LETTERS - 1 July - The Coromandel Informer

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July 1, 2025

The purpose of the Letters to the Editor column is to enable members of the public to express an opinion, about an article or a topic of interest/concern. Please keep them to 200 words or less. These letters do not reflect the editor’s view. The editor reserves the right to edit and decide what is…

No bouquets for 7.7% rates increase

In the TCDC email titled, Staying the Course, dated Wednesday, 25 June, the Council makes much of the fact that they have “stuck to the average 7.7% district-wide rates increase we signalled for Year 2 of our Long-Term Plan”, as if this is some sort of major achievement for which the ratepayers should be grateful.

New Zealand’s inflation rate for the year ending 31 March 2025 was 2.5%. In what world is an increase of three times the national inflation rate something to be proud of?

Fixed income ratepayers are not getting an increase in their income to cover this sort of increase. I currently pay 25% of my pension just on rates, and this is going up incrementally by far more than the inflation rate.

You want a budget plan?

1. The inflation rate for the previous financial year is your budget increase cap.

2. Stick to basic services, roading, water, sewerage and waste. Social services are not your job. If communities want to beautify, modernise, promote local business, assist them with fast tracked permits and advice. Communities can raise the funds themselves and provide working bees in order to help themselves and their communities.

3. If the Government is pushing changes to local council for which you don’t have the finances, then push back, in conjunction with other cash strapped councils, for the Government to find affordable solutions.

Set an annual goal to work within your means, with no exceptions. If you don’t have the money, DON’T DO IT!

Ian Stewart

Entrusting the Decision Makers?

I was struck by a phrase in Trevor Ammundsen’s article, issue 1162, ‘Does Mercury Bay have a vision?’. He said, “I am suggesting that Council staff are not the decision makers here. They are to be public servants”

My initial reaction was “So true!”. Decisions are to be democratically made by the public, then put into practice by Council staff (in so far as budget allows). However, how are these democratic decisions to be reached and howare they conveyed to the Council to be executed? Would this be via the Community Boards? Would we have to have endless referend? Not everyone participates in them by any means.

Or is the democratic decision made when we elect the Council members and thereafter, we trust them to make decisions for us? Moreover in the same issue there was an article examining the Council’s decision regarding the new rating system which revealed that the respondents to their questionnaire on the different options clearly voted for option one and the council then promptly voted for option three! I appreciate that the respondents only made up 2% of rate payers, but the juxtaposition was stark.

I feel that if we are going to entrust these Council members with decisions, we need to know much more about them prior to election and possibly see statements of their position on specific issues which are pending during their term of office.

Brighid Southwell, Kuaotunu

Elect the Conch

Elections are coming. People stand up to be elected. People get elected and all those changes they promised to get your vote don’t happen. The same thing happens three years later when another lot of candidates raise their heads with good intentions to make change.

Again, there is no change. The system rules regardless of the personnel inside it. It is the system which needs change. A vote for a change of system might affect some real change in government which cannot be affected with a simple change of personnel.

The ‘Conch’ is the name given to an electronic opinion-gathering device set up to assess public opinion. The Conch would publish results as from a referendum. 10,211 ratepayers in the Whitianga can be logged into the Whitianga Conch, cast their vote and see what everyone else thinks about it. The technology is already in place.

Voting and the results will emerge just seconds after the time limit. Cost is virtually free. The Conch’s results can then be used to influence council decisions. But who has the oomph to set one up? Who will stand up for election promising to set up the Conch in Whitianga’s Community Board?

The conch could be set up privately at home, but wouldn’t we rather see it in the hands of our local community board or, better still, our district council?

John Veysey, Colville

Let’s get beyond cynical anti-climate change scientist and science opinions

In his response to my previous letter Mr Brickell (3 June 2025) cynically headlined that “NASA readings keep the research dollars rolling in”.

In doing so he continues to parrot an anti-climate change science narrative that has been going on for about 30 years. This narrative has its origins in American right wing think tanks and oil industry supported interests. Mr Brickell might as well argue that anyone who is motivated to do good in the world, regardless of their profession, is simply doing so to keep the money rolling in. It is a very cynical, uninformed perspective.

My advice to Mr Brickell, therefore, is to stick to the science. The links I provided for the NASA website, which he dismisses out of a belief (blind perhaps?) in his superior knowledge, were found with a few minutes of my time. So, let’s go a bit further. The measurement and interpretation of sea level is an extremely complex and sophisticated undertaking. It involves use of both sea level gauges which tend to be clustered in coastal environments and near centres of population, and satellite instrumentation which gives much greater spatial coverage across the world’s oceans. Of course, Mr Brickell has previously dismissed satellite measurements, which I am sure he would embrace if they supported his point of view. But of course they don’t.

The work of NASA scientists on sea level data doesn’t happen in isolation. As noted in previous letters there are thousands of scientists around the world, including within New Zealand, across numerous institutes who are working in this field. Here are some further useful links, and there are many more:

1. https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/tide-gauge-sea-level-data

2. https://sealevel.colorado.edu/

3. https://psmsl.org/train_and_info/training/manuals/manual_14_final_21_09_06.pdf

4. https://cdn.ioos.noaa.gov/media/2021/04/IOC-MG-83_eo.pdf

In summary, Mr Brickell will find that I am very clear in my understanding that the work of NASA sea level scientists is aligned with that of scientists around the world. Dare he lift his head out of the sand and open his eyes? Perhaps that is too much to ask. This is the end of my communications on this matter.

Gavin Kenny, Whenuakite

Wrong idea about EV car batteries

The idea that electric car batteries only last three years and then end up polluting landfills is a total myth. The truth is very different -and it’s changing clean energy around the world.

Redwood Materials has just built the world’s largest “second life” battery system. It uses 62 megawatt-hours of old batteries to power North America’s biggest off-grid solar data centre. These so-called “dead” batteries still have over 50% capacity left even after 25 years in an EV, showing they can keep working as energy storage before they’re recycled.

Redwood recycles batteries equivalent to around 250,000 EVs every year. That’s about 90% of all lithium-ion battery recycling in North America. This approach can easily be expanded worldwide, including in New Zealand as our EV numbers grow.

The key difference: fossil fuels are burned once and gone forever, leaving air and climate pollution behind. EV batteries can be used over and over-first in cars, then to store renewable energy, then recycled into new batteries. That’s a circular system instead of a wasteful one.

Redwood’s battery-powered microgrid already runs cheaper than normal grid power. For New Zealand, using EV batteries this way could support our renewable energy goals, create jobs, cut oil imports, and save billions.

Switching to EVs isn’t creating waste-it’s building a cleaner, smarter energy future.

Maureen McGill, Mercury Bay

TCDC Affirms Volunteers

Thanks to TCDC, Community Board members, and Councilors for the Volunteer Get Together they put on.

Great to know that the many hundreds of volunteers within Mercury Bay are recognised. Without the volunteers, Mercury Bay and other communities on the Peninsula and in Hauraki would not survive. Thanks again.

Jon Maud, Community Patrol/Bike Park, Mercury Bay

Jesus enlisting

Having read Gordon T’s beautifully written piece (The Informer 24 June), I dare to say that it wouldn’t be inconceivable for Jesus to enlist mortals to do his bidding, according to His plan.

God bless you Gordon T.

Dan Allen, Whitianga

All blame on Bottom trawling?

Once again, we see bottom trawling being touted as the cause of the destruction of our oceans. The thinking seems to be that if an area isn’t trawled, the sea floor remains undisturbed, thereby marine life is in a state of utopia. Nothing could be further from the truth-regardless of what the learned David Attenborough might espouse.

Can Ross Liggins please explain- Why after a good storm scallops wash up on our beaches? Scallops that, incidentally, we were led to believe were virtually non-existent.

Logical thinking, and underwater observation, would suggest the ocean floor isn’t static, and the percentage of trawlable areas actually being trawled, is very unlikely to cause the massive destruction purported. Nature is resilient, and just like climate,is ever changing and evolving.

As recreational fishing increases exponentially, we need to step back and look at our own impact on fish stocks, and stop blaming commercial fishers-who just happen to be a dying breed. It’s time we stopped the blame game and hysteria creating hyperbole.

Gail Morgan, Te Rerenga

LETTERS – 1 July