Letters, Jan 27
27/01/2010 11:46:00 a.m.
Supreme Court
Very rarely do I respond to polls, partly because I am often subject to them! However, I did respond to your Supreme Court Poll. As with a number of your readers I have yet to adjust to the exterior, although it makes more sense when explained as depicting pohutakawa and rata rather than scaffolding, which one taxi driver told me visitors to Wellington thought it was. Whatever the outside though, the inside is stunning. I do hope Wellingtonians will be there when there is an open day. The copper surround of the entrance to the court room is striking and the interior is even more so – that “capture” of the interior of a kauri cone can’t be done justice in a photograph. With the triangular sculpturing of the New Zealand timber, it really is distinctively New Zealand. Also, how many Supreme Court Rooms allow for natural light? In fact, you can stand on the steps outside and see directly through to the Bench – that’s real transparency of justice. And that exterior? I remind myself of the intense opposition to the Sydney Opera House, on location and cost but also on design. Let’s give our Supreme Court a chance!
Ian McKinnon, Deputy Mayor/Lambton Ward
Dragon review
I am an enormous admirer of your movie reviewer, and read him most weeks. However I feel his lady must have been getting at him or something, because I am at a loss to understand his slagging of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Four of us (admittedly older than your reviewer) saw it, two had read the books and two hadn’t, and we all came out enthusing about the movie. For what it’s worth, we saw it in Gisborne, and a few young people walked out at the beginning of the show which is filmed in Swedish with English subtitles. We thought they probably couldn’t read. Damn good movie, tight understated, right to the point. I have heard a rumour the Americans are talking about doing a version; you know without looking that they’ll overblow it into a Bruce Willis sort of thing. Andrew Jamieson, Mt Victoria
Calling for a new mayor
As a recently announced mayoral candidate, I have been asked by a lot of people why I am standing and only for mayor and not for council. I am putting up my hand and I hope others will consider putting their name forward as well. We need fresh ideas that will ensure Wellington remains a great place to live and work. We need a council that represents the whole community but acts in a prudent business like way. I personally want a council that can develop good relationships with the small and medium businesses that drive our city and is representative of the blend of ethnicities that make up our city. It’s time for a change!
Allan Probert, mayoral candidate
(abridged)
CO2 balance
Milton Wainwright calls for more reforestation and desert reclamation to restore the CO2 balance between the animal kingdom (including us humans) and the plant kingdom. Is he aware that modern industrial nations have been doing just that for 40 years already? Only undeveloped nations and Communist nations (of which mercifully few remain) actually deforest and desertify their territories. On the subject of food production, it is countries with stable democratic cultures that are the biggest surplus producers. The problems of Africa and other parts of the third world are almost entirely political and cultural. The light rail systems that Demetrius Christoforou refers to as springing up all over the world, are also burdens to ratepayers and taxpayers all over the world. Mr Christoforou could hardly be more wrong to assert that “motorists do not pay the full costs of road building and maintenance”. Over decades, large percentages of petrol tax revenue that should have been used for this purpose has been applied to other things by politicians; motorists have already been swindled out of a proper roading system that they have paid for.
Philip G Hayward, Naenae
(abridged)
Very rarely do I respond to polls, partly because I am often subject to them! However, I did respond to your Supreme Court Poll. As with a number of your readers I have yet to adjust to the exterior, although it makes more sense when explained as depicting pohutakawa and rata rather than scaffolding, which one taxi driver told me visitors to Wellington thought it was. Whatever the outside though, the inside is stunning. I do hope Wellingtonians will be there when there is an open day. The copper surround of the entrance to the court room is striking and the interior is even more so – that “capture” of the interior of a kauri cone can’t be done justice in a photograph. With the triangular sculpturing of the New Zealand timber, it really is distinctively New Zealand. Also, how many Supreme Court Rooms allow for natural light? In fact, you can stand on the steps outside and see directly through to the Bench – that’s real transparency of justice. And that exterior? I remind myself of the intense opposition to the Sydney Opera House, on location and cost but also on design. Let’s give our Supreme Court a chance!
Ian McKinnon, Deputy Mayor/Lambton Ward
Dragon review
I am an enormous admirer of your movie reviewer, and read him most weeks. However I feel his lady must have been getting at him or something, because I am at a loss to understand his slagging of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Four of us (admittedly older than your reviewer) saw it, two had read the books and two hadn’t, and we all came out enthusing about the movie. For what it’s worth, we saw it in Gisborne, and a few young people walked out at the beginning of the show which is filmed in Swedish with English subtitles. We thought they probably couldn’t read. Damn good movie, tight understated, right to the point. I have heard a rumour the Americans are talking about doing a version; you know without looking that they’ll overblow it into a Bruce Willis sort of thing. Andrew Jamieson, Mt Victoria
Calling for a new mayor
As a recently announced mayoral candidate, I have been asked by a lot of people why I am standing and only for mayor and not for council. I am putting up my hand and I hope others will consider putting their name forward as well. We need fresh ideas that will ensure Wellington remains a great place to live and work. We need a council that represents the whole community but acts in a prudent business like way. I personally want a council that can develop good relationships with the small and medium businesses that drive our city and is representative of the blend of ethnicities that make up our city. It’s time for a change!
Allan Probert, mayoral candidate
(abridged)
CO2 balance
Milton Wainwright calls for more reforestation and desert reclamation to restore the CO2 balance between the animal kingdom (including us humans) and the plant kingdom. Is he aware that modern industrial nations have been doing just that for 40 years already? Only undeveloped nations and Communist nations (of which mercifully few remain) actually deforest and desertify their territories. On the subject of food production, it is countries with stable democratic cultures that are the biggest surplus producers. The problems of Africa and other parts of the third world are almost entirely political and cultural. The light rail systems that Demetrius Christoforou refers to as springing up all over the world, are also burdens to ratepayers and taxpayers all over the world. Mr Christoforou could hardly be more wrong to assert that “motorists do not pay the full costs of road building and maintenance”. Over decades, large percentages of petrol tax revenue that should have been used for this purpose has been applied to other things by politicians; motorists have already been swindled out of a proper roading system that they have paid for.
Philip G Hayward, Naenae
(abridged)
