flood-prone area wants to leave their house, they should get financial compensation to help them buy another one.
After all, it was all of us getting us into climate change!
It will be a huge burden financially, but in the long run it seems to me the only solution that makes sense.
ANNE MOHRDIECK
Whanganui
Super fund
As CEO of the NZ "Super" fund, Adrian Orr is understandably proud of the fund's growth since 2002. And I appreciate his response to my recent letter agreeing with Chester Borrows' comments on that "obscene" salary.
But that salary is not the central concern. The question is: do we even need the fund?
Mr Orr claims that I believe the Government paying off the public debt would make the fund unnecessary. As 97 per cent of the country's money supply is rented from the private banks in the first place, such an act would leave us bankrupt.
Unfortunately, our current cohort of MPs refuses to acknowledge that a sovereign government has the power and duty to supply a nation's means of exchange. So they refuse to condemn the $6 billion annual interest bill on Government debt, as disclosed by Social Credit Deputy Leader Chris Leitch in his speech at Waitangi last month.
Your readers can do the sums, i.e. multiply that $6 billion by the 15-16 years over which the fund has reached the much vaunted $33 billion. The result might prove rather disquieting.
HEATHER MARION SMITH
Gisborne
Science issues
Re Russ Hay (Letters, January 21). Mr Hay makes sweeping statements regarding the Bible's accuracy. He states that there are "flaws, contradictions and inconsistencies" within the scriptures, however he does not cite what the flaws, contradictions and inconsistencies are.
There are many who would tend to agree with him. However, this is due to a lack of understanding on the part of many who read the scriptures but don't look deeply into them to get the accurate meaning.
While it is true science has developed for the good in many areas, science does not know all the answers. It is only scraping the surface of knowledge. Science has also brought into existence a vast number of weapons that kill in huge numbers with little effort and it doesn't discriminate the good from the bad.
Along with this, scientists have fraudulently presented as fact, evidence of evolution -- example: the case of the Piltdown man, 1912, the so-called missing link.
For about 40 years this was accepted as genuine by most of the evolutionary community. Finally, in 1953, the hoax was uncovered when modern techniques revealed human and ape bones (chimpanzee) had been put together and artificially aged.
In another instance an apelike "missing link" was drawn up and presented in the press. But it was later acknowledged the "evidence" consisted of only one tooth that belonged to an extinct form of pig. This hardly inspires confidence in the evolutionary theory and those who support it.
There seems to be a great reliance on evolution in Mr Hay's account of how we got here. I would remind him it is called the "theory of evolution". A theory is an idea, not a fact.
Using the theory to answer the question "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Mr Hay also makes reference to the age of the Earth in relation to science and the Bible's account of creation. I find that there is no contention between the two accounts.
A ELLERY
Castlecliff
Wishful thinking
Bruce Moon condemns and belittles my Ngati Ruanui relations with a quote from comments he alleges were made by Te Rauparaha.
I have heard similar comments concerning the Waitotara tribes. We are all said to be rejects and outcasts from other tribes.
It's all wishful thinking on the part of the colonials who needed excuses to rob the natives of their lands and resources. There was no real justification for these criminal acts.
And again I must remind all that "The first casualty of war is the truth". To this day there are some who believe, and state, that the problems and disasters that have befallen Maori can be attributed to -- would you believe it? -- "evolution". Wow! Now there's a thought that needs to be strongly debated, but at some other time.
The real issue here and now is the orchestrated litany of lies perpetuated by the likes of Mr Moon. No single local tribe can be singled out and condemned. We are all related by our genealogy and genetics.
And those purportedly villainous and depraved Hauhau were totally justified in their response to the criminal activities of the settler government.
They were true patriots and must be given the same recognition as other freedom fighters. Like it or lump it, people.
POTONGA NEILSON
Castlecliff
