{"id":48858,"date":"2015-10-22T09:03:44","date_gmt":"2015-10-22T16:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=48858"},"modified":"2015-10-22T09:03:44","modified_gmt":"2015-10-22T16:03:44","slug":"visit-speech-at-dowse-museum-lower-hutt-tuesday-20-10-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/10\/22\/visit-speech-at-dowse-museum-lower-hutt-tuesday-20-10-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Visit & Speech At Dowse Museum Lower Hutt.Tuesday 20.10.15"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Dr. Chula Rajapakse MNZM<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
Rt Hon John Key,<\/div>\n
Prime Minister of New Zealand,<\/div>\n
NZ Parliament.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Dear Mr. Key,<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I write \u00a0among others, to thank you for giving us the opportunity once again of listening to your precise and succinct analysis of current issues pertaining to New Zealand, both nationally and internationally , as you always do on occasions such as these. As a resident of the Hutt for over two and a half decades, it has been a delight to see Hutt receive the unprecedented Prime Ministerial attention \u00a0 it has received under your stewardship and the support you have given Chris Bishop MP , as he attempts to transform the “Hutt Valley” into a Smart Valley<\/b>\u201d \u00a0technically and economically.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
As indicated in the discussion, whilst acknowledging the support your government has already shown by awarding immigration points to potential new immigrants for settling out side Auckland for I believe five years, there many other measures that are conceivable to ease the housing congestion and disproportionate cost of them in Auckland compared to for e.g. \u00a0Wellington or the Hutt. Actively making those already resident \u00a0as individuals or businesses \u00a0in Auckland , aware of the opportunities of much greater space at a much lesser cost and without gridlock traffic both AM & PM, in the latter centres , through active and catchy \u00a0marketing campaigns, initiated by relevant local bodies and central government, using multi media and dedicated seminars , are \u00a0some of these measures that come to mind.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
On the issue of central government supporting the lengthening of the \u00a0Wellington airport runway to take on long haul international flights, as in the past on Tuesday too \u00a0you emphasised the importance of securing the buy in from Air New Zealand for making the business case for this project. Whilst accepting this entirely. I would venture that one way to do this might be through exploring the potential for \u00a0new routs currently poorly serviced by any air line. One such rout that I have been painfully aware of \u00a0for a while is the access to South Asia \u00a0( India,Pakistan Sri Lanka & Bangladesh) from Australia & New Zealand. At the moment the only way to access these destinations is to go east unnecessarily \u00a0to South East Asia and deviate westerly to ones destination in South Asia.. A more economical way would be to go direct to South Asia for eg. Colombo and have connections from there with local airlines to the ultimate city destinations in these neighbouring countries , so reducing considerably flying time and cost.Further accessing Europe via Colombo would also \u00a0be shorter from Australian and New Zealand \u00a0 than the current flight paths via south east Asia, and \u00a0in fact used to be the flight path to Europenih before south east Asia came into prominence. These opportunities could attract potential traffic, tourist and expatriates from all of Australia and New Zealand to these destinations that account for a population of over 1.5 billion not to mention European traffic. \u00a0These are some thoughts I believe are worth pursuing .<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
You may remember that I wrote to you a few weeks ago updating you on the recent happenings in Sri Lanka ahead of your meeting with it\u2019s new President, Mr Maitripala Sirisena at the UN in September. Many Sri Lankans still continue to entertain the concerns I referred to that Mr Sirisena\u2019s government has been forced into accepting intrusive \u00a0investigations at the hands of foreign judges and lawyers based on questionable allegations initiated by the international Tiger diaspora, the very people that sustained three decades of terrorism in Sri Lanka. The real reason it is felt, \u00a0for the US led resolutions that led to this was \u00a0the economic closeness of Sri Lanka to China under the previous Mahinda Rajapakse regime. This closeness was considered contrary to US\u2019 s interest in influencing the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Listening to you on Tuesday, detailing the beneficial impact for New Zealand on the \u00a0ever increasing trade & tourism with China, \u00a0considering Australia\u2019s extensive business links with China & now the the glittering \u00a0Golden Chariot welcome \u00a0UK led by Her Majesty the Queen is extending to the visiting Chinese president at Buckingham palace, courting Chinese investment and business \u00a0leaves me with absolute frustration at the unfairness \u00a0of \u00a0Sri Lanka \u00a0being singled out for a beating \u00a0for doing what seems to be entirely in order \u00a0for every one else to do. New Zealand\u2019s role in the security council must surely include being aware of & \u00a0standing up against such deplorable double standards.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Thank you once again for affording us a very pleasing evening.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Yours Sincerely<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Dr. Chula Rajapakse MNZM<\/div>\n
FRCP\/FRACP\/ D.Med Rehab<\/div>\n
Physician\/ RheumatologistVisit & Speech At Dowse Museum Lower Hutt.Tuesday\u00a0 20.10.15<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Chula Rajapakse MNZM Rt Hon John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand, NZ Parliament. Dear Mr. Key, I write \u00a0among others, to thank you for giving us the opportunity once again of listening to your precise and succinct analysis of current issues pertaining to New Zealand, both nationally and internationally , as you always […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}