I am often appalled at the general level of casual racism in your letters column but last week (August 31) it moved to full-blown in-your-face anti-Maori bigotry. Perhaps the likes of K Collingwood ('There are some very enterprising, hard-working and good-living Maori, but unfortunately there's so many others...') and R Paterson ('a Maori race as such doesn't exist'; 'Maori, like the cuckoo bird are depositing their modern fabricated language in everyone else's nest') could in future start letters with "I'm not racist but..." so the rest of us don't have to wade through their offensive drivel. Perhaps the paper should consider whether in encouraging free speech it is simply giving a platform to old-school racists.

D Jacombs, Te Puna.