Grace Millane

Horrified that this happened here in New Zealand? Thinking she should have been safe here? There’s a bar in Christchurch where young women have been drugged. Remember Roast Busters? Did anyone ever get charged? And what about our legal system – a big law firm in Auckland was recently the subject of an enquiry over sexual harassment. The police – our recent past brings up names like Shipton and Schollum and Rickards.

Despite feelings of sickness and anger, it seems we are surrounded by bad attitudes to women. Our society is infected at all levels. People who have mothers, sisters, wives and daughters and yet…

Diane Cowan, Mt Pleasant (Abridged) on prime time news. Almost 400 people dead from road crashes, meanwhile, including young children, and we soldier on stoically as we front up to the cost of motor car use. A safe country? Yeah, right.

Questions posed about the impact of the murder on New Zealand’s image and tourist numbers reveal the sham.

I feel sorry for the young woman and her family, but really I think our priorities are pretty screwy when this is our reaction to the odd murder in contrast to the reality of the devastating proportion of fatalities on our roads every year, which of course includes tourists.

Jo Barrett, Papanui forefront of electrical technology before leaving. The other, Maurice Wilkins, was born of expat parents and left aged 6, had no other connection to our country, and never visited.

Whereas the missing one, Alan MacDiarmid (Chemistry 2000) had two degrees from New Zealand, before he left worked on the materials for which he was to receive the prize, had a large family plus scientific colleagues in New Zealand, and regularly visited.

Perhaps we should claim only those who were influenced by New Zealand, not just born here.

Dr John Campbell, Rutherford biographer, Ilam