Your letters: Collegiate School's business decision

Wanganui Collegiate School welcomes new students and new headmaster Wayne Brown last month.

College squeeze

The Chronicle's recent article on the financial squeeze at Wanganui Collegiate School gives a glowing explanation, and much of it may be true, but it is possible to hold a less enthusiastic view.

An integrated school has two pockets. The board of trustees' pocket (for teaching) is empty. This is the pocket criticised in the Government audit, and it is empty because they don't put much money in it.

The proprietor's pocket (for buildings) is bulging. Almost all the parents' money goes into this pocket.

So why doesn't more money go into the teaching pocket and less into the buildings pocket? This is what the legislation intended, and it is what every other integrated school in the country does.

Collegiate has made a business decision. If they take parents' money to the board of trustees, they must make it clear that it is a donation, and provide receipts for tax purposes.

They do not want to do that, so the money goes through the proprietor, who can then make a "grant" to the board of trustees. The problem of "donations only" goes away.

There must be some unhappy parents who have to pay GST unnecessarily and cannot claim the tax credit they are entitled to.

The Ministry of Education has approved Collegiate's schedule of charges. They claim that any dissatisfied parents have avenues of complaint through the board of trustees.

GUY GIFFORD
Whanganui

Fluoride risks

In response to John Archer's letter — "Big health issue" (March 2), I told the reporter it was "one of the biggest" health issues.

In my letter, I cited scientific references as to why water fluoridation is so harmful, even in "trace" amounts, as it accumulates over time in our bodies.

It is not an effective way to protect children's teeth. Topical application helps, however swallowing sodium fluoride in toothpaste is now implicated in fluorosis of the teeth. Fluorosis is a sign of systemic fluoride poisoning.

Fluoride is a negatively charged anion that binds to positively charged heavy metal cations, which uptake to the brain and other parts of our body.

Wholesome drinking water is fundamental to sustaining life. Fluoride is now classed as a neurotoxin, in its natural form.

Politicians have been sent a copy of a lab analysis demonstrating this and reminded that they are bound by the Health Act to ensure people have wholesome water, but are turning a blind eye. — Edited

LUCY McDOUGALL
Whanganui

Scaremongers

Recent articles scaremongering about fluoridation need some journalistic investigation.
The persistent misinformation by the likes of Declan Waugh, Mary Byrne and Paul Connett needs to be exposed.

Hundreds of scientific studies have testified to the safety and value of fluoridation. In our country it is added to town water supplies; in other countries it is added to milk or salt.
Readers can take solace in the fact that fluoride is a neutral ingredient in many foods and artesian water supplies. It has always been there and our bodies are capable of regulating and excreting excess via the kidneys. Within limits, of course.

Some aquifers in China contain quite toxic levels of fluoride but toxic levels of heavy metals as well. It is data from these communities which have been misrepresented as damaging to cognitive development by the fluoride free brigade.

Some claim that fluoridation retards cognitive development and their newsletters contain advertisements for pills to increase IQ. I ask you.

Humanity has evolved in a largely fluoride-rich environment for millions of years. But some environments, like NZ, are deficient.

STUART MATHIESON
Otago

Rodeo protests

The Chronicle had an advert from animal rights group Safe trying to persuade people to vote to stop rodeos.

These people morphed out of the vegan movement when they came to believe they had to turn people against animals to get us eating vegetables.

If you back their pleas, a lot of domestic animals will face a bullet — no one needs them. Years ago some silly bugger invented tractors and 600,000 NZ work horses lost their lives.

Rodeo animals fight, kick, and horn one another — they are not sissies, and rough-and-tumble is their world.

They are already working on the extinction of greyhounds — beautifully formed athletes who love to race — but not the deformed pets that can hardly walk and can't breathe properly. That would be taking on the people they are relying on for votes.

Next they will move on the 22 million lambs who only get three to 12 months of life. If they get their way, we will be eating five-year-old sheep, cattle and chooks, and all the cockies will go broke. These people are extremists.

G R SCOWN
Whanganui

Build upwards

Re State housing:
Build high-rise apartment blocks, not individual houses. We cannot grow more land, and we should not cover even more land with bricks, concrete and tarseal.
And the empty buildings we already have ... use them for high-rise apartments, or carparks.
It's not the Kiwi dream, but we have lost that anyway.

SARA DICKON
Founder member, Sustainable Whanganui

Send your letters to: The Editor, Wanganui Chronicle, 100 Guyton St, PO Box 433, Wanganui 4500; or email editor@wanganuichronicle.co.nz