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Otago Daily Times

Letters to the Editor: electricity, bombs and gumboots

Today's Letters to the Editor from readers cover topics including when cheap power was an advantage, why nuclear bombs are no good to Iran, and the charm of gumboots. Shooting ourselves in the foot over reforms In New Zealand we seem to have developed a talent for turning competitive advantages into disadvantages. Remember the days when cheap electricity was a competitive advantage for New Zealand. We had industries here based on that cheap electricity. Then we had the Bradford reforms to make electricity even cheaper. Somehow that ended up maximising the price for all New Zealanders and contributing to the closure of those once burgeoning industries. Now something similar seems to be happening to other New Zealand products. Dairy and other commodity export prices are good, benefitting some. However, as detailed in the ODT (18.6.25), the hospitality industry is finding that butter, cheese and milk are becoming luxury items. If we are indeed the most efficient producers of dairy products in the world, why is this not giving a competitive advantage to other related New Zealand businesses and why are consumers being held to ransom? Economists I have heard on the subject simply shrug their shoulders and say we are an export-led economy. To me that sounds too simplistic, and I do not think it passes the sniff test. Something is off. There is no doubt that we need to seriously rework our electricity system. I think that present circumstances, where good export income results in benefit for a few, and high prices and inflation for the rest, suggests that there are other areas that deserve close attention. PTSD In response to Dave Tackney (Letters ODT 24.6.25), hasn't it occurred to Mr Tackney that Māori people, as a collective and in general, have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. After being invaded by the English, lied to, manipulated, subjugated with superior weapons, their land and sources of food stolen, made third-class citizens and impoverished, it is understandable that a chasm would manifest in their spirit. And let's not forget that the English, whether royalists or Cromwellians had perfected their tactics on the Irish for centuries, leading to expulsion from their land and famine. I will not say that the Māori people are victims of abuse by a foreign power because the word victim is demeaning and patronising to them. Obviously, their trauma and anger are misdirected and it is always with sorrow that we hear about the children who are victims in their turn. Metiria Stanton Turei is not trying to divide the country along racial lines, the arrival of the colonising English did it, then subsequent governments enforced it. Atomic fallout Re Greg Glendining letter (25.6.25) claiming our learned Prof Robert Patman to be stunningly naive believing Iran's claims they don't want a nuclear bomb, they just want uranium for peaceful purposes like other countries for electricity etc. A fact Mr Glendining strongly disagrees with. Well I will tell you why a nuclear bomb is no good to Iran and useless on Israel. Grab a map of the Middle East and see how close the borders are to Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. These countries are packed together. If they drop a nuclear bomb on Israel the nuclear radiation fallout would destroy the very people Iran claims to be fighting for. That's why they have developed non-nuclear drones and missiles. At the same time, if Iran did have a nuclear weapon as a deterrent against attack, Israel and the Zionists of Israel and America would not have attacked Iran, the very same reason they haven't attacked North Korea which has nuclear weapons as a deterrent. Photo heart-warming moment in week of woes Amongst all the doom and gloom of articles and photographs in current newspapers, especially those relating to terrible events overseas, how lovely to see that wonderful photograph on the front page of the Otago Daily Times (25.6.25), of the little boy seated amongst all the discarded muddy gumboots, as one of his own falls to the ground. Hopefully his mum or dad was standing there to retrieve it for him. I often smile when I see rows of bashful muddy gumboots standing in a row outside country cafes in New Zealand. I find the sight quite charming, as it is I think very much a Kiwi custom; I never saw this in any other country overseas. How nice of our farmers and workmen to be so considerate, and also not to risk a rebuke if they trail mud inside. The only thing I wonder at, looking at that photo of the very many pairs left in rows of disarray outside the Hindon Hall on Saturday, is that they all look the same (apart from various layers of mud on them) and how does each owner recognise his or her own rightful pair? But I bet they do. Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@