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:
Inflicting economic stress on ourselves
It is with some surprise that there has not been at least some comment in the interim from the teaching fraternity at least in reply to your guest editorial by Avon Carpenter (Opinion, May 11).
Mr Carpenter suggests that the responsibility lies with all schools from primary right through to universities. I am inclined to agree with the writer of that article but only in the absence of an age-old teaching that should have been, and in my view still is, the prerogative of Christian churches world wide.
I don't think that there is sufficient understanding of why there are so many failed attempts at correcting unacceptable behaviour at all levels because of the deeper underlying reasons that change the human psyche away from normal harmonious interactions.
When stress strikes it disturbs one's natural balance of mind and reasoning is often obliterated. It is a function of mind/chemical balance. Economic stress is a self-inflicted stress on society through lack of education.
We need the marketplace to affect our material exchanges and when that gets screwed up all hell can break out as it is in many places world wide right now. This is the area for new education.
DL Reid, Tauranga
No free lunch
I am puzzled by the letter from Graham Clark (May 10) where he accuses the IRD of stealing money by way of taxes.
Perhaps Mr Clark may wish to tell readers how the government can run the country without receiving money from taxes?
Lawrence Woods, Katikati
Ever upwards
Murray Steward's letter (Opinion, April 25) caught my attention regarding price comparisons of food between New Zealand and the UK. Unable to quite believe that your prices were more expensive than ours, I decided to check them out and lo and behold, by and large the prices quoted were correct. However, Welsh lamb is around $18 per kilo and some good cheddar cheeses can cost as much as $22.
We, in this country, still consider the price of food to be high, and still rising, in spite large subsidies paid to farmers by the EU. Why New Zealand lamb should cost more than the UK, when you have more sheep than the population is a mystery.
Food prices will continue to rise due to shortages and demand from developing countries such as China, which has acquired a taste for Western food.
Colin Gill, Cardiff, UK
Smoke free
After the piece in the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend ( May 14), ostensibly about the government's plans for a smoke free NZ by 2025, yet bookended by stories of smoking in Merivale, readers could be forgiven for picturing me writing this letter with a burning cigarette hanging out of my mouth.
Indeed, Carly is a wonderful writer and vividly evoked the feel, look and attitude of poverty in our little community, followed by the comment: "There are a lot of smokers in Merivale."
Not to get in the way of a good story, that assertion is untrue. It is true that there are statistically more smokers in Merivale than in many other neighbourhoods. But the large majority of people in Merivale do not smoke. At the 2006 Census, 33 per cent of people over 15 years in Merivale smoked. Sixty-seven per cent don't.
The Merivale Community Centre, the early childhood centres and Merivale School are smoke free. Merivale School has run smoke free events for years. The Merivale Festival is smoke free.
Smoke-free educators have worked with our children.
Our future in our community is a smoke-free future. Not because the government told us so. But because we believe our kids and our whanau deserve the chance to have a healthy life, and most of them are making that smoke-free choice every day.
Graham Cameron, Merivale
Text views
* Come down hard on these low lifes that have been registering their cars as ambulances.name and shame them.
* Re the Otumoetai pool time 4 ward Clrs Baldock & C stewart to support the status quo & vote 4 an upgrade of 1 of the few facilities that we have.
* great idea let swim club have pool. leanne
* Re the Otumoetai swimming pool proposal it looks like the community will lose the use of the pool meaning the loss 4 this area of one of the few community facilities that we have. It seems that the Mount and Papamoa get everything and areas like Bethlehem Otumoetai/Matua Welcome Bay get nothing.
* Freedom campings bn goin on at th mount lng b4 u jaffas mvd here an turned our beach resort in2 a highrise city tht th average person cant enjoy 4 free!
* Stop complaining about student fees in NZ,they'r peanuts compared 2 USA. And check out America's top guns at UCLA art gallery and go WOW!
* Plan terrible.Build carpark northern end by railway opposite old wharf no higher than rose gardens view then plan waterfront
* Whilst the vision may be good how on earth are ratepayers expected to be able to afford this vision?
* Re: waterfront 'vision' - not enough car parking! It will kill nightlife on the strand!
* Waterfront vision:Looks gd but those little shades on poles need 2 go!,drunks & thugs wil wreck them and with th winds and storms they wil cost a fortune 2 maintain
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