Tax deal can fix student loan folly

Charging the flower of our nation’s youth to study hard to improve themselves for the benefit of our country was total folly.

Political redemption is possible. Simply credit all graduates’ tax payments to their student loan debt, and retrospectively, meaning including all tax ever paid.

That gives incentive to graduate, and incentive to stay in New Zealand because your normal pay-as-you-earn weekly income tax is also crediting 100 per cent on to your student loan debt.

Announce this, Chris Hipkins, and go from zero to hero overnight, building a better future for our country.

Jim Carlyle, Te Atatu Peninsula.

Answer in glass

I have just returned from four days in Melbourne. We dined at several hotels. I was amazed to note that their roofs were made of glass, supported on pipe work.

Glass! This allowed so much light to flood the interior atriums and would not combust like straw and bitumen.

The weather over the four days was just as changeable as Auckland’s and went from 34C to 9C. It rained off and on, and yet, there was just glass atop these 30-plus floors, tall buildings.

Tanya Fitzpatrick, Mt Wellington.

Dogs off leads

A Labour Day trip walking up Mt Eden was ruined by the large number of “off the leash” dogs terrorising my small children. “Don’t worry, they’re harmless” was the constant refrain from the various owners. Which provided absolutely no comfort to a small child terrified by a large, hairy beast hurtling towards them.

There were plenty of signs saying dogs had to be on leads, or do dog owners feel they don’t have to follow the rules?

Allison Kelly, Mt Eden.

KiwiSaver doubts

I see the Retirement Commissioner’s 2019 Review is thinking about upping taxpayers’ subsidies to KiwiSaver. We have already paid more than $10 billion in subsidies since KiwiSaver started in 2007. It would be nice to see some evidence that New Zealanders are actually saving more as a result.

There is, in fact, no evidence that KiwiSaver is “working”, that Kiwis are saving more in KiwiSaver’s presence than they would have saved without it; nor even any evidence that taxpayers needed to provide those subsidies.

And there is no way for us to get that evidence without a proper longitudinal study of New Zealanders’ financial habits (we don’t have one of those and should).

Wouldn’t it be nice to find out if New Zealanders are actually saving more than before 2007, when KiwiSaver started? Do we really need to increase the subsidies for those who can already afford to save?

Michael Littlewood, Remuera.

Aotearoa bolt hole

There has been talk from time to time about calling our country what it is,

Aotearoa. The Herald reports on what it is becoming.

People of greater scholarship than me could render “Bolt Hole”, in te reo. James Comey not only sees us as that but clearly has no reservations about being able to use us that way. Of all the people in the world who acted to facilitate Trump’s success, Comey was almost certainly the most effective. Now he’s having second thoughts. If Trump gets a second shot at ending civilisation, and Comey is holed up here, how will we fare? Trump clearly thought it a trifling matter that alBaghdadi’s kids died with him.

Bruce Rogan, Mangawhai Heads.

End-of-world fears

Young people are increasingly in need of support groups and the help of psychologists to cope with “climate anxiety”. They are worried about their eco-futures and experience feelings of despair and hopelessness. I sympathise as I am reminded of my own teenage years in Britain at the height of the Cold War.

Over a hundred locations in the UK were targeted by Russian nuclear missiles and radar stations would give us just four minutes warning of their arrival. What to do in that four minutes, before we were all incinerated, was a common talking point amongst my school friends.

A documentary film about the effects of nuclear war was so frightening it was banned from the cinemas and a government “think-tank” concluded that, following a nuclear war, any survivors of the initial attacks would be plunged back into the dark ages and come to envy those who had been killed outright..

Unfortunately, back in the 1960s, there were no support groups, psychologists or anti-depressants to help us cope with the anxiety of imminent death and destruction. We just adopted our parents’ war-time philosophy and kept calm and carried on.

Malcolm Bell, Forrest Hill.

Match screening

We are being held to ransom by companies such as Television New Zealand when it comes to viewing national sporting events, especially at the level of Rugby World Cup matches.

Companies like TVNZ were set up on the backs of the New Zealand taxpayer in the past and back in the glory days it was everyone’s right to watch the national team participate free to air. After all, they had in effect paid for it.

But now, after selling off most of our assets, the very people who funded the development of these companies, many of whom are now elderly, are forced to pay for the so-called privilege or miss out on seeing the matches.

Worse still, apparently we are all going to miss the bronze match featuring the All Blacks which was an event obviously not supposed to have happened.

Privatisation is there to benefit the few, not the majority.

Paul Beck, West Harbour.

Meng Foon

While Meng Foon’s column suggests exactly what most of us have long wished for a government to act upon, one has to wonder why successive governments have left this topic unresolved for so long.

Bullying in itself has been around for decades and while we all remember the smug bully-boys/girls decades after they were acting out, clearly not much has changed at all.

For a new Race Relations

Commissioner, who obviously understands the seriousness of the bullying in today’s society (not just in education), to act so soon shows how intune, compassionate and result-driven he is. For any government to take similarly strong stances in such a short period of time is a little harder to imagine, unless, of course, he becomes part of a government party that intends to solve this nasty, life-altering practice once and for all. Here’s hoping . . .

Congratulations to a well-deserved position, whatever position you immerse yourself in, now and in the future. Rene Blezer, Taupo.

Bullying in schools

Until 1970 the term bully or bullying never existed in schools.

I suggest in part the preponderance of bullying that exists today has come about because teachers’ workload has become so onerous that their secondary roll of patrolling playgrounds and corridors at morning interval and lunch, which played a part in reducing bullying pre-1970, has fallen into neglect.

And though I certainly am not a fan of it, physical punishment certainly must have played a part in prevention because 1970 was about the time corporal punishment was abolished and bullying exacerbated and came to public notice. Gary Hollis, Mellons Bay.

Rugby scrums

In all the soul searching that is going on over the loss to England, one thing not mentioned is the scrums — and not just in this particular match but in general.

What waste of time they are, all the time they spend getting them set and then the halfback walks around and puts the ball into the second row, always, and the ref allows it, it now seems that has become the rule. You may just as well give the non-offending side a free kick and get on with the game. J. Longson, Kawerau.

Bronze playoff

Now that the All Blacks have lapsed to the playoff in the bronze final, let’s see Steve Hansen give all the second-string ABs a chance to prove they’re able to offer what the top-line players couldn’t.

There’s very little to lose; instead it’s an opportunity for guys more junior and less experienced to turn on some NZ rugby with flare and zip. Like we saw from the Brave Blossoms. Men like Liam Coltman, Brad Weber and Atu Moli deserve a chance to stretch their legs.

If they lose to Wales, so what? The All Blacks are rebuilding anyway. As NY Metz baseball coach Casey Stengel said, “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

Eion Field, Hamilton.