Ms Murray-Benge's recent personal disappointments and sense of ‘unfair play' may have clouded her perceptions of fairness, rights, equality, and ethics.

Rights are created by society and individuals (Abortion rights are banned in one decade but granted in another. Women cannot vote in one century, but can in the next. Mother bans daughter's right to use the car until there is reform).

Rights and laws are challengeable and changeable and discriminatory. Equality is trickier because we are so ‘unequal'. We differ by way of gender, intellect, belief, age, ability, ethnicity and interests.
So while we are all human animals, we are not equal.

Equal rights is a slippery concept, because as a society, we sanction the discrimination of rights between seemingly equal people. We must pay tax but people may earn untaxed income via capital gains projects. We pay for aged home care but not middle-aged home care. There is no tidy way of applying rights – and certainly ‘equal rights for all' is unachievable.

Hobson may have said: ‘now we are all one people' but it was never realisable. Fair play, however, is something we should ardently support, never mind how tricky it is to conceive of and achieve.

S Reid, Omokoroa.