The Bay of Plenty Times welcomes letters and comments from readers. Below you can read the letters we have published in your newspaper today.
TODAY'S LETTERS:
Now's time to vote for electoral change
I believe that NZ has gone backwards over the past 15 years of our MMP voting system and should return to first past the post.
Under MMP there has been too much waffling and the tail wagging the dog, plus the enormous expense of too many Members of Parliament.
The attraction of FPP is that it was simple. Certainly it is not perfect. All voting systems have some attractions. The main argument against FPP was that NZ usually had so-called minority governments. In other words, the Government which was placed into power still had less than 50 per cent of all the votes of New Zealanders. However, the simple fact remains that each candidate was deemed by his/her electorate to be the best candidate for the job of representing that electorate and thus in my view has passed a key practical test.
This in turn helps to lead to more practical legislation and less of small groups of MPs pushing through legislation on a "we know what's best for you" basis.
I urge you all to vote for change in the forthcoming referendum. Bear in mind we still have a further three years to debate as to what those changes should be.
Bill Capamagian, Tauranga
Credibility issue
The stoush building over National Standards (NS) is still not exposing to the public gaze the most cogent reasons for opposing them. How NS stacks up against the very credible learning research we're now blessed with - particularly that of Nuthall's - is the issue. That neither side of the argument seems to know of such research is a worry. From the perspective of that research, NS's flaws are many.
There's the impossible-to-overlook matter of classroom learning being by nature "inherently inefficient" (Nuthall, 2001). NS endorses learning practices that are the known cause of the significant across-the-board under achievement we experience, negating thereby its own purpose. There's that assumption that teachers know enough about student learning to make valid judgements about the performance of each one of them.
This is untrue, the proven facts here are as comprehensive as they're compelling. There's the mistaken emphasis being placed on raising the failing one-fifth, when their plight - real and inequitable as it is - represents a loss of only about a quarter to a third of the capacity to learn being suffered by all students across the board.
What's very clear is that NS doesn't even recognise the issues being raised here. How confident, then, can we be of better things to come when the nature of the problem is not understood?
Laurie Loper, Tauranga
Hit 'em with 1080
After reading the honourable leader of the Kiwi Party's spiel on 1080 poisoning about infertility it made me think he is right. It is being used for the wrong purpose. Every politician in the country both local and parliamentary should be given a dose immediately. If they are over weight give them a double dose.
(Abridged)
Hone Dustin, Merivale
Warning too slow
I went to a seminar for engineers on "How to Manage Your Practice". The lecturer spent about half an hour trying to get his power-point presentation to work. All the time about fifty people waited patiently, each one probably charges him/herself out at over $150 per hour. Finally the seminar was cancelled.
I later approached this fellow in his beautiful suit and said: "I am intrigued that throughout the fiasco you never apologised once."
"Why should I?" he replied.
"Because if you had done your homework by setting up beforehand," I said, "You would not have kept us all waiting." He looked at me blankly.
So ... the Bay of Plenty Civil Defence took an hour to get a tsunami alert on their website, and the Bay's Emergency Management Centre's auto email alert failed, by the tenor of the Bay of Plenty Times report.
In the meantime sirens sounded up in Northland.
Tsunamis travel at anything up to 800km/h, so time is of the essence. The alert from the Pacific Tsunami Centre in Hawaii went up at 7.15am, and our lot took an hour to put up a "maritime alert" at 8.15am. They had to analyse the data first, of course.
Is Civil Defence the elephants' graveyard for the Civil Service?
Fraser Henderson, Mount Maunganui
Kids tried hard
Through your paper I would like to commend the NZTA for attempting to save money by asking school children to design the new roundabout.
It is obvious that these Year 1 students had been studying straight lines using rulers. Perhaps next year they may concentrate on circles and bends.
In the meantime, while they hone their skills, can they (NZTA) get on with building the promised underpass.
I am sure the children will not mind and the residents will be a lot happier. Sorry kids you done your best.
C T Clarke, Ohauiti
Taxing issue Bill
Capamagian (Your View, July 8) must be quite expert in solving drug problems in society as he cites discipline as the major factor required to curb anti-social drinking. He scorns evidence from the most rigorous health research in the world - the World Health Organisation, calling it "mass punishment".
If the excise tax on units of alcohol were raised by 50 per cent, a heavy drinker would pay approximately $1100 per year more for alcohol , and a disciplined drinker would pay $50 more. This is hardly punitive, and is in keeping with evidence, and principles of accountability.
Mr Capamagian omits that he contributes a large portion of his tax bill to the multi-billion-dollar cost of alcohol to our community. I do not see why society should pay for a less controlled drinker's excess but this is what Mr Capamagian currently endorses with his opinion.
I agree that restraint and control are needed, but let's use discipline to guide regulation and policy, not wait for a commercially driven society to work out that alcohol is a neuro toxic cancer forming drug that kills, maims and disturbs on a daily basis.
Tony Farrell, Mount Maunganui
Issue is cloudy
It's sunshine aplenty as temperatures rise (News, July 1) informs us that record temperatures for May, and near-record for June, plus the twice-average rainfall to date, are due to "one of the strongest La Nina cycles the country has ever seen".
A natural phenomena, says NIWA.
On Saturday (World section) we were regaled with tales of other "climatologists" forming a "Coalition for Attribution of Climate-Related Events" to research the probability of a "human signal" in EWEs relating to increased frequency, potency and risk.
Regrettably, this self-same coterie has failed abysmally to establish a human signal in anthropogenic global warming, despite squandering some US$100 billion ($119.65 billion) of research funding over two decades - unless one credits outputs from computer climate models.
It is indeed true that the general public is vastly more aware of EWEs worldwide, the message being rammed home thanks largely to modern communications and the media's predilection for doom, gloom, disaster and scaremongering, but whether storms are increasing in frequency and intensity is highly controversial and largely untrue.
Ah, silly me. Weather is natural, climate change is man-made.
Dave Finney, Matua
Text views
* The Welcome Bay proposed new roundabout is a stupid idea, nearly as bad as not being able to turn right into Welcome Bay Rd from Ohauiti Rd.
* Awesum dairies!those products r just gona breed a new kind of addict!pull the plug on those druggie makersAngie.
* Election signs not permitted on public land in rotorua, works fine. Less invasive
* I would never stop on yellow lines for police. lines are there for a safety reason, secondly i would never help police do anything at a crash its their job.
* Simon bridges. Get real. Govt said they wouldn't increase gst either so what differance is the govt promise for the wbay round about. Ar.
* Welcome bay roundabout is fine! Dont tutu!
* No! Leave the bloodly welcome bay roundabout as it is!
* Where did the person wot drew plan 4 w bay go 2 school. Get sum college kids 2 hav a go. Gwyn
* What intermediate kid thought that out. If 9mil cant push a short tunnel through, there'es something amiss
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