Letters: Cameron Rd position clarified, traffic flow is faster
Tauranga City Council provided me with a 24-hour, 15-minute loading zone.
Pivotal to my business, it enables vehicles, including those with trailers, to drop off and collect goods, regardless of operating bus lanes.
From the vantage point of my shop, it is clearly obvious that traffic flow is faster and smoother both ways along Cameron Rd, than prior to the changes.
In time, I feel there will be a very positive outcome for all.
Howard Jones
Naismith & Jones
Cameron Rd
Cancer treatment
The Bay of Plenty Times article regarding decline in the use of low-dose rate brachytherapy to treat prostate cancer was timely and thought-provoking.
As a prostate cancer survivor who was treated with brachytherapy in 2008, I can attest to its convenience and effectiveness.
As I say in my book Blasted By Seeds (published in 2015), I was in hospital for a night after the procedure on a Thursday afternoon, discharged the next day and back at work the following Tuesday.
While I was on medication for several months to control post-treatment symptoms, I kept working fulltime and took minimal sick leave.
I was also able to avoid disclosing what had happened to me - which was important in a workplace where there was the possibility of restructuring and downsizing.
I doubt my quick return to work would have been possible if I'd undergone prostatectomy - and subsequent hospitalisation.
Given the prevalence of prostate cancer, it would be a pity to lose brachytherapy as a treatment option, particularly for men who are diagnosed with early-stage disease and are still working full time.
Tom McGrath
Karori, Wellington
Shoplifting doesn't pay
Green MP Tamatha Paul has suggested that people with no money to buy food could turn to shoplifting.
Is this suggestion part of the Greens' bold new economic policy?
I guess in Tamatha Paul's world, it is only natural that people turn to crime when short of a dollar or two. However, does she not know that food banks exist?
Also, if people are short of clothes, then charities exist to help in these circumstances as well.
While it is not an ideal situation to rely on charity, one would hope that Paul realises that the crime of shoplifting does not pay.
Does she not remember that one of her former colleagues was found guilty of shoplifting even while earning a salary of over $170,000 a year?
That's a pretty high pay ceiling to reach while considering whether or not to engage in crime.
Bernard Walker
Mount Maunganui
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RNZ News
17 hours ago
- RNZ News
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ACT's Building and Construction spokesperson Cameron Luxton Photo: VNP / Phil Smith He said the government's approach was almost exactly the same as what ACT campaigned on. "What we campaigned on was a recognised list of products. The bill came into the house as that, it's been through select committee, we've come out the other side with it being schemes, standards and products. "Minister Penk has done an incredibly good job engaging with the industry and making sure that this bill works - it's so close to ACT's you couldn't find much air between our original policy and this one, it's the same principle, called some different things." Both Labour and the Greens supported the bill through the legislative process. 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NZ Herald
a day ago
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"But in doing so, that unlocks the resources which are currently being bound up in unproductive uses, i.e., the likes of property speculation. It also addresses some of the unfairness in our tax system, which the 2023 IRD High Wealth Individuals Report showcased, where the wealthiest 311 households pay an effective tax rate less than half of the average New Zealander. "We currently have a situation where half a million New Zealanders are using food banks every single month; 191 New Zealanders, the majority of them of working age, are leaving the country every single day. "We do not arrest that issue with half measures." The next election is about a year away and, unlike some previous electoral cycles, the Greens have cause to be optimistic. The Greens' polling has held relatively steady — from a record election result high of 11.6%, its current average rating across all public polls is 10.4% — and its caucus now has a more settled look about it. Its southern rookie MPs, Scott Willis and Francisco Hernandez, have performed well and are helping to give the Greens a wider geographic representation than in recent years. It is also doing well in the House, thanks in no small part to the work of the impressively forensic Lawrence Xu-Nan. With three electorate seats and 15 MPs, Ms Swarbrick is adamant the Greens have great potential to grow that vote still further. "I think you're seeing the rise of meaningful progressive platforms like, for example, Zohran Mamdani in New York, who has unified people on the basis of material needs being met," she said. "That stuff is winning. That is a winning formula. And that is the formula that we are going to consistently keep rolling out. "We are talking to people about what really matters, not just poking holes and critiquing, but putting forward those productive solutions, but also mobilising people. "We do things a little bit differently and we are a little bit different, and we try and reflect what modern Aotearoa New Zealand looks like. "Hopefully that means that more people can see themselves in that so-called House of Representatives by virtue of us being there."
