Letters to the Editor: voting, pubs and mining

Otago Daily Times

8 hours ago

Today's Letters to the Editor from readers cover topics including non-resident ratepayer voting, backing the local pub, and trashing our heritage for overseas mining interests. Candidate claim runs counter to principle
Green Party mayoral candidate Mickey Treadwell is mistaken in his opinion that non-resident ratepayer voting violates New Zealand's democratic principles ( ODT 11.7.25).
"No taxation without representation" is a fundamental principle of democracy. This principle has been established as far back as the Boston Tea Party of 1773, which triggered the American Revolution and the establishment of the first truly democratic modern state.
For Mr Treadwell to claim that long-term holiday home owners and non-resident owners of say, commercial property in Dunedin city, have less of an interest in the future of the city and "less investment in public good" is just plainly untrue.
Compared to a bunch of students living in a rented flat for a couple of years, each of whom has a residential vote and who will all likely depart the city forever on graduation, who does Mr Treadwell think has a greater stake in the city?
I suspect the real reason for Mr Treadwell's concern is that he (rightly) believes that non-resident ratepayer electors are less likely to vote for a Green Party candidate.
And just for the record, it doesn't matter how many properties a non-resident ratepayer elector owns within a local body territory: they only get one vote in that territory, even if the property or properties within that territory are jointly owned. Power and votes
Green Party mayoral candidate Mickey Treadwell complained that non-resident ratepayers had disproportionate power because they can vote in the council elections.
He is quoted as saying: "it's a pretty direct violation of our one-person, one vote democratic principle".
I am sure that Mr Treadwell, as a Green Party member, is a supporter of unelected Māori having voting rights on council committees.
How he and many liberal lefties reconcile this with his above quote I don't know.
I am afraid that we have far too many ideologues as councillors and would-be councillors, who as the above quote reveals are quite happy to foster democracy, but are quite prepared to ignore their principles, when their ideology demands it. We did great
There has been a surfeit of grizzling and faux outrage from the right wing and the ignorant regarding Jacinda Ardern, Ashley Bloomfield, and the excellent public health team who led our Covid response.
Aotearoa saved 20,000 lives due to the border closure, mask mandates and our vaccination programme, according to statistician Michael Planck and epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker.
Official statistical sites reveal that the US suffered 3493 deaths per million people (as at July 2025), the UK 3404, France 2613, Canada 1424 and New Zealand 834.
Our economy came out of Covid strongly with low unemployment and with Triple A or Double A plus ratings from Moody's and Standard and Poor's.
Yet there is a barrage of often hysterical criticism of the Ardern government's brilliant response to a major pandemic.
Perhaps next time a pandemic arrives, the coalition apologists and the egotistical show ponies should go and live in the US and watch as hospitals split at the seams and morgues overflow into the streets while mass graves are dug, as in 2020. Local customer backs his local establishment
In the ODT (8.7.25) article regarding the on-licence and off-licence renewal application for Mackies Hotel, Port Chalmers, the Dunedin City Council licensing staff were insinuating Mackies was poorly run and opposed the renewal of the liquor licence.
On the contrary, this hotel is a well-run and well-maintained spotless pub.
I question the decision made by DCC licensing inspector Tanya Morrison and medical officer Aaron Whipp suggesting Mr Sefton was not a suitable applicant to hold a licence.
He admits he got slack with ever-changing compliance, but no need to make a mountain out of mole hill. A word in his ear would have sufficed.
Publican Wayne Sefton and his family have been a big support to the Port Chalmers community and sports clubs over the last 40 years. Mr Sefton, like most community publicans, also takes an interest in the wellbeing of his patrons.
DCC licensing staff should be supporting and help promote our community pubs: most of them are managed well with no trouble.
I would love to see more young people use these establishments. Whilst having a beer or two they would meet a lot of interesting people of all ages and demographics and walks of life. Mining and its legacy
I was shocked to hear about the proposed Santana mine at Tarras.
Do we really want a Central Otago where the noise of explosions, trucks and stamping machines echoes across the quiet Lake Dunstan, where 24/7 flood-lighting blots out the stars, where carcinogenic arsenic is released from the smashed schist and hangs around in the air and coats the soil, where toxins from a massive tailings dam leaches into the Clutha, where three huge open-cast mines are highly visible?
Eventually the Santana mine will expand through the Dunstan mountains and the Maniototo. Everyone who lives, works and plays in Otago and will feel the irreversible effects of the Santana mine.
The proposal is being fast-tracked, with diminished local or environmental input. We don't have much time.
Parliamentarian Shane Jones has ranted in respect of digging up our landscape and trashing our cultural heritage in favour of carte blanche access for Australian mining interests.
In Chillagoe, a one-time mining centre in far north Queensland, there is an abandoned smelter. This small centre is the acknowledged "start-of-the-outback", with something of a character of its own.
The place has been suspended in time, in the condition which probably existed on the day the last worker quit the site, no doubt to seek alternative employment at another mine.
My argument is: if that is the condition in which Australian mining conglomerates leave their own landscape, what assurances of remediation of our own landscape in the wake of gold, or whatever, finally giving out in New Zealand may be relied upon?
We as a country with much less territorial area able to be trashed than Australia, exist in their eyes with only one justification for our existence: our potential to be exploited, for their rapacious gain.
[Abridged — length. Editor.]
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