PM needs to join us here on Planet Earth
Is our nation of New Zealand still part of Planet Earth? Or are we living in a fantasy world?
Ask Google what are the biggest crises we face globally, and it lists them: climate crisis and environmental degradation, conflict and political instability, food insecurity and hunger, health emergencies beyond Covid-19, mass displacement caused by conflict and climate disasters, economic instability.
Ask Google what are the causes of this, and this is its response: "unsustainable resource use, economic systems prioritising short-term profit over long-term well-being, poor governance, and eroding global co-operation, all exacerbated by human-induced climate change and fueled by conflict and inequality."
Did Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s State of the Nation speech, delivered a few days ago to Auckland businessmen, address any of these issues facing us on Planet Earth?
"I’m here to talk about the economy, and nothing else. . . going for growth is priority No 1 . . . we have to go for growth. It’s just not up for negotiation any more."
Ask Google what are the costs of economic growth, and this is its response: "Four key costs of economic growth include inflationary pressures, worsening environmental damage (pollution, resource depletion), widening income inequality and potential social costs like materialism or increased stress from faster living."
Luxon: "A growing economy is, above all, that overwhelming sense that better days lie ahead."
Better for whom? Not those of us on Planet Earth.
Tell us how you really feel
Of all the pathetic garbage from Trump — for example, his promise to release the Epstein Files, then have a fraction of them released; his bragging that he has fixed the US economy when in fact he is destroying it with his ludicrous tariffs ; his full endorsement of ICE and their murderous invasion of democratic cities; his claim to be a peace president when he has solved no wars, given the genocidal nutter Netanyahu armaments and full support, and invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its leader; his threats to invade Greenland in a grandiose attempt at gunboat diplomacy; and cowardly failure to follow through on his threats to punish Putin for his mass murder in Ukraine, — one of the most imbecilic is accepting a secondhand and utterly meaningless Nobel Prize from an abject quisling, who should forever hang her head in shame.
We are witnessing one of the most witless and morally vacant fascists of all time, yet one who in a fit of childishness or miscalculation, could end human life on Earth.
A slap in the teeth
Your article (15.1.26) highlights more disgraceful behaviour by the British government towards expats living in New Zealand and Australia.
I moved to New Zealand in 2005, became a citizen here in 2008 and retained my UK passport until 2024, when I allowed it to lapse. In common with many expats, I have family still living in the UK who I may need to visit as they and I get older.
This heartless decision to refuse to accept travel to the UK on a New Zealand passport will cause great hardship for many New Zealand citizens who no longer retain a British passport. The cost to renew their UK passport will excede $360, whereas before an electronic travel authorisation (ETA) cost $37. Even this has been superseded by a Certificate of Entitlement costing $1373 or the final option of renouncing UK citizenship — a mere $1124.
There must be thousands of new Kiwis who are affected by this slap in the teeth.
The city can ill afford the price of democracy
I am at a loss as to why the citizens of Dunedin are being forced, by whomever, to financing a by-election to fill the vacancy due to the death of Jules Radich.
The quoted cost of such is estimated at $400,000.
That is a sum the citizens of this city can ill afford.
I have understood that where the voting system is STV and a vacancy occurs, the candidate who failed to get elected, but was the closest to the last candidate elected, is appointed as a councillor.
If, as had occured in Parliament, an MP died, or in the case of the Greens or Te Pati Maori an MP was kicked out of the party, the cost to the nation would have run to millions.
But, because of preferential voting, the next candidate on the list has been appointed an MP.
It shows how frail democracy actually is though, when this is often nothing short of skullduggery.
The question remains. Why the need for a by-election?
Why burden our ratepayers with further expenses we cannot afford?
[The Dunedin City Council is obliged under the Local Government Act to hold a by-election in these circumstances. Editor.]
Go into reverse on cycleway call
We need people like Carolyn Richardson (Letters ODT 29.12.25) and Malcolm Budd (24.12.25) as leaders of our city. They appreciate the value of leaving city streets and roads as they are.
Now it’s time to give the DCC transport planners and the councillors who voted for the Albany St cycleway a long holiday before they totally ruin our Edinburgh of the South.
Some of this same group have already ruined the CBD and will continue overspending on ridiculous projects unless the councillors with business experience and knowledge can convince them to change their foolish ways.
Albany St information was placed in student letter boxes after almost all students had left the city and very little info was provided for students earlier. Then the reversed third 8/7 vote to proceed was forced through while students were sitting their exams.
When these students return in February there will be just a few prepaid meters outside their flats. What a shock for parents, shuttle bus passengers and student tenants when they find no place to park.
Where will they park now? Students have cars and this will not change.
Surely most of these (anti car, business and students) city leaders know that Dunedin is already short of parks and would any of them like to have metered car parks just a few metres from their front doors?
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