Today's Letters to the Editor from readers cover topics including public transport, parking and pinnipeds.
Reads well but there is a fatal flaw therein
Michelle Palmer’s well-written response (Opinion ODT 22.8.25) to the equally well-written article by Brian Peat of a few days earlier (18.8.25) made interesting reading.
However, I have to point out one flaw in her argument about how grand everything is. Her second to last paragraph states that it is not the Kiwi way to complain about the choice made after signing said document [a licence to occupy agreement with a retirement village].
In practice there is no choice. The contract is either signed, or the person doesn’t take up residence. There is not an option to discuss and amend clauses. It’s either like it or lump it.
My own expensive legal advisor commented along those lines and said - ‘‘It’s very one-sided isn’t it’’?
F. Robert
Arrowtown
Repellant decision
Re your letter ‘‘Map needed’’ (ODT 20.8.25), ending free bus fares for children was the most repellant decision I have had to make during my term on the Otago Regional Council.
Unfortunately, retaining the free fares could have put government funding of our other public transport services at risk, with highly damaging consequences for the whole bus network. That made ending free fares the only responsible decision to make.
I will do everything I can to reinstate free bus fares for children, but I don't think it can happen until there is a change in direction from central government.
Alan Somerville
Dunedin
[Alan Somerville is an Otago Regional Council councillor.]
It is great to see candidates supportive of public transport. I assure you the changes in Mosgiel came from submissions from Mosgiel people including Hugh Kidd, a senior unable to use a service due to his location. While rolling out new services is always a learning experience, I am impressed with how staff are listening and proposing improvements.
It is easy for candidates to claim to listen to submitters and their support for free fares for children. That came with the real risk of government withdrawing funding as advised by NZTA and us not covering our operating budgeting.
Instead we have supported the submitters with lobbying government on the unintended consequences of re-establishing concession fares. We look forward to hearing from them.
Kate Wilson
Otago Regional Council councillor
Chess pieces
Funny how we have collective amnesia about Covid-19: one has to wonder if it is a side effect?
This country, just like all others, is in a state of trauma not just from the illness and death but its reaction on international private equity.
It is as if they are angry at humanity for not working though it so their profits could flow as usual. It is like the oligarchs were playing chess with humanity and for a moment they thought they might lose so smashed the pieces off the table. Now they want to play a new game where we are all pawns.
I wonder what future journalists will say about us for letting it all happen, in what is left of the future.
Aaron Nicholson
Manapouri
Pinniped political prognostications prove pleasing
Thank you for the lovely pictures of the seal in today’s ODT (20.8.25). A wonderful antidote to the increasingly horrible world news, and a pleasant change from the local body election campaign. (Does the yawn express an opinion, I wonder?) And the peaceful, happy smile as he/she dozes off.
Joan Mann
Forbury
Jeremiah is on to it
Thank you Murray Rae (Faith and Reason, ODT 15.8.25) and Jeremiah. In one paragraph, beginning ‘‘The human rivalries, the hatred between peoples ... ’’ Murray Rae hits the very root of the many sicknesses in our society: homelessness, unjustified differences in wealth, failures to care for the sick, failures to educate and care for our children, failures to care for the planet. These few words are all we need to know: whatever harms the vulnerable, harms you, makes you less than the human you can be; and you know it.
Colin Campbell-Hunt
Kew
It’s not rocket science to fix parking woes
IT appears to me that the solution to the situation as reported in the paper in recent days should be obvious to someone in as elevated a position as Dunedin City Council acting customer and regulatory general manager Paul Henderson.
A little common sense and a modicum of give and take would go a long way.
If (as I suspect) there are (at least) two known busy periods each day at shift changes, 7am and 7pm for example, would a sensible solution be signage which states the mobility parks are for the intended use only, except for a period of, say 30 minutes either side of those times?
I would venture to suggest that it is virtually unknown for those with impaired mobility to actually need the spaces at those times, only actually needing them in the hours between, say, 8am and 6pm.
Another potential solution could be that one of the several mobility-parks be relinquished and re-designated as “Hospital staff drop-off/pick-up only”
Not rocket surgery, surely?
Gordon Munn
Waikouaiti
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: letters@odt.co.nz
