R&D top priority for Huawei

I have visited the very impressive head office campuses of Nokia near Helsinki and Huawei in Shenzen. Both companies are privately owned and spend a great deal of effort on government relations as the technology field they operate in is impacted by government decisions on spectrum and operating standards.

Nokia grew cleverly from a business in a different field and Huawei has enjoyed spectacular growth in recent years with its leaps in technology putting huge pressure on other players.

When asking senior vice-presidents there what is their secret, the reply was that China produces 50,000 new PhDs in engineering each year and Huawei make sure they get first pick. They have 65 per cent of staff on research and development.

No wonder Huawei are under pressure from competitors raising all sorts of issues. I know nothing of the allegations of cyber security but in the interests of New Zealand’s trade with China in other fields I hope there is more to it than just commercial jealousy.

Wayne Brown, Mangonui.

Christmas mail

NZ Post should charge just one price for envelopes under A4 size until say December 24. That would increase income and speed up the whole process, encouraging people to buy cards for friends and relatives and save the shops housing the postal service from being cluttered up with frustrated customers being charged an arm and a leg to post a letter across the road.

Norm Empson, Tauranga.

Leave Santa be

St Nicholas, Santa Claus, Father Christmas was a 4th century legendary figure. Socalled modern day reality and gender correctness have reached ridiculousness.

The Nelson Christmas parade carried a “Santa” who had no relevance to culture or tradition. It was confusing, interfering and sad.

New Zealand is now multi-cultural and celebrates various traditions and festivities. Leave Santa Claus alone to bring the joy and excitement he has represented for thousands of years.

A. Cameron, St Heliers.

Race not the issue

This latest stunt of removing Santa from a parade and replacing him with someone without the appropriate suit is another example of cultural engineering.

I heard Guyon Espiner on the radio trying his hardest to make this a racial issue when it is not. As the lady said many times, Santa could be black, white brown or green, colour was not the issue.

The issue was that it was called a Santa parade and the children were denied that pleasure of seeing Santa, all in the name of this modern ideology of being seen to be politically correct.

Please stop trying to create division and disharmony by trying to tell us how we should think or behave. It is no wonder the Trump cry of false news resonates with so many people.

Geoff Nieuwelaar, Whangarei. Queen St’s Santa

We bend over backwards to allow and acknowledge festivals and celebrations of other cultures here. But when it comes to our own long-standing traditions it seems harder to hang on things like a big Santa on a prime site in the Auckland CBD. Let’s show fairness and inclusion for all.

Margaret Dyer, Taupo. Ask Onehunga

Perhaps those within the Auckland Council promoting the concept of making Queen St a pedestrian-only mall should think about Onehunga. Back in the 1980s vehicles were removed from the main shopping street which was renamed Onehunga Mall. After several years it reverted back to a vehicle-access street.

Would it not be a good idea to visit that area, talk to some of the business people and find why the idea apparently did not work. Peter Lewis, Forrest Hill. Football winners

Bouquets to our Under 17 football girls. They did well, although I thought Canada, after “shooting themselves in the foot”, outplayed the New Zealanders. But the defence held well and, as the saying goes, “they played to their strengths”. No bouquets though to Sky as they cut the programme short and we didn’t get to see our girls, or any of the finalists, receive their medals. Tony Lawson, One Tree Point. Credulous kids

Schoolchildren “going on strike” to protest big, complex global issues, show “intelligence”? We’re talking about a generation with minimal life experience as yet, that has distractions past generations didn’t — ie gossiping on social media and indulging in idle online entertainment.

Serious research and getting informed is a rarity, but every teenager I know who has spent time looking into both sides of the “catastrophic human-induced climate change” question has been convinced by the sceptical argument.

“Mass” movements among youth are usually the result of their susceptibility to brainwashing at the hands of whoever is dominating the institutions.

Philip G Hayward, Naenae. Internal assessment

Comparisons are now being drawn between numbers of excellence grades awarded in internal assessments and external examinations with the clear implication that teachers cannot be trusted to be objective when assessing their students. It’s another example of misusing statistics selectively to make a controversial headline.

The aim of teachers is to assist their students to reach the highest standard they are capable of attaining. When given time to reflect upon their work, the students improve it and often pass all the advertised criteria for an excellent grade.

Why should teachers now be put in the position of having to say to them, “Sorry, you have done excellent work but I am not allowed to give you an excellent grade because some idiotic bureaucrat has compared two unlike methods of assessment and pretended they are the same.” Where is the justice in that? Jack Linklater, Hamilton. National’s best

Jacinda Ardern’s greatest weapon is her femininity and sincerity, on the surface anyway, and a very pleasant personality. To put Judith Collins up against that would be playing right into her hands. The one weapon National’s tacticians should put up against Jacindamania has to be Paula Bennett.

She is smart, equally attractive, a forceful speaker, has the very best kind of sincerity and, being a fighter, would win the hearts of all New Zealanders. Continuing with Simon Bridges is a nobrainer. Gary Hollis, Mellons Bay. Proper seats please

I would like to start a campaign to get practical seating restored to supermarket complexes. Many elderly people cannot find suitable seats to rest on.

Where once there were firm wooden seats with arms for leverage, now there are fashionable squabs which are too low for comfort or practicality. It is not unusual to see people needing assistance to get up from these overgrown cushions.

Jeanette Grant, Mt Eden. Rejected teachers

With angst, I hear of New Zealand’s teacher shortage and the overseas search for a solution. We teachers from overseas who had our certificates and experience ignored wonder if you will treat foreign teachers like that. I gave up teaching because I could not afford the one year of training required in 1995.

In the 1980s I worked with a one-room schoolteacher to set up a bilingual programme in a school on the Quebec border. I taught French to 5-year-olds, who spoke French two days a week.

The barriers I encountered to teaching in New Zealand was because foreign teachers’ education and experience were ahead of our employers. Why not start looking for the teachers you rejected. They, like myself, may work at minimum wage in unskilled jobs.

Caroline Mabry, Glen Eden. Waste shipments

In “How to sort NZ’s plastic mess“by Jamie Morton yesterday it stated, “New Zealand has shipped 15 million tonnes of plastic waste to Chinese processing plants each year”. This would be equivalent of a daily shipment of 41,000 tonnes. Which port is this shipped through, as it would be a solid investment? R McLoughlin, Hamilton.