14-07-2025
Letters to the Editor: health spend, taxes and stadium
Today's Letters to the Editor from readers cover topics including spending on health, taxes and stadium costs. Yell it from the rooftop: spend more on health
Governments always yell from the rooftops about how much more they are spending on our health system. Well they are not spending enough.
We personally know nurses in Dunedin Hospital who are running and are not able to give the care they have been trained to give, and it is frustrating for them, they suffer from burnout and leave. No wonder health staff are leaving for Australia in record numbers and we are recruiting from low-wage economies.
Paying Kiwis to stay here would be a good start. Tax us some more to make us the world-class health system we used to have. A healthy workforce is less of a drain on the entire system and everyone in the economic chain benefits.
At the moment people are reduced to be non-contributing members of society and claiming benefits while waiting for surgery. I personally know of a woman who had to sell her home and downsize to pay for a hip operation. This is not the New Zealand I grew up in.
We need to be a fully functioning society supported by a fully functioning health system. Thanks to successive governments, we have failed our own people in this area. Shame on us.
John Grant
Alexandra Fares not fair
It is terrible that bus fares have been forced on children. The result will be more traffic on the roads, increased intergenerational inequity, more stress on parents, lower school attendance, less resilient children and lower social mobility. Ironically it may increase the loss per passenger.
D. Hawkins
Dunedin Tax talk
It all depends upon what sort of country we want: the egalitarian society generally characterised as New Zealand in the 1950s and 1960s, or the enriched minority holding sway today.
The statistics (courtesy of George Bryant NZ 2050) are compelling. Today, 1% of the population owns 16% of the country's wealth - the richest 5% owns 38% - while half the population receive less than $24,000 a year.
Expressed another way, the wealthiest 10% now own 59% of all wealth. What ever way you slice the cake it screams ''crisis in the making''.
This has all come about recently and in the absence of a capital gains tax, Mr Eckhoff (ODT, 9.6.25).
One of the ways to address this inequity is for everybody, including that small proportion of the population who enjoy the bounty that has come their way often via inflationary increases, to pay some of it back to the public purse for the well-being of all.
Statistics NZ tells us that as the gross domestic product increases, almost half the increase goes to a small group who are already the richest in the country.
Evan Alty
Lake Hawea Unlikely solution
Shane Jones appears to think that ''his'' mines will solve all economic problems. Unless mining companies pay corporate income tax every year, this is most unlikely.
The majority of shareholders will not be New Zealand residents, and most of the machinery used is manufactured offshore. Jobs may be provided but housing will not be, and this could add to the homeless problem in some areas, especially in Central Otago.
The pits provided to control leaching need to be constructed to a very high standard if they are to withstand earthquakes, especially where the mining is planned on known fault lines.
New Zealand needs to be very careful in approving mines.
The performance of mining companies in many countries has been unsatisfactory for both the people and the natural environment.
Lynne Hill
Mosgiel Trying to find more funds for white elephant
Five minutes in the job and Dunedin City Holdings chairman Tim Loan thinks he can go cap-in-hand to get more money to pay for the stadium.
How about going to all those who went against public opposition to build it?
Mr Loan will just have to sell a few more pine trees from one of his council companies.
What is Tim Loan doing in the job if he has to employ more consultants to do his job to develop long-term modelling for this white elephant that has a lifetime ending in about 2060, and will only have a value of the land under it.
$188 million and not a cent more. Blown out to $211m that we know about, plus weekly running costs, while it sits there empty for most of the time. Life expectancy of only another 35 years. What a joke.
Interesting that Ruby Shaw's ODT article (4.6.25) has no facts or figures of what the stadium still owes, just like the original fictitious promotions to hoodwink all those that are still having to pay for it.
Neville McLay
Opoho
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@
