We have to give the parents the skills and opportunity to raise their own children, and education is a good start. We need to teach simple maths - one child costs X dollars to raise and it is the parents' responsibility to provide that money.
The government will provide X dollars so that it is achievable to all parents, and they will also help you out with a second child. After that you are on your own. If you want more children make sure you have the means to raise them.
Make seasonal work easier to access - all beneficiaries should be allowed to take on seasonal work without having to complete a stand-down period. The benefit should only stop while they are working and kick in as soon as that work finishes.
Drug and alcohol dependency is another factor in some cases. Reward those who make an effort to become free of that dependency. Make having a drug and or alcohol test voluntary and reward those who partake. Support those who need help kicking the habit and reward those who are successful.
Attitudes need to be changed. It is not your right to bring children into this world if you cannot care for them. The child has the right to be born into a family that is able to care for him or her. The rights need to go to the children not the parents.
Lastly, the biggest cause of climate change is the number of people who inhabit the earth. If the Greens were serious about the planet, they would have policies in place to limit the number of children being born.
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DENISE McNIE, Mangaweka
System broken
Every day we read or hear of the cracking apart of government-provided services.
Police in Whanganui unable to get enthusiastic over constantly re-structured jobs and absentee management; mental health workers quitting, afraid now to go to work in an underfunded health board environment; no doctors in Patea, and people waiting weeks to get to see a GP in Whanganui.
Teachers who hate what education has become with its emphasis on box-ticking and a narrowed curriculum; people sleeping in cars - in Whanganui!; a regional council forced through lack of funds to cut pest control so that possums are flooding back into rural areas.
Why are we putting up with all of this? National's messages of austerity somehow don't impact the very rich.
We need to have faith in Labour's ability to pull together a coalition government and defeat National. It is well time for a change.
In the Whanganui electorate the choice is easy under MMP - electorate vote for the very capable Labour candidate Stephanie Lewis and party vote to either the Greens or NZ First.
DEB FREDERIKSE, Whanganui
Turei a thief
Lynne Douglas is being too nice in her letter ("Double standards; July 25) regarding Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei.
MMP government sadly turns up people like her - she has committed fraud and should be punished.
Also Turei is not prepared to name people who told her they also ripped off the benefit system which is funded by New Zealand taxpayers. Surely that makes her a party to those offences also?
Am I upset? Yes, sure am as a taxpayer and seeing money being removed from the system by people like Turei. If she needed extra support she could have gone to the DSW and explained and laid out the reason why she needed any extra money to support herself and child.
We don't need people like her, or those who support her, in government.
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BOB WALKER, St Johns Hill
Coastal claims
The Marine and Coastal Area Act 2011, passed by National as part of its horse trading with the Maori Party, took the beaches and seabed of New Zealand out of Crown (public) ownership so as to make them available for small groups and coastal tribes to claim effective ownership in the form of customary title.
The minister who drove this bill through Parliament was Christopher Finlayson, formerly the lawyer for Ngai Tahu in their Treaty settlement of 1998.
And it just so happens that Ngai Tahu stand to gain potentially more of the coastline than any other tribe.
In passing this act, the National Party was violating its founding policy of representing all New Zealanders equally without giving special rights to any particular group.
From 1840 until Finlayson's act of 2011 tribes did not own foreshore and seabed.
The Crown did, in accordance with our law.
As a result of Finlayson's act, Maori have been given the ability to get ownership rights over the foreshore and seabed that were never been enjoyed by ancestors.
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IAN BROUGHAM, Tawhero
No fossils
I see a report (NZ Herald) that a scientific study has shown that humans in ancient times had sexual relations with unknown creatures. No fossils can now be traced. A friend of mine reminded me via fb that this can be found in the Torah, Genesis 6, written 3000 to 4000 years ago. Interesting thought to meditate on for those who say that the Bible is fairytales. Maybe other things God has said should be taken seriously.
DAVID TUCKER, Whanganui East
