A visitor to town not the least impressed
I read your front-page article today (14.2.26) re councillors’ concern over the government’s planning Bill.
Cr Andrew Simms is dead right in his thoughts that retail will ultimately drift away from George St. In fact the whole CBD is doomed. Look at lower Princes St for example.
Some of the DCC planners should be sent on a field trip to Townsville (pop 205,000) in Queensland. I was fortunate to be stuck there when locked out of the country during Covid.
I went to the once-vibrant CBD and found it to be a wasteland of empty businesses and $2 shops. On inquiring why, I was told by locals: "Introduction of pay-and-display parking in the CBD and malls on the outskirts".
Cr Simms is wrong about one thing: Dunedin does have a mall on the outside of the CBD. It is called South Dunedin and in area it’s probably the biggest in the country. We come in from the sticks to go there regularly and find everything there that we need without going anywhere near the city and we never pay for parking.
An exception to this was when we were there last month and decided to make a pilgrimage into upper Moray Pl to go to a movie during the day. Parking in a parking building, we came back to find that the parking fee was $18 — which was more than an individual movie ticket. Now with the introduction of Sunday paid parking, you can stick that permanently. We won’t be back.
It is high time that planners looked at the big picture and worked out that paid parking is a 20th century thing and is simply a tax on visitors — the once fatted cow you are milking to death.
Try something extremely radical like finding another income stream and having free parking everywhere for a year or two and see what happens.
Novel history
Your contributor Anaru Eketone (Opinion ODT 16.2.26) expresses a novel view of history when he states that prior to the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 Māori had "peace, security, literacy, technology and access to world markets" all courtesy of the British.
Something the recognised historical commentators agree on is that the intertribal warfare, the Musket Wars, which ran their bloody course between about 1806 and 1845, were fuelled by a lethal cocktail of utu (revenge) and initially newly availably muskets. They entailed one-sided encounters of inordinate savagery. Importantly the custom of utu meant that whatever the outcome, the seeds were sown for a later encounter.
The theatre of warfare, whilst focused in the North Island, affected the whole of the country and is believed to have resulted in approximately 50,000 Māori deaths, injuries, or forced displacements from a population estimated at between 100,000 and 150,000.
The stark contrast between Dr Eketone’s description and his view that "By the mid-1830s Māori society had progressed through a rapid process of modernisation." simply cannot in my view be reconciled with the carnage they brought upon themselves.
Rewriting history
I don't know whether columnist Anaru Eketone is unaware of some of the facts relating to New Zealand history or is attempting to rewrite such history, but the Musket Wars which he mentioned were certainly not over by 1830 and there certainly was not peace between Māori at that time. I would refer Mr Eketone to the seminal work by R. D. Crosby The Musket Wars which outlines the series of at least 3000 battles and raids which ran between 1806 and 1845.
Much of the trade that Prof Eketone refers to in his opinion piece was based on the enforced production by Māori of flax, potato and preserved heads for exchange for more muskets.
Red light for Butcher has reader seeing red
The Mad Butcher manager may have "no issue" with Andrew Simms’ decision to end the lease on his premises (ODT 16.2.26), but I do. What is "business" for Mr Simms is bad business for Dunedin, and for the country.
There would be no need to criticise Mr Simms personally for this were he just an ordinary citizen. He is operating within the system. But he purports to be the economic saviour of Dunedin and was strongly supported in the recent council elections on this basis.
But what this episode suggests is that he has not the faintest idea what is wrong with the economy, its tendency to create "fake wealth", its rampant inefficiency, and its accelerating inequality.
The Mad Butcher, which from all reports is a thriving business, is one of the few places you can still buy some lamb chops or rump steak in competition to the supermarket duopoly. Please, please give us some politicians who at least understand the fake wealth economy and its damaging effects.
Rory O’Malley
Dunedin
A pointless trip
I fail to see what your correspondent Graeme Bell’s offer to take Sam Neill to West Australia (ODT 5.2.26) is meant to prove.
Australia is geographically different from New Zealand. Our Pacific Plate component moves southwards, presumably at the same rate as our alpine fault with respect to the Indo-Australian Plate, and collides with an Antarctic component which is putting a squeeze on Southland which is clearly visible even on the TV weather maps.
Australia is only marginally habitable at any distance from the coastline. People choose to commute to and from this arid landscape for one reason, the disproportionate money to be made by working under conditions which would not suit everybody.
Measured against the scale of Australian mining, the country is so vast that when the gold, coal, or whatever is convenient to ship off overseas runs out, abandoned ruins in a scrub-covered outback are easy to walk away from.
I have friends involved in mining in North Queensland and do know a little about the lifestyle; but so addicted are some of them to big money, that despite health problems and dire warnings from the medical profession, it’s back to the mines after only a brief recuperation
I look at the recent ODT map of mining rights applications, measured against the area of Otago which would fit, almost without trace, into Australia’s vastness and ponder where all the power will come from if Shane Jones has his way.
There are better ways of getting our government’s books back into order than sacrificing a unique landscape full of unfulfilled promise, to the Australian and Russian ethos of digging up every mineral deposit and hocking it off overseas.
[Abridged — length. Editor.]
Ignorant or stupid?
The economy and humanity which drives it are both dependent on a fully functioning environment which is slowly being degraded. Unfortunately, the powers that be seem unaware of this dynamic and continue promoting business as usual (ODT 24.1.26).
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