Cautious consideration commendable approach
There are very few actions of the present government that I approve of, but I am pleased they are taking time to make a careful, considered response to the call to recognise Palestine.
As they do so, I would urge all members of Parliament to consider the following: manner of the debate. Please set an example that will encourage social cohesion in today’s increasingly polarised society. Let there be rigorous debate between parties with opposing views, but let the focus be on the issues, not the personalities.
Many conflicts are extremely complex — there are shades of grey, rather than just black and white. Avoid simplistic answers that fail to look at the overall picture.
Remember the historical, short-term, and long-term context. In the present question of Palestine, bear in mind that the Jews have good claims to be the indigenous people for about 3000 years.
To recognise Palestine at this stage is to reward a terrorist organisation that uses human shields to achieve its ends. Is that the kind of message we want to send the world?
Recognising Palestine should happen only if: all the hostages are returned, and an authority that recognises Israel's right to exist can be guaranteed.
Make it stop
Historically Ukraine has suffered badly. In 1930-33 the Holodomar, a man-made famine, took place, caused when the communist government forced the peasant farmers into collectives. State control resulted in a massive famine. Farmers were blamed, and punished severely, with perhaps 13% of them dying.
It has been considered genocide. And in 2003 25 countries declared that 7 to 10 million died. The war in Gaza has resulted in 60,000 deaths in its 2 million population so far. Hopefully that will stop soon.
Demo condemned
There has been a great deal of debate about landfills and whether our waste should go to Smooth Hill or to a remote landfill.
There has also been a great deal of pious talk by both local individuals and organisations about climate emission and waste reduction.
However, this piety appears to be only skin deep as the recent demolition of a rather nice Victorian villa on behalf of the University of Otago attests.
Leaving aside the issue of whether it should be demolished at all, no attempt appeared to be being made to salvage and reuse its components.
Perfectly sound roofing, usable kauri weather boards, very nice bay windows, antique character fireplaces and even the cast iron decorative filigree and supporting posts off the front of the building – all could be seen being mangled and put straight into the skip, and then off to landfill.
Time back this would not have happened, and nearly all of this material would have been repurposed to a better and cost-effective future by the three or four large demolition recycling yards that used to exist and do good business in this town.
A large proportion of what gets sent to landfill is building waste, and it looks set to become even larger.
Surely this is both immoral and hypocritical.
[Robert Hamlin in an independent candidate for the Dunedin City Council.]
Review tells a bad story about ACC culture
After reports of the usual corporate misbehaviour reached the news media earlier this year, ACC tried to conduct a quick and superficial review of its conduct. Things came unstuck when staff objected to one of the reviewers, who appears to have been less than objective and unconcerned with getting at the truth.
The review finally landed on September 4 but its contents have not been released, only a summary which we can expect to have been sanitised, but which is bad enough.
What has any of this to do with compensating and rehabilitating people who suffer personal injury, which is supposed to be the reason for ACC's multibillion-dollar existence? Absolutely nothing but, if experience is any guide, ACC claimants will pay the price for its latest high-level scandal and its costly cosmetic review exercise, just as they have before.
It is time to implement the Green Party’s policy and make ACC a state welfare agency again, as it was originally intended and not a posturing, arrogant wannabe insurance company.
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