Is it ever okay to discipline someone else's kids? Photo / Getty Images
Irrational public servant cuts
We are greeted each morning with the news of more planned or actual job losses in the public service. These announcements are accompanied by a hue and cry from all interested parties.
Along with the arguments for the against, these reductions are discussions about the increases in public service jobs over the last few years and the number of vacancies included in the numbers.
What seems to be missing is a rational discussion about how many people are actually needed to meet the public’s need; what actually constitutes frontline services versus backroom support and probably most important, how many backroom support positions are actually needed for the frontline people to optimally deliver the public’s need.
Past experience tells me that little thought is given to this last point. Invariably those on the frontline end up with doing the work previously done in the backroom. They, therefore, have less time to actually serve the people they are facing. This ultimately results in complaints and a new cycle of hiring begins.
It is probably too late for this discussion now. When we reach the next cycle of job cuts, just maybe, there will be such a discussion and as a result a more rational approach.
Dunstan Sheldon, Hamilton.
Disciplining other kids
Sorry Greg Bruce, I am afraid I have to side with your wife (Is it ever OK to tell off other people’s kids?, Apr 13).
Now, to be clear, I am in my eighth decade and when I was the age of those taking part in the event, you respected your elders.
Decades ago my late father was watching the children of the neighbours across the street playing in the surf in the Coromandel. One of the brothers was picking on his sister.
Dad marched down and grabbed the young boy by the ankle and flipped him upside down. Holding him at arm’s length just above the water, he asked the boy to apologise to his sister. When he refused, my father dunked him into the water head-first.
The first time didn’t work but after the second time the boy apologised. My father did not get any complaints from the parents and all three children were very respectful of my father from that point onwards.
I’m not sure if the boy stopped picking on his sister but he did not do it in front of my father. It was a different time back then.
In today’s world, what Greg’s wife did would be the equivalent of what my father did. I see nothing wrong with it.
Dunstan Sheldon, Hamilton.
Yes adults should
In response to Greg Bruce’s Canvas article, sorry “dude”, your wife is quite correct and it seems her initial response was not confrontational but sufficient for any savvy kid to intuit “please take care”.
It does “take a village to raise a child” because parents can’t and shouldn’t hover over their progeny 24/7.
If other parents express disapproval of the public behaviour of youngsters, then it either consolidates what they are learning at home or else it “introduces” youngsters to expectations of behaviour that they don’t experience at home.
Heather Mackay, Kerikeri.
Student strikers
Correspondent Anna Murphy endorses David Seymour’s bullying tactics in applauding his “stance” on student strikes (Weekend Herald, Apr 13).
Of course education is a “privilege”. But how privileged we all are when a generation of young people take from that education the clear-mindedness and concern over current and future situations and perils the courage to act in resistance to the real threats they see for themselves and all of us in a climate crisis and the growing tendencies in the world for war and its atrocities.
There is a great moment in teachers’ lives when they learn from their students and it is from the concerned actions of these school strikers that we learn that they care so much about the wellbeing of the world and coincidentally that their teachers and parents are doing a bloody good job.
Peter Beyer, Sandringham.
Law breakers
Protesters all around the world, whether it be damaging artworks, glueing themselves to roads, causing mayhem on the roads or damaging pedestrian crossings, all have two things in common.
Firstly they think that their cause is so noble that breaking the law is okay. Secondly, by their actions, they achieve absolutely nothing.
Laurence Mallon, Te Atatu.
Dismantling democracy
All over the world liberal democracies strive for adult individuals to have equal political power. They write it into their constitutions and laws because it is so important.
My vote has the same influence as your vote - no matter where our ancestors came from. The majority of votes selects the government, because over the centuries we have learned the hard way that minority rule is horrible.
Public resources get spent according to individual need, not individual ethnicity. Elected officials must be accountable to everyone whose taxes they are spending. Because without accountability there is no democracy.
Yet in New Zealand we now routinely see these principles publicly condemned as “race-baiting”. Our democracy is being dismantled.
Andrew Tichbon, Green Bay.
Class action
Recent job cuts at the Education Ministry, although devastating to those directly affected, should not adversely impact those at the chalk-face.
It is the shortage of teachers that remains the most critical issue in education. Class numbers over 30 (36 is normal at one Auckland secondary school) are not conducive to an ideal class environment. It is not lecturing, it is teaching teenagers and very few capable, bright graduates want to take it up.
One hopes the culling of state servants does not extend to the classroom, the hospital ward or the frontline combatting crime. The loss of a job must be one of the most devastating things to face. It is a person’s livelihood, their self-esteem, the reason for getting up in the morning.
If it is so necessary to cut so many jobs, why is there a plan to build a multibillion-dollar tunnel? What is more important here? The financial health and well-being of thousanders of New Zealanders - or a tunnel?
There is nothing from the Government about whether the job cuts extend to senior management positions - I mean, are their positions so critical? Vital?
Miles Langdon, Remuera.
Urban elite
Simon Wilson’s column on the media is an uplifting example of the urban elite’s enduring sense of noblesse oblige (Weekend Herald, Apr 13).
Wilson kindly but firmly reminds us that the members of this new aristocracy are our moral and educational superiors. They have good intentions, they know what is best for all of us and the media has a responsibility to promote their view of the world.
Those of us lower down the social order who complain about the things he lists like lower speed limits, climate change, housing density and Māori “special treatment” should know our place and not expect to be taken seriously. This especially applies to the middle-aged European New Zealanders to whom Wilson kindly points out the error of our ways.
We should stop grumbling and be grateful for the elite’s guidance and patronage. The class system of Jane Austen’s England re-purposed for the 21st century. How very reassuring.
Must go. I’m off to buy a cloth cap so that I might properly doff it should I be privileged to meet one of my betters in the street.
Brian O’Neill, Chatswood.
Simple, Simon
Simon Wilson asked: “Trust down, jobs gone - what’s the media to do now?”
Simple, Simon. Take a step back to what the media was and should be in a country where our many races only have one language in common - English.
Surely you can see that the media has clearly upset your advertisers and the majority of your readers who voted for a change of Government by trying to force-feed us language lessons in Māori at every opportunity you can?
Yes, we all want the media to be inclusive of all races in NZ, but not by trying to train us to learn and speak one local language which we feel is of no use to us and little use to the future kids of NZ in an increasingly international English-speaking world.
The pride we all have in our country’s Māori heritage does not require us all to speak Māori.
Richard Amery, Rotorua.
I am a life-long user of rifles for hunting. I know that bolt-action rifles are the best for hunting game animals, because they are far more accurate. So there is no valid reason to have semi-automatics, except in the tightly controlled case for killing a large number of pest animals. Therefore the only reason for Act’s desire to allow semi-autos is to cater for a few shooting enthusiasts who want a semi-auto. That is nowhere near enough to justify the bringing back of semi-autos. Keep gun laws unchanged.
Alison and Rex Beer, Whangaparāoa.
Act and National need to reflect on how much worse the Bondi attack would have been if the perpetrator was using a gun. Especially the sort that gun lobbyist Nicole McKee wants to reintroduce. And why is she anywhere near our gun laws when she has such a huge conflict of interest?
Cheryl Taylor, Mt Eden.
Christopher Luxon has often been shown speaking to young children in primary schools. Now David Seymour has visited an early childhood centre. I have a very serious question - were the parents of the children visited by these politicians asked for their consent to such visits?
Greg Cave, Sunnyvale.
Boot camp advocate David Seymour is calling Jacinda Ardern authoritarian. What planet is he on? Ardern made the hard decisions that saved 20,000 NZ lives. We are one of a tiny number of countries whose life expectancy went up instead of down. That is wise governance, not authoritarianism.
Gabriel Brettkelly, Morningside.
ACC should use Uber for its taxi service. It’s efficient and cheaper.
Chris Elias, Mission Bay.
The stabbings in a Sydney mall highlights simply that the Mental Health Act is a vital piece of legislation. Without it, we would be in a very dangerous place. The only problem with that is we do not have the resources to effectively manage our most at-risk. We must not wait for incidents like this to incite an acknowledgment that mental health resourcing is desperately flawed.
John Ford, Taradale.
The Helen Clark Foundation says NZ must increase exports from our “food and fibre” industry as this is “crucial to NZ’s prosperity and standard of living”. The anti-farmer lobby says we must slash our sheep and beef numbers. Which is it to be?
John Denton, Napier.
Who in their right mind would suggest building a tunnel on a faultline in Wellington. Please tell me I have misunderstood the suggestion, all to save 15 minutes’ travel. Isn’t money in short supply, which was the reason the ferries contract was cancelled?
Sue Gallahar, Māngere East.
That Bishop Tamaki would have us believe that he had no knowledge that his grandson-in-law painted the rainbow crossing white is miraculous. A bigger miracle is to believe that Destiny Church won’t pick up the tab.
Ian Doube, Rotorua.
A conviction and an $18,000 penalty for painting over the rainbow crossing seems extreme when a youth who rapes two under-age girls and molests another only pays $1000 to each victim.
Katherine Swift, Kohimarama.
Most school science labs have a glass prism to demonstrate the diffraction of white light into rainbow colours. Will Destiny Church be demanding that all prisms are destroyed in order to protect developing minds from exposure to rainbow-washing?
Norm Murray, Browns Bay.
With his use of the term “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, Donald Trump has aptly identified his own personal complaint.
Jeanette Grant, Mt Eden.
Locals want more certainty about the swept-away bridge's future.