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listenerletters@aremedia.co.nz The Editor, NZ Listener, PO Box 52122, Kingsland, Auckland 1352 ■ Letters must be under 300 words. Preference is given to shorter letters. ■ A writer’s full residential address is required on all letters, including emails. A phone number can be helpful. ■ Pen names or letters submitted elsewhere are not acceptable. ■ We reserve the right to edit or decline letters without explanation. ■ Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the Listener or Are Media.…

I read Paul Goldsmith’s letter, (Letters, July 4), with considerable astonishment, and by the end a good deal of contempt, at his take on homeless people. He chose to focus on the disorderly few, conveniently forgetting that many in urgent need of housing are not disorderly, merely poor and struggling to survive. And no, we do not have one of the most generous welfare systems in the world. It is, as we found out this week, one of the most mean-spirited and punitive, as shown by the performance measures set for Ministry of Social Development staff to keep numbers of those getting emergency housing below the government target. That is institutional blackmail. Clearly this directive was given to make the government’s list of those needing emergency housing look better. The…

“If he’s got any complaints, he should take them through the proper legal channels, and possibly stop being a dickhead.” – Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour on Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki complaining online about police seizing his guns “I’m very happy for the culture. I’m very thankful New Zealand is ready for a Samoan restaurant, because when New Zealand started celebrating it I think the world noticed.” – Tala owner Henry Onesemo after receiving a Michelin star at Oceania’s first Michelin Guide awards “Don’t swear, Jerry. And don’t bleed in the sink; I’ve just cleaned it.” – Penelope Keith at her haughtiest best in 1970s comedy The Good Life. Keith died on June 29 aged 86 “I am deeply saddened to hear of my friend Penelope’s death. The shows…

A big shout out to Emma Mackintosh (Letters, June 27) for pointing out the End of Life Choice Act is there for just a few terminally ill people. An extension to the act would allow older people, while of sound mind, to make an advance request for assisted dying if diagnosed with dementia. Further, as Mackintosh indicates, this move would not only free up the health system but honour the personal integrity of people’s well-lived lives. The operative words in all this are that people themselves choose this path. Glennys Adams (Waiheke Island)…

It was gratifying to read Greg Dixon’s The Good Life column (“Return of the King”, July 4), which contained greater balance than his column of June 6. I agree that single-sex schools had overtures of authoritarian regimes. I was at Palmerston North Boys’ High School (PNBHS) from 1969-1973, and like many other traditional schools, it was devoid of diversity. But the school was a reflection of the society it served, and therefore a product of its time. I have recently returned as a teacher aide after 45 years in tertiary institutions in New Zealand, Asia and the Middle East. This has given me a wide perspective on education. I now find PNBHS reflects many aspects of the modern era, and the school incorporates practices that have proved successful in other…

I was impressed by the courage, resilience, and dignity of Lynda Topp as she broke one taboo after another in her speech at the celebration of Jools’s life on June 19. She described the intimacy of death, spiritual connection with earth and animals, the power of ritual, love and devotion and, as always, the human right to claim gender identity. She stood firmly for values that have been eroded by this government, and gave us a vision for governance based on creativity, trust, willingness, peace, love, purpose and kindness, saying, “Perhaps from today on we take all of those words and run our country with them.” Juliet Batten (Auckland)…

For our Competition No 150, we asked you to write a limerick on Labour’s proposed transport fare cap. FINALISTS: Capping bus fares is a winner traffic will definitely be thinner the wealthy won’t care but for those who despair it’s either a fare or a dinner ‒ John Bluck, Pākiri There is a new pledge ’bout commuting The Left want car drivers transmuting: Bus often and tap, There’ll be a cost cap, Much cheaper than petrol/ Lime scoot’ring. ‒ Megan Blakie, Christchurch Sitting still while your engine is humming Is frustrating, so fare caps are cunning Don’t get out the car Trains are better by far And faster – at least when they’re running! ‒ Stuart Douglas, Paraparaumu There once was a party called Labour Whose spending grew greater and…

Many voters treat expense scandals as diagnostic information. Just as your doctor can’t see inside your lungs, it’s hard for anyone outside the political system to penetrate the layers of complexity, hyperbole and lies concealing most policy discourse. But a physician can listen to you cough, and political outsiders can see politicians using their ministerial expenses fund to leave their car parked at Auckland Airport for a combined 8½ months over two years (Act MP Karen Chhour), or claim a $1000 a week accommodation subsidy to stay in a house they own (National’s Louise Upston), keep a limousine on stand-by for 24 hours over three days (New Zealand First’s Shane Jones) or use their wildly generous taxpayer-funded superannuation scheme to pay off a holiday home (Chris Hipkins). And it signifies…

There’s a big difference between Europeans and Americans that’s recently been getting attention. And it comes down to two words: Air. Conditioning. Europe has had two heatwaves this year and we’re not yet at peak summer. During the most recent one in late June, governments issued heat alerts for almost 200 million people. In Germany, trains and trams stopped running as tracks melted and roads cracked. Public pools closed due to overcrowding, schools cancelled classes, supermarkets sold out of ice cream and the Berlin police even set up water cannons, typically used for crowd control, to cool people off. The German meteorological service sounded like a broken record with all the broken records: two heat records over two days, the hottest night ever, the most nights classified as “tropical”, the…