Letters: Auckland doesn’t have the infrastructure for two million
Urban insanity
Stocks the kind you can throw rotten tomatoes at should be set up in Auckland’s civic square for the Minister of Immigration who thinks and would allow the Auckland population to reach two million by 2033.
Considering Auckland’s current chronic traffic congestion, polluted waterways, beaches, air pollution, hospital waiting lists, housing shortages, water restrictions in the summer, broken sewage pipes, more and more houses in flood zones, overcrowded rental properties etc, etc, etc.
But that’s not the worst of it. The town planner who thought of high-rise high-density housing with little if any provision for off-street parking, should be placed next to the minister and for a longer period.
Howick, like many of Auckland’s suburbs, is served by a web of long narrow streets. As a consequence of packed-in multiple townhouses it now has cars parked bumper to bumper on either side, even with only a quarter of its properties having high-density housing.
With so little road left there will be just enough room for a bicycle or at a pinch a motor scooter to make its way down the gap. Therefore, alongside the minister and town planner should also be shackled Auckland’s mayor who after all allowed such urban insanity to happen.
Gary Hollis, Mellons Bay.
Ire at dairy sale
It seems that the risks and responsibilities of dairy farm ownership and milking cows count for little in the view of a few entitled Aucklanders.
They complain that the wider New Zealand public has been neglected in Fonterra’s sale of its consumer brands including Mainland and Anchor to the French dairy giant, Lactalis.
In recent Herald letters Gary Hollis and Susan Grimsdell seem to resent Fonterra for paying its shareholders the proceeds of the sale, without acknowledging other New Zealanders.
Presumably, they are talking about the supermarket customers of those brands Fonterra has sold.
I might believe they have a point if Ms Grimsdell and Mr Hollis could convince me that walking down a supermarket aisle to choose which dairy products to buy, matches the commitment and effort required to look after a farm and milk its cows.
Keith Melville, Whakatāne.
Fuel prices
A lot of my journeys are via our excellent bus service here in Auckland and I must agree with our mayor, keep trucks out of the bus lanes, and deliver at night-time!
While waiting for the bus I take a good look at the cars driving by and what a surprise a huge number are SUVs which in a big city like Auckland are in most cases surplus to requirement. And what is concerning, car after car one person is in it. I would say over 80% have one driver and no passengers. Is petrol still too cheap?
Do we need road user charges? Or should we tax large cars like Denmark does, up to an astonishing 150%. And the Danes are still the happiest people on the planet. What does that tell us? As long as you get something for your tax it is worth paying it.
Siegfried Jordan, Royal Oak.
Weather warnings
The impact of Cyclone Vaianu looks to have been less severe than forecast in the week leading up to its arrival. In its aftermath, whether warnings and measures were appropriate or perhaps unnecessarily alarmist, is a natural source for debate.
Any such debate, however, should focus on how messaging about future weather events can be improved and perhaps strike a better balance.
It must not become a battleground seeking someone to blame. Disappointingly, some prominent individuals in the public space and media chose to vent their opinions using emotionally laden terms such as “woke” and “wimps”.
People who suffered personal losses in severe weather events might beg to differ. In any case, such aggressive language may go down well in certain demographics but hardly contributes to a rational discussion. Instead, it is indicative of nostalgic longing for some idealised past that was inhabited by self-sufficient pioneers.
Society has become far more complicated since.
Emile Bax, Onehunga.