Tax me, rate me, make me pay and pay please
In the weekend’s ODT article focusing on Dunedin’s mayoral candidates’ views on rates rises (23.8.25), there was a quote from Dunedin City Council CEO Sandy Graham: ‘‘Rates rises are higher than anyone wants.’’
She’s wrong. It is an unpopular opinion, but I want higher rates rises.
Whenever anyone says they want lower taxes, and rates are just a form of taxation, what they’re really saying is they want less or worse public services.
Fewer doctors, fewer nurses, worse quality roads, and a smaller, cheaper hospital please.
Well, I don’t want that. I want more public services, better public services, and that costs more.
I want to pay more taxes to central government because I want good hospitals, good schools, and nurses and teachers and police to be fairly paid.
Equally I want to pay more rates to local government because I want to drive on good quality roads with no potholes, I want safe clean drinking water, I want better, cheaper public transport, and all the other services council provides too.
And that don’t come cheap.
It seems this election will be a large group of people all promising to keep rates under control, to limit spending, to go ‘‘line by line’’.
But any candidate that promises higher rates rises gets my vote immediately.
Dave Bainbridge-Zafar
Careys Bay
Impressive CV
With the local elections in full swing, I received a hand-out in the post from an aspiring candidate for council.
What impressed me about it was the fact that he listed his work experience. This can give a good insight into a candidate’s suitability for the job.
It would be most helpful to all the voters if all candidates - those on the council at present and those aspiring to be councillors - would list what work experience they have had, apart from council work.
C. D. Campbell
Mosgiel
Choice language
Metiria Stanton Turei’s journey through the normality of te reo and the jungle of white supremacy (Opinion ODT 22.8.25) shares all the characteristics of the questionable assumptions and dubious decisions that set it in motion.
She is quite correct in observing that common New Zealand English usage is sprinkled with Māori words - to this extent te reo is ‘‘normalised’’ and the exclusion of a handful of Māori words from an English primer is undoubtedly an over-reaction. It has a strong odour of theoretical perfectionism and the minister’s attempt at some sort of compromise seems to be a political misjudgement rather than anything else.
It’s hard to believe that those half-dozen words would have been especially destructive even if technically ‘‘abnormal’’ (a clumsy word) in a book designed for a very specific purpose.
On the other hand, the assertion of what appears to be some kind of spiritual destitution for Māori children seems a little overblown: ‘‘If the ministry continues with its plans, the precious relationship that mokopuna Māori have with their koro [grandfather] will disappear in their books.’’
This does put rather a lot on the shoulders of a reading primer for 5-year-olds, who, as Mrs Stanton Turei should know, will be rather more influenced in their relationships and linguistic habits by family and peers than any school book.
And so we descend into the realm of racism and white supremacy, where ‘‘the only elder men who matter will be Pakeha grandfathers.’’ Seriously?
Harry Love
North East Valley
Clean-up bond essential for any development
Why do the Central Otago District Council not insist on a bond from Helios and/or the land owner to protect the council from having to pay for reinstatement of the land when the solar panels [at a proposed solar farm in Maniototo] are at the end of their life, if the project fails or the company goes bankrupt.
The cost of a clean-up operation of a solar system of this size would be millions of dollars to dispose of the panels which at this time cannot be recycled in New Zealand.
It is a fact that at some time in the future the site will become obsolete or at the end of its lifecycle, if nothing is in place to prevent the council from having to either clean up the entire site at the ratepayers’ cost or leave it as a horrible mess for future generations and residents.
If Helios or the land owner are not prepared to deposit a bond then they obviously have no intention of reinstating the land in the future.
This is the most important consideration before any solar farm, mining operation etc is approved.
Frank Amyes
Alexandra
Silent tracks, vibrant bird life & pest control
In reply to Mary Molloy’s letter re Stewart Island (22.8.25) I have to agree with her that Stewart Island is a very special place, and I always encourage people to visit, even if they only go to Oban.
Initially I wrote: ‘‘Once we left the Oban area, which is heavily trapped and vibrant with bird life, firstly the bush was largely silent with little bird sign or noise, secondly there were a number of what appeared to be dead trees, and thirdly where we saw deer, the understorey between ground level and deer height was largely a see-through desert with no seedlings, few leaves or branches, and even the bark had been eaten’’.
However, I reduced the size of the letter by omitting the reference to Oban, thinking that the points could be better and more concisely made by merely making the observations about areas on the tracks, especially where we saw deer, or where possums and cats were not being trapped.
At the time, I was visiting Stewart Island every one to three years as part of another research project. Not all the rata trees beyond the Masons Bay Hut, for instance, recovered and bloomed, but it was exciting to see that two out of three of trees that I had initially assumed to be dead were in fact flowering at the same time of year. This was in subsequent years following even a single (and in one case two) 1080 drops.
Interestingly, several people have made contact with me since the letter was published, saying that they also had the eerie experience of a silent forest on the tracks, as well as noting the adverse effect of deer browse, so it was not just me and my companions.
It is also important to challenge incorrect statements such as that made by Furhana Ahmad (ODT 22.08.25) that the toxin ‘‘did not dilute’’ in waterways. Commercial 1080 in fact rapidly dissolves in water to a level lower than that considered safe for human consumption, unlike other poisons available.
Let’s make Stewart Island an even more special place than it already is.
Lala Frazer
Broad Bay
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: letters@odt.co.nz
