Not so much kicking when beds announced
Our new hospital is to have 424 overnight beds. That is 2.78 beds per thousand Dunedin residents.
The OECD average is five beds per thousand.
If we consider the hospital as serving the population of Otago then we are down to about 0.6 of a bed per thousand.
Seems we might have to share a bed.
So much for the "kick-arse" hospital the PM promised.
Pile on
Max Reid (Letters 30.5 25) notes that the new hospital outpatient building (not inpatient, as he incorrectly says) is not too far off completion, and takes me to task that my "field of piles" billboard (28.5.25) was misleading.
The field of piles is where, if Labour had only been on their game, the key building, that is, the much larger inpatient building, with beds, intensive care, Xray, PET scanner, operating theatres, and so on, should at least have been well under way.
They had six years in charge, but chopped and changed and faffed around and failed the people of the South.
Outpatients was the easy build. It only needed lots of rooms and decent plumbing. A billboard is necessarily succinct, so this subtlety had to be left to the viewer to discern.
On the other hand, he is right to berate National.
The recent announcement from Minister Brown that, in respect of "... delivering the hospital that the people of Otago and Southland have been waiting far too long for", his claim that "This government is focused on delivery — and that’s exactly what we are doing" is Orwellian speech at its finest.
The field of piles is still, after a year and a-half of his government, out there in the open, untouched and unbuilt-upon
Distasteful rubbish
Jacqui Legg of Winton has said (Letters 31.5.25) that she and some other residents do not want outside-province refuse coming to AB Lime’s quarry/landfill site which is 4km distant from the outskirts of Winton.
AB Lime is the South Island’s largest lime quarry, employing 48 people, many from Winton, and out-of-province refuse is not much different from Southland refuse except that it will help make better use of their 200 years of landfill capacity, improving AB Lime’s profitability and work prospects for Wintonites.
Is Ms Legg’s distaste for our interprovincial refuse business just because of rugby, or is there some other rational explanation?
Disgraceful behaviour
Metiria Stanton Turei (Opinion ODT 30.5.25) comes out in strong support of the three Te Pāti Māori party anarchists currently facing sanctions for their disgraceful behaviour in the New Zealand Parliament.
The behaviour of these three members in particular has been abhorrent from the moment they entered Parliament. They show zero respect for the dignity and rules by which the Parliament operates, and they make it quite clear when they are there, which isn’t very often, that their intent is to disrupt the proceedings as much as possible.
If Metiria Stanton Turei thinks that supporting this type of behaviour is helping Māori, then she is deluded. The majority of people in this country have had enough of this anarchy.
It would be nice if Māori radicals like Metiria Turei Stanton put their energies into helping their own people grapple with the darker aspects of their culture, instead of trying to bring this country to its knees.
1995 called, and it wants its decision back
Is this the best the Dunedin City Council can come up with, a decision made in 1995? They would rather put Dunedin ratepayers into even more debt just so we keep our own rubbish. What are they thinking?
They are about to spend millions removing rubbish dumped a hundred years ago.
As usual passing another cleanup to another generation.
Our beautiful beach at Brighton will be at risk. Dunedin airport already at risk of bird strike.
We are minimising rubbish sent to landfill now. We could do better.
Building and manufacturing waste won’t be using Smooth Hill, it will be far to expensive. DCC needs to remember who is paying the bills.
Honorable discharge
It will be interesting , indeed enlightening, to learn what punishment those responsible for capsizing that new warship in North Korea receive, and compare it with our own recent naval debacle in Samoa.
Given the Samoan incident was described by Minister of Defence Judith Collins as “ a maritime success” can we expect that the skipper featured in the King’s Birthday Honours?
Bug repellant
After reading your excellent editorial "A moth in the night" (28.5.25) I would not be surprised if Shane Jones was seen lurking around Macraes with a can of fly spray.
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