Today's Letters to the Editor from readers cover topics including concern for businesses if the Albany St cycleway goes ahead, the right to vote and a great exhibition.
‘Green woke idealism’ puts businesses at risk
I offer my support to the business operators of Albany St facing the proposed parking changes to the contentious cycleway.
Trying to encourage retail shoppers foot traffic in a shopping district is a fool’s errand. People don’t shop in retail and hospitality districts, cars do, thus plentiful and convenient car parking is essential to the survival of these business operators and the security of their staff’s ongoing employment.
The proposed Albany St cycleway project is nothing other than in the name of green woke idealism and will put every business at risk.
A classic example of this sort of nonsense can be seen in Tauranga, where the council is re-visiting the rationalisation of retail district car parking and re-engaging with businesses.
Our council must be more proactive, rather than reactive, to all our business operators and we can only hope that there is distinctive shift in the mindset post the forthcoming local body elections.
Greg Glendining
Dunedin
Hill suburbs
Cr O’Malley has an obsession with cycling. The sooner he notices Dunedin ratepayers live on the side of hills or on the other side of hills the better. Dunedin residents who live in flat areas do so for multiple reasons but not because they ride bicycles.
Ratepayers are sick of money wasted on vanity projects when more urgent important work is required for health and safety of some of our residents. Decisions as important as this should be left for an incoming council not rushed through just before an election.
Mary Robertson
Dunedin
Temporary address
Metiria Stanton Turei's opinion piece (ODT 8.8.25) was another worthy piece of reading. However I agree with correspondent Gaye Gardner from Alexandra that not being able to enrol late is not disadvantaging anyone but those who cannot be bothered getting organised.
A late enrolment to me means the person has likely not studied the candidates and what they stand for, which is not participating properly in your democratic right to vote. Just trying to get a more efficient system with this law change does not mean anyone is disenfranchised.
But prisoners are still citizens, who are being punished for crime and hopefully rehabilitated, and their citizenship is a separate issue and should not be part of a punishment.
Your temporary address should not stop you from voting locally or nationally, that is an example of disenfranchising.
Ian McGimpsey
Owaka
Respond to invite
I am disappointed that the leaders responsible for the Covid response have declined an invitation to attend in person and answer questions.
Many people still have mistrust and suspicion regarding decisions made during Covid. If the decision-makers did appear it may alleviate some of this mistrust.
Many people were hurt, felt abandoned and alienated. In addition they were called conspiracy theorists and misinformed. All were New Zealanders who felt their basic human rights were abused. When people are accused of these things and not listened to it just entrenches their beliefs, whether right or wrong.
This is not about right or wrong decisions, it is acknowledging the real trauma caused to many.
If we are going to tackle future pandemics there must be greater unity and open debate.
Many felt totally shut down from expressing their real concerns and opinions.
Alan Paterson
North East Valley
Of great exhibitions and electric sandwiches
Thanks Otago Daily Times for Paul Gorman's timely article on the 100-year anniversary of the New Zealand International South Seas Exhibition. (The Weekend Mix, 16.8.25).
My late parents often spoke about it. My mother worked as a telephone exchange operator.
A special manual exchange had been installed to cope with the extra calls and she said the temporary equipment gave unwary operators electric shocks. My father's favourite amusement park ride was ‘‘The Whip'’.
I have a gold-framed picture of ‘‘The Grand Dome at Night’’. On the back are the words: ‘‘This picture was won on the last day of the exhibition.'’
The event showed the extraordinary vision of Dunedin's civic leaders at the time.
My regret is that the exhibition was temporary and not permanent. Imagine still having those buildings today.
Graeme Clode
St Kilda
Smart devices
The New Zealand Secondary Industries Pavilion from the 1925 Exhibition (100 Years Ago 12.8.25) gave us the promise of electric sandwiches in which the bread is cut and butter spread without any human agency, and likewise meat is prepared.
The Tramp, in Modern Times (1936), comically demonstrated the same banality and injudiciousness of automatisation.
Woefully, 100 years on, our aesthetic faculties and very imagination is now subject to infantilisation and enslavement through AI and, paradoxically, ‘‘smart’' devices.
Irian Scott
Port Chalmers
Being clear on who is standing up for whom
I do not consider that the ODT should publish letters that either deliberately or through ignorance misrepresent the views of others, such as Russell Garbutt's letter (15.8.25) which is deliberately inflammatory.
He claimed that the Greens' ‘‘vehemently support Hamas’’ when it is clearly the Palestinian people the Greens are standing up for, as I presume Russell Garbutt well knows. Many would probably agree with his comments without any reference to Hamas.
Peter de Boer
Broad Bay
Speaking out
The Israeli government and their local apologists choose not to distinguish between Hamas, the perpetrators of the October 7 atrocity, and the Palestinian people at large.
The result is possibly the most blatant and shameless war crime of our generation: retribution on a population by bombing their homes, hospitals and universities, by starving their children, and by repeated forced displacement.
We should be grateful to leaders who speak clearly on this. The rest have their conscience and ultimately the voters to contend with.
Murray Efford
Wakari
Bad neighbours
Even the most optimistic observer can surely see that President Trump putting the onus now on Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy to find peace is turning negotiations on their head.
The US leader failed to get what he wanted in his Alaska meeting with Russia’s Putin - a ceasefire - drops his threats against Russia and reportedly says now it’s Zelenskyy who on his revisit to Washington needs to find a final solution for peace. No wonder Putin is smiling.
It’s a sorry state of affairs after a peaceful democracy has been invaded and pummelled for more than three years by its bully of a neighbour.
Graeme Pennell
Maori Hill
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
