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Not the full story

Your editorial of April 15 quite properly holds up for condemnation the present appalling rate of Maori offending and imprisonment in New Zealand.

It reports the Waitangi Tribunal’s expose of the growing gap of imprisonment and reoffending between Maori and NonMaori in our population.

This must be troubling to all New Zealanders.

That is, for a significant proportion of the New Zealand population spending time locked up in prison.

It is a situation the economy cannot sustain indefinitely.

However, the tribunal and your editorial both seem to believe the Department of Corrections should be doing more to correct this appalling statistic.

While this may be partially true, it is not the full story.

It is patently obvious that throwing money at this situation would be a waste of time.

Corrections manages prisons, it is not a welfare agency. In fact the solution to this problem lies, if it lies at all, within Maoridom itself.

The late Apirana Ngata foresaw the present situation when the first Labour Government was elected in 1935. Although Ngata was a conservative politically and socially, he saw the obvious plan of that government to help Maori people raise themselves up would ignominiously fail.

So it has - and Maoridom is generally worse off than it was in 1935. Ngata saw then - and it is probably just as true today, that Maoridom has to want to improve its situation - or it would be left behind.

Corrections and the New Zealand Government generally have a duty to assist Maoridom but the Maori population has a duty to itself to help itself.

If it does not do so - it will be left behind. Inevitably this would lead to young Maori raging against their plight at being poor, unskilled and unconsidered.

That would not be a good thing for New Zealand - or the Maori people. Peter Owens Gore

Who will pay the price?

The deep state, in relatively quick time, has brought the latest US President to heel and we are now all exposed, yet again, to previous behaviours but on steroids.

The deal maker has turned warmonger and the global policeman, truncheon at the ready, is making multiple threats.

Not that long ago Donald and Teresa stood side by side and told the rest of us that they would no longer interfere in other countries’ affairs. Yeah right! Uncle Sam has normalised war to the extent that a massive bomb has the acronym MOAB painted on it. Factually correct but....? ‘‘Democracy, after all, is worth fighting for and we intend to do just that’’.

This statement made without any sense of irony.

If America is to become great again who will pay the price?

We do indeed live in interesting times. Daniel Phillips Invercargill

Cycle trails

Our former Prime Minister John Key made himself Minister of Tourism, which seemed to fit well with his globe-trotting activities, where he pushed New Zealand feathers at every chance he got.

One of his pet tourism products was to push for the establishment of a series of cycle tracks up and down the country.

How easy it would be to cover the country from Northland to Bluff with walking/cycling tracks and at very little cost.

He visited many of the sites, spreading the word as to what a great tourist attraction and a boast to local economy.

It was often including a sugarcoated lolly scramble of assistance of funds to develop these tracks sometime in the next five years.

Cost estimates always seem to be only a fraction of what the true costs finally come in at, with the result that districts and councils in most places find themselves with great debts just to get them completed, let alone cover their upkeep.

Is this the only con John Key has left as a legacy?

Will the country be able to support all the tourists that have been promised a visit to Godzone? Jim Fish Invercargill