Who brought whom into disrepute?
Most residents, ratepayers and business owners would be more than happy to have a progressive mayor leading our city.
However I was disgusted when I read that two experienced councillors had brought a Code of Conduct complaint against this mayor and another councillor.
It was definitely not the mayor (nor this supportive councillor) who brought the DCC into “disrepute’’. Surely the two unhappy councillors are the culprits.
Do they not know that when you set out to take another person down it is well known that you must be prepared to dig two graves (and in this case three)?
This matter should have been addressed and sorted in a brief meeting, behind closed doors. The ODT reporters, residents and more especially the expensive lawyers should not have been dragged into a matter of the past.
It is time to tell the ratepayers how much these lawyers cost and who paid for the hearing?
Before the next local body elections all voters should research how all present councillors have conducted themselves and also how each has voted on the important issues which have affected the livelihoods and future of our city.
Bernice Armstrong
North East Valley
Back in my day
When I was a young boy the Central Otago railway line ran about the length of a football field away from our house. Many times we used this train to travel to Dunedin and back.
Then someone had the idea to pull up the track inland from Middlemarch and now it has been turned into a cycleway. By doing this we have more trucks on the road.
Now we have someone wanting to pull up the rest of the line from Middlemarch to Dunedin for a cycleway.
Back in the late 1900s we had people coming over to view our country. There were some from America who travelled that railway and their comments to my father were that the Grand Canyon in the USA was nothing on what they saw through the Taieri Gorge. Please leave this railway line as it is now and get out on the road like your forefathers.
Bruce Cromb
Green Island
Under the big top
If anyone wants to see a three-ring circus on television, just tune into the parliamentary broadcast.
The stars of the show are the Māori and Green Party members whose lack of political awareness is surpassed by their dress sense.
If you voted for this rabble you need to take a hard look at yourself.
Dave Tackney
Fairfield
Language matters
How disappointing to read Metiria Stanton Turei’s opinion piece (ODT 15.12.23) claiming the coalition government is “destroying te reo.’’
To claim that Winston Peters, Shane Jones, Casey Costello and David Seymour, all of whom are considered Maori, are setting forth to attack the language and all Maori cultural practices, hoping to achieve the destruction of the very language and cultural practices to which they are inextricably aligned, is ludicrous. They, like 99.9% of all New Zealanders are proud to have te reo as an official New Zealand language.
The people she should be directing her published views at are those that in their enthusiasm to promote te reo are actually abusing it.
It is the behaviour of government department directives adopting a kind of public education programme of naming every place, every building, every department, integrating Maori sentences into every possible TV programme, news item and weather forecast, and even renaming the very country we live in, with no mandate .
Te reo is an important goal to integrate into our society, not only as a stand alone language in its own right but also for some words to slowly become included in our New Zealand English language, something that will be decided by New Zealanders and not some bureaucratic enthusiasts .
Stan Randle
Alexandra
Up the front of the bus
ACT New Zealand MP Brooke van Velden ran a well-orchestrated Question and Answer session with fellow MP Cameron Luxton to discuss the repeal of Fair Pay Agreements.
But she was fallacious in her statement that “no workers would have their wages cut or be worse off because no Fair Pay Agreements were finalised”. In the real world pay negotiations for bus drivers will need to start again, which will mean bus drivers will be worse off due to this time delay.
She declares increased productivity is the way forward. As a school bus driver on a set route with set times, with a set number of authorised pupils, how do I increase my productivity?
Do I drive faster on my back country roads, do I play educational videos to the passengers, what does she suggest under her one-size-fits-all repeal?
There are three types of bus driver — tour, charter, and school — all of which would have difficulty in improving their productivity.
Ian McGimpsey
Owaka
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
