My Account
The French connection
Most kiwis would be amazed to learn that New Zealand takes in waste from France (Dome likely dumping ground for New Caledonia waste, MM March 3). The point is that New Caledonia is not some poor Pacific island, it is a territory, aka colony, of France. It is owned, run and financed by France. Why should we be taking their waste? From 1965 to 1996 we took some of their nuclear waste through the airwaves, and I think I recall they blew up a ship in Auckland port and killed a person. Was that not enough? Wake up, New Zealand!
Craig Rickit, Snells Beach
On foreign waste
Isn’t Waste Management owned by a Chinese company now? I think I read that somewhere. Why is rubbish from New Caledonia allowed to be dumped here in New Zealand? Why isn’t it sent back to France? They are the protectorate for New Caledonia. Would you trust the Chinese owner of Waste Management to not bring other materials into the country from, say China. Who would know? The way China is running roughshod over the rest of the Pacific countries, would you really trust Waste Management to not bring in more harmful waste? I have sat on the sidelines these past months, watching and reading what Waste Management is wanting to do, and this eye-opener regarding rubbish from the Pacific, and namely New Caledonia, made me think, what else are they not telling us? What has Redvale received that is more than harmful to the environment? The mind now boggles. This “dump” should not be in our backyard, and does Auckland Council really know what has been brought into the country by Waste Management, I wonder.
Brian Henman, Snells Beach
Waste Management is indeed Chinese owned – Ed
Forget tolls, it’s speed
I read the article regarding the proposed road toll for the new piece of motorway between Puhoi and Warkworth (MM Mar 3). To my knowledge the proposal has, and always was, for a user-pay tolls on this section of road. My hope would be that the road is not tolled, but I think the fact is we will be facing tolling charges for its use. My concern is that the state highway we currently use has a speed limit of 100km per hour. The powers-to-be intend to drop that road speed to 80km/h once the new motorway opens. They would say this is done for safety. This is a crock – I drive it all the time, day and night. It is, and has always has been, safe at 100km/h. If safety was so critical, surely the speed limit should have been dropped decades ago. The timing suggests it is being done because they see the old road being competitive to the new, which if left at 100km/h will take revenue away from the newly-constructed motorway. They did exactly the same on the old road between Orewa and Puhoi once the new motorway opened. My thoughts: the bigger issue is to fight the speed drop on the old road, therefore giving us locals a fairer alternative. I would love to see the Mahurangi Matters do a campaign to see what the local feeling is towards this anti-competitive move towards lowering this speed limit. Over the years, our governments have pushed laws against anti-competitive regimes, yet here they are proposing exactly that. I look forward to hopefully seeing and reading some investigative work from the paper into this issue, which has been shadowed by the bigger picture of us trying to fight against the proposed toll.
John Greacen, Matakana
We will look into it – Ed
