University cuts will have impacts

If Massey University’s Albany College of Science stops offering degrees in computational and other science courses to save $5.1 million, the impact will be far more widespread than imagined.

Current students must shift to the Palmerston North campus, incurring additional boarding expenses. Other Auckland 6th and 7th form students will also face these costs after graduation if they follow their planned tertiary futures in the sciences. Many will have planned to live at home while attending the Albany campus to save the expense of living away.

These costs may extinguish their dreams and they will not be selecting science and computer courses in their final high school years. As high school science courses incur less demand, physics, biology and computer teachers will be culled in response.

The ripples of the proposed “cost cutting” spread far and wide and are quite short-sighted. New Zealand will continue to decline in the world ranking education stakes. Perhaps we may become an educational “client state” for wealthy overseas students?

Vic Keppel, Western Springs.

Suva staff

Your photo of our Prime Minister with the NZ High Commission staff in Fiji shocked me ( NZ Herald, February 27). Why do we need 33 staff in the NZHC office in Fiji?

Scaling by population, we’d have around 1600 NZHC staff in China — I hope that is not the case.

What do these 33 people do in a small island nation? Is there really enough work from the roughly 120,000 Kiwi visitors to Fiji each year to justify 33 staff?

Which other High Commission offices around the world are grossly overstaffed at taxpayer expense?

We pay for this, we have the right to understand it.

Brian Cox, Pakuranga.

Cone of silence

I read with interest councillor Pippa Coom’s comments on orange cones and what that means for the future of Auckland ( NZ Herald, February 26).

It seems to me the piece that Pippa Coom, her fellow councillors and the Mayor of Auckland have overlooked in their great revisioning of Ta¯maki Makaurau is the need to engage and bring the people of Auckland with you.

Auckland has had its fair share of wise and talented mayors (Sir Dove Myer Robinson, Logan Campbell, James Parr to name a few) all of whom saw a future for our city that was a far way off their current reality.

But what these great mayors did and what this council consistently fails to do, is they listened to their people and brought them with them on the journey.

The issue for Aucklanders whose lives are being thrown into chaos is not the future. It is that the future has been decided by backroom deals, handshakes by politicians and bureaucrats who think they know best. The people of Ta¯maki Makaurau, of Auckland, have been left out of the conversation.

When people suddenly find their trees being cut down, roads dug up, parks repurposed, livelihoods threatened — without warning and without any consultation — they are blindsided.

It’s not the cones that matter. It’s the people.

J. Malcolm, Parnell.

Orange blight

On State Highway 2 near Katikati, there was a man spraying roadside weeds; followed by a truck; followed by a truck with an illuminated arrow sign; followed by a truck with cones. Three trucks for one man doing something.

The current Government may have increased cone usage tenfold, without achieving anything at all.

Progress is marked by results, not bloody cones.

Neville Cameron, Coromandel.

Ross’ promises

In response to G.J. Moyle ( NZ Herald, February 26), fraudster David Ross did not “promise returns of 10 per cent” or any other percentage. Interest quoted quarterly to investors went up and down and was often negative, as you would expect investing in shares.

Ross was very clear about where our returns would come from. Every quarter we received individual statements showing real companies he had supposedly invested in with plausible, verifiable share prices. There was no indication that the amounts of money invested with these companies were fictitious.

While Ross was running his Ponzi, the Financial Markets Authority made him a Registered Financial Adviser. As a result, many investors thought he had been vetted and was part of the financial advisory community. What we didn’t realise was that there was no due diligence in the FMA’s registration process.

Ross was very clear about what the risks were. He told investors up front that shares could be volatile. As you would expect from a fraudster, he didn’t tell us the greater risk was him stealing our money.

Fraudsters know how to create a paper trail that stands up to scrutiny. Good luck with your oversight and regulating of clever devious conmen. No doubt we can look forward to a continuing stream of victims who “should have known better”.

Andrew Tichbon, Green Bay.

Braking bad

The editorial ( NZ Herald, February 26) is on the button when it makes the point that our open road speed limits are somewhat inappropriate.

About three or four years ago, we drove from Sydney to Melbourne via Ballarat. In very few cases did we get the chance to drive at 100km/h. Most of the roads were 80km/h limit.

I’m told that the police in Victoria are very strict on the limits, so it was a case of constantly checking my speed rather than relying on my innate Kiwi speed dial.

Living in Albany now, I’m surprised there is an 80km/h limit on the Albany Expressway, a relatively short road, riddled with traffic lights. It makes me wonder how the current crop of police would view running an amber light when, having built up to 80, to brake hard would be inviting a rear-end prang, although there would be enough time to stop at 50km/h.

P.D. Patten, Albany.

Road safety

Re: Your editorial regarding the state of New Zealand roads ( NZ Herald, February 25).

Police acting area commander A. Mortimore mentions heat “doing funny things to the roads”.

I have recently returned from Australia. The weather was very hot and the roads were in excellent condition. Obviously, New Zealand is using inferior products. Cheaper is not always the best.

While in Australia, a new rule was announced — a $1000 fine and four demerit points for using a mobile phone while driving. I believe the fine is $80 in New Zealand.

Speeding on our roads causes accidents, as do many other things. Reducing the speed limit dramatically will not work as drivers will not abide by it.

I don’t profess to know the answer but suggest more police allocated to roads. Yes, it all costs money.

However, if we can spend a fortune on the America’s Cup, I am sure money can be found for increasing our police force.

David Medhurst, Otumoetai.

Armed viability

Yes, Marie Leadbeater, our armed forces not only want to be inter-operable with the US armed forces ( NZ Herald, February 26), they need to be inter-operable.

New Zealand cannot afford a fully independent defence force.

And thanks to an over-reliance on China as a trade partner, we cannot afford a fully independent foreign policy.

In the unlikely event of a major war in the Pacific, our very existence as a nation would depend upon the goodwill of the US.

The Lange-Douglas administration’s poorly thought-out anti-nuclear policy was an unmitigated disaster for our armed forces. Only recently has US-NZ military co-operation got back to where it was before 1984.

I am well aware that there are New Zealanders who seem to be unable to move on from their Vietnam War era antiAmerican beliefs, but the reality is that the viability of our armed forces is dependant on their being inter-operable with the US armed forces.

C.C. McDowall, Rotorua.