Price drop best idea for tourism
The bleating of representatives of the tourism and hospitality industries now they have lost their overseas clientele is truly nauseating.
These industries, based on minimum wage workers and price-gouging, have been creaming it for years.
A year ago we stayed in four-star accommodation in central Rome. Within a five to 20-minute walk of our hotel were such attractions as the Forum, the Capitoline Museums and the Colosseum, and numerous churches, like Santa Maria Maggiore and San Pietro in Vincoli, in which one can see truly great works of art, for free. Delicious lunch and dinnerat family-run restaurants was about half the price of the NZ equivalent.
New Zealand is beautiful, but as all overseas travellers remark, expensive and poor value compared to equally naturally beautiful countries like Italy or France which add thousands of years of history and culture to the attractions of their countryside. If the tourist and hospitality industries want to get New Zealanders seeing their own country again and into their establishments, a good start would be to use their taxpayer subsidies to drop the prices of accommodation and food to reasonable levels. Peter Brown, Napier [abridged]
Teachers’ fee increase
The Teaching Council of Aotearoa responds (Teachers fume after council doubles registration fee, May 15, and Letters, May 18) about the fee increase teachers pay for registration and certification.
The fee is doubling to $157 every year starting February 2021. This equates to $3 per week, an increase of $1.60 per week to what teachers are already paying.
No matter how it is framed, it is money out of teachers’ pockets. However, it is the only increase in 10 years and, although it is a big jump, it pays for the safety of children and quality teaching.
The Government has heavily subsidised teacher fees for the past five years, including $16.5 million to help move to annualisation of fees in the 2020 Budget. The council announced the new fee and structure on Budget day, so teachers weren’t left wondering what the Budget money meant for them.
What does the fee buy teachers? It buys into a system working to ensure the safety of children and quality of teaching.
It buys independence for teachers to
use their expert opinion to influence legislation, policy and importance matters in the education system.
It buys the opportunity to collectively shape teachers values, knowledge and ethical practice to contribute to the wellbeing of our communities.
Lesley Hoskin, chief executive, Teaching Council of Aotearoa NZ
Dollar valuation
So former senior Reserve Bank staffer Michael Reddell wants to lower the value of the dollar (Reserve Bank comes under historic scrutiny May 20). Why does he think this will work? We badly need to diversify the economy, which requires buying equipment from offshore, so making it more expensive achieves what? We could sell more assets for a quick fix, but long term that achieves us being servants in our own country.
Over a few recent years, our currency has devalued by about 30 per cent compared with the US dollar. That is from market demand, so nobody offshore is concerned, but why is that not sufficient for exports? The obvious reason is that most exports are volume limited so we cannot sell more. Farmers might get more, but all that does is raise land prices, which inhibits new younger entrants. And foreign countries do not appreciate deliberate depressing your currency.
The EU will gratefully accept an excuse to increase barriers. The US will raise tariffs. The policy would lower imports, largely by impoverishing New Zealanders. Please, protect us from such idealogues. Let the market determine the value of the currency.
Ian Miller, Belmont
Taiwan’s exclusion
The death toll from this Covid-19 pandemic is climbing and has caused economic hardship to millions the world over. In spite of this the recent arm twisting which is taking place in excluding Taiwan from the World Health Organisation is pathetic.
Taiwan is one of the few countries which has successfully tackled the pandemic. Instead of being commended it is being prevented from participating by the very country which is responsible for the current mess. Another example of how in the present scenario, economic clout is more potent than military power. Farahad Irani, Lower Hutt
Kilbirnie hit again
Wellington City Council has a history of killing businesses in Kilbirnie. First it was the two attempts at ‘‘beautifying’’ Bay Rd that were so disruptive they forced a number of businesses to the wall. Then in 2019 it managed to severely discourage traffic for a whole year— with the socalled Bus Hub and the unrelated stormwater fix.
Kilbirnie has struggled through a sixweek lockdown and faces the unknowns after that. So what does the council do? It comes up with another great idea. Let’s get rid of parking in the business area of Onepu Rd!
And why? To ‘‘provide more space for biking in response to Covid-19 social distancing guidelines’’. Credit us with some intelligence. Cycling is not in need of social distancing; it needs more cyclists. No evidence is provided to support the proposal, such as cyclist numbers in the catchment area. Indeed, those numbers, if they exist, are likely to be tiny because the catchment area is essentially only Lyall Bay.
Businesses, already badly impacted by the lockdown, have not been consulted. In terms of a ‘‘response’’ to the crisis, this is just another burden for those businesses.
Is this just to spend Government funding available from the virus crisis? Or to push pre-existing agendas ? Graeme Buchanan, Karaka Bays
Medical school numbers
As an Otago Medical School graduate, I am concerned about the numbers quoted in Medical School: Who gets in and why, May 16.
In its efforts to correct imbalances in the workforce, the medical school has given Ma¯ ori and Pasifika, who make up 23 per cent of the population, 39 per cent of first-year-applicant places via preferential entry. They received 32 more places than were needed for them to form 23 per cent of the intake.
Section 224 of the Education Act makes it clear that the purpose of preferential entry is to address the under-representation of particular groups in a tertiary course or training programme. When this has been addressed, any additional offers go beyond the act, and will unfairly deprive other applicants of a place. In 2020 the medical school has engaged in heartless and unlawful discrimination against 32 general applicants.
Professor Peter Crampton rubs salt into their wounds by dismissing their dreams as mere academic ambitions, by telling them to find another career, and stating that medicine does not need the brightest students anyway. In my experience medical work demands every bit of brainpower you can give it, and patients deserve nothing less.
Raewyn Brockway, Karori
Quantitative easing
Having the Reserve Bank issuing bonds ‘‘using money that it essentially creates from nothing’’ (Reserve Bank may punt $90 billion on QE, May 19) is the whole point of quantitative easing. The week before, that money did not exist; it is created, goes to the state and so through to its customers, some of it being turned into cash and some of it put into deposits which then earn interest.
It would be useful to know the criteria used to create this non-existent money, and how QE differs from the Social Credit policy that was derided as ‘‘funny money’’ only a few decades ago. It sounds a reasonable enough thing for a central bank to do; so why muddy the report by using the word ‘‘essentially’’?
Alan Smith, Woburn