All top public servants should be taking a pay cut

IN response to ‘‘Praise for PM’’ (Letters, 26.4.20) regarding 20% public servant pay cuts, this applies only to agencies defined as core public services and does not apply to most taxpayerfunded chief executives and top bureaucrats.

Examples of top chief executives and bureaucrats with no pay cuts are the chief executives of the Super Fund, ACC, and Housing NZ, the Reserve Bank Governor, the Auckland University vicechancellor and the Police Commissioner, who between them earn $5 million.

Other examples with no pay cuts are six DHB chief executives, who all earn more than Dr Ashley Bloomfield, who is having his pay cut 20%.

The Prime Minister’s announcement saves only a fraction of the amount possible and the 20% reductions should be applied to all top government chief executives and top public servants. She is misleading the taxpaying public on this issue.

Jim Farquharson

Queenstown

Fast food

OVER the past five weeks, the Otago Daily Times and other media have celebrated, with us, our newfound skills of making bread, growing vegetables, and cooking great meals from basic ingredients. Families have enjoyed cooking and eating healthier food, no doubt saving money at the same time.

So, it has been disappointing to see the media frenzy and jubilation which has greeted the return of access to fast food in Level 3.

Yes, it is good to have a break from cooking a meal now and then, and we will want to patronise our local shops, restaurants and cafes, money permitting, but international franchises like McDonald’s, Burger King and KFC are hardly local.

Such positive coverage by the media of the return of fast food undermines the good news stories of the past five weeks and encourages children and adults alike to believe that eating fast food, with its high fat and high salt content, its poor wages and plastic packaging, is somehow the supreme reward for the end of Level 4.

Patricia Scott

Outram