Until such time as a transgender person goes through the same puberty as the gender they "identify" with, they should not be allowed to use the same private facilities.
Kent Millar, Blockhouse Bay.
Dispensing with condoms
Charlie Tredway, crowned as Mr Gay NZ, openly states he doesn't use condoms. What is the message being given to everyone? Even though he says that he tells all his partners his HIV status, there would be few people that could say no in that sort of emotional situation.
He is not a great ambassador when it is so important not to spread HIV, or in fact any disease. Isn't using condoms important to people any more?
Sue King, Taupo.
Costly street parking
When will Auckland Transport provide solutions to parking issues in the CBD instead of just shifting the problem? As Freemans Bay, Herne Bay and Ponsonby all become 120-minute parking, commuters are moving further afield, creating problems for residents in fringe suburbs.
If AT wants to close off areas where city workers have been parking for years, they need to provide viable alternative options. We are six months away from a new bus network and the $24 per day parking ($120 a week) is an extortionate rate which the majority of residents cannot afford.
As a Grey Lynn resident I can no longer park in my own street and as a worker in the CBD I can't afford to park at work. The most liveable city? What a joke.
Alessandra Nixon, Ponsonby.
Super salary
I would rather 1000 New Zealand families got an extra $236, and Adrian Orr didn't get any increase. Would he do his job any differently if he didn't get an increase? If he resigned would we be worried?
No, he is not the only person in New Zealand that can do the job. In fact I am positive there is someone out there who could do a better job for less money.
It would be good if CEOs, CFOs and board members looked at the big picture instead of just considering themselves, and reflected on whether they are creating a society they want to live in. Or would it be a nicer place to live if most people had enough money?
Kathryn Manners, Greenlane.
Worse off
Well done on your editorial on the Cullen fund. The one thing I see with Prime Minister Bill English's attack on the CEO's salary is an attempt to hide the fact the NZ Superannuation Fund was, in 2008, on its knees pleading with English not to stop the $250 million payments to it each year.
They could see the best time to invest was at the bottom of a market. Thanks to Finance Minister English's decision to not listen, we are now way over $30 billion worse off.
Maybe English was listening to his offsider, ACC minister Nick Smith, who at the same time ramped up minimum levels for injured people to be eligible and raised levies in a panic (which is his forte) because the ACC's asset values had dropped.
These same people are still not receiving the levels of treatment they require to be rehabilitated and back in the workforce.
This country's accounts would be in a very good state if we had, in 2008, appointed Adrian Orr on a couple of million per annum as our financial guru instead of the double-dipper from Dipton.
Ian Wilson, Saint Johns.
Obscene salaries
English is on the button with his concerns about a large pay rise for the NZ Super Fund's CEO. Not only does the evidence-based research almost universally condemn the rationale and need for large annual salaries for CEOs across the board, but the NZ Super Fund suffers a double whammy, because the research also strongly suggests passive investment over active fund management is the way to go.
Catherine Savage's comment on the salary is devoid of analysis, and the old chestnuts of comparisons to overseas payments and market forces lack substance.
What is needed is a benchmarking formula, something like the Swedish proposal of 12 times the average wage, plus a wealth tax to help bridge the gap between rich and poor. Governments need to start talking down the obscene CEO salaries trend of the past 30 years.
Alec Waugh, Takapuna.
Women the losers
The Australian Education Ministry's endorsement of young Muslim boys refusing to shake hands with their headmistress is a betrayal of women everywhere. After hundreds of years of fighting for equality, these representatives have surrendered fundamental principles in an instant.
The religion of Islam does not offer us an enlightened view of women's place in society. The word Islam means submission. Men are submissive to Allah, women are submissive to men and non-muslims are destined to exist in a state of servility called "dhimmitude".
The message education officials are sending is that they are prepared for the sake of political correctness to trade women's rights for Sharia law, a religious code utterly at odds with our own. Women have everything to lose if we continue to compromise such values.
Susan Nixon, Glen Eden.
Paying for the wages
I was pleased to see that our new Mayor Goff is committed to increase the pay levels of the staff that administer our great city. Nobody should be asked to work for poor pay in this modern world. He now faces two more commitments which he will need to adhere to.
One is to restructure the administrative staff of the Auckland Council to ensure they will be paid this improved income while remaining within the existing financial budget. The other commitment he needs to make is to ensure those staff that remain working for the council actually earn the money they will be paid.
By undertaking these commitments there is a possibility Auckland will become a better place in which to live for all.
Dick Ayres, Auckland Central.
Incongruous figure
In one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's stories, a film actor is dressed as a Cossack and he is inadvertently sitting at the head of a table in a canteen provided especially for Hollywood big-wigs. Fitzgerald writes, "It was as if in Leonardo Da Vinci's painting, The Last Supper, someone had crayoned in Donald Duck instead of Jesus Christ as the central figure". I think Trump's political reign is a bit like that, don't you?
Will Leadbeater, Mt Albert.
Trump coverage
I am heartily sickened by the non-stop anti-Trump diet served up by the Herald and by New Zealand television.
Is New Zealand media owned by CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post? Is it possible Donald Trump has actually done some good things during his very short term of office?
Even though all that he stands for appears to be repulsive to local editorial staff, it could be good to discover Fox News, if only to pay lip service to the concept of fair and unbiased news coverage.
Graham Braddock, Kaukapakapa.
Paying for results
Linking teachers' pay to performance is not worth considering. Everywhere this "reign of error" has been practised, a negative, destructive psychological environment has been produced in which professionalism, collaboration and care suffer, and damage is done for the children for whom school is a special and safe sanctuary.
Should teachers be made accountable for the problems of deserving children who, through accident of birth, have learning difficulties, for classroom distress from fractured relationships, for the disenfranchised, or for the results in children of social and cultural exclusions resulting from deeply integrated historical systems of inequality outside their control?
Thinking New Zealanders with heart would reject performance pay for teachers as part of broader cultural and imaginative failure, for we do not want this creeping spiritual paralysis.
Dr Janet E. Mansfield, Mount Eden.
